Originally Posted by
Big Block
The new leather I use is 7mm thick. The 'Professional' model leather is only 5mm.
Yet an hour is sufficient for my vacuum forming.
I doubt that Brooks would use a water soluble dye for a saddle. But I don't know.
If you look at the videos of the making of the saddles, there is no evidence of each cut being inspected midway through the immersion.
And with the massive presses they use, there is no need. More marketing spin.
Partial immersion will lead to a shore line, as I have written before. This is not normally sought after.
I have the advantage of working with new leather where the leather hasn't been filled with unknown treatments.
Here's the
article. Here's the relevant quote:
Leather has to be soaked in water before it can be turned into a saddle and, according to Green, knowing how long to soak it for is “a very subjective kind of dark art. You put one piece of leather in the water and it will soak it up much quicker than the next piece.
So it’s a case of the operators through their experience going back to the water tanks, feeling the ‘blanks’ and saying ‘OK this is ready now’, or ‘this needs another five minutes’ and putting it back into the water.”
How long does it take to learn how to read a piece of wet leather?
“The people who do that have been here for more than 15 years, going on 20 years,” says Green. “Some of the newer employees we’ve taken on have been here seven or eight years. They still need to consult the experts at times. So they’re still learning.”
I have no idea if it's marketing BS. What I do know is that there are frequently adamant and contradictory claims made about Brooks saddles, often made by people who have decades of experience with them. Just trying to figure out what to use to maintain them, how to break them in, how to restore them, and so on, leads to long, confusing, contemptuous arguments, with everyone claiming that they, and only they, are right, and that their methods works for decades. I don't know how long what I just did will work. I'm trying to make something usable out of something that had little value, and wasn't usable to me.
As for a shore line, this will be on new black leather, and the shore line will at the fold line. I've seen photos of this method, and am certain it will not be visible.