Horse hair sporran

[craigclan]

Today I purchased a vintage horse hair sporran from baker04 and he suggested I condition or feed the hair on the sporran . Neither one of us are sure what I should be using to do this . Ideas please ....

[rtown]

http://www.bagpipejourney.com/articl...cleaning.shtml

Found this on the internet. Hope it helped.

[CMcG]

I also have a vintage hair sporran, but I don't really do anything to it except comb the hair and polish the cantle every few years. I'd be interested to read suggestions, however, because I would like it to last a long time. rtown's link about washing sounds helpful... does anyone have experience with shampooing and conditioning a hair sporran?

[artificer]

I also have a vintage hair sporran, but I don't really do anything to it except comb the hair and polish the cantle every few years. I'd be interested to read suggestions, however, because I would like it to last a long time. rtown's link about washing sounds helpful... does anyone have experience with shampooing and conditioning a hair sporran?

I've had to rejuvenate a few old horse or goat hair pieces. I essentially used the process in the above link. I'd add that you don't need horse shampoo, just a very gentle one. Baby shampoo works well when diluted.

The other thing I'd add is that for a 'wide toothed comb' what is really best is a horse comb- I bought one specifically for building and cleaning sporrans.
It is VERY wide, and helps avoid pulling when you get to knots. Which brings up the other thing- when you're combing through the sporran it's best to put a hand right on the sewn base of the layer of hair you're combing through. That way you'll
reduce the amount of tension on the attachment point and therefore reduce the chance of yanking out any more hair than necessary.

It's not a difficult process to clean a sporran, but it is a little time consuming if the piece is very dirty. Cigarette smoke in particular takes tons of time to wash out (and it does build up into a filthy tarry-brown layer).

ith:

[CMcG]

Thanks, artificer. That's helpful!

[craigclan]

Very helpful thanks . And since i own horses all this stuff is right in the barn . Thanks

[imrichmond]

does anyone have experience with shampooing and conditioning a hair sporran?

I haven't needed to do it for many years (haven't worn a horsehair sporran since the 1980s), but I used to use a regular shampoo with warm water, rinse it well, comb it out gently and lay it flat to dry on a couple of thicknesses of towel. When shampooing and rinsing, you have to be careful not to soak the leather parts. Otherwise, it's a very easy process.

[Ron Abbott]

I used to wash the hair sporrans with shampoo and then use the missus' hair dryer.
Came out lovely.
Although offered, I never took her up on the offer of rollers or a perm. Stopped wearing the hair sporran before old age set in, so never needed to consider Grecian 2000 for it.....