I've had varied results reshaping saddles. Mostly good, one disaster. The disaster was dunking an old schwinn sprint leather saddle. I dunked it, walked away for a minute, came back and all of the leather disintegrated into many tiny pieces. nothing left but the steel rails. That was shortly after I did the same thing to a brooks professional with great results. Now my tact is to moisten the leather sparingly by hand or with a sponge, then I wrap it with an old innertube to get the desired shape.