I picked up a couple Brooks saddles today for a couple bucks. They're in bad shape but this one is the worst. Is it beyond saving? I've read various posts with differing thoughts about how to go about restoring a saddle. The leather has pretty much flattened out and lost its shape. Any help would be great.

Gotta say, that one looks like road kill. I've heard of people water-saturating the leather, and re-molding over a form. I don't know if you could do that with the one pictured, though.

Let it go with dignity.

Looks like it is gone, but might be a nice experiment to see if it could be re-molded and laced back into some semblance of use. You would learn a lot, and perhaps be able to do a better job on the less distressed ones.

The disturbing thing is, if you listed it on ebay it would probably get some bids.

I had a saddle that was flared out like that and I treated it with neatsfoot oil, put it on my ss and now it is my favourite saddle.

Looks like a B72 with flared sides. On a similar saddle, I tried the soak it in water and reshape technique. It didn't work particularly well for me because I didn't figure out the right shaped form on which to wrap the thing. If I had to do it again (and I think I do have a couple of similarly afflicted B72s in the bin), I'd butcher it, cutting off those wings, punch holes and lace it up for a FrankenSwift.

Neal

Oh man I saw those on CL this morning!

That's where they're from, the other can probably be used but not sure about this one, its soaking right now and I'll see if I can get it to go back to form a little

soak in oil, drill holes in the sides and lace them to return the shape.

Before tossing it, check the adjustment to see if it's bottomed out. If not, you can carefully tighten it a bit then punch some holes in the sides for a lace job.

Having just salvaged a Wrights in comparable shape:

Wrap it in a very damp towel and put it in a plastic bag. After 24 hours, take it out and wrap rubber bands around it to reshape it. Make sure the skirts don't flare out anywhere, or they will rub you to hell. Wrap the towel around it again, and put it back in the bag for another day.

Take it out, let it dry for 1/2 day, then put your choice of saddle dressing on it in a warm window or outside. Go ride, then decide if lacing is necessary.