Show Your Blocked Saddles
 

Back in the day it was common to take a knife to your new Brooks saddle and trim any unnecessary leather away, a process known as 'blocking'. Some went at it with more vigour than others and some even took a hammer to the cantle to give it more of a curve; I think that's where the term blocking came from as you first shaped a block of wood on which to place the cantle when you hammered away at it.

I have a couple of blocked saddles that I bought that way but yesterday I did my very first own. While researching the process I found just a few examples on the internet but I'm sure some of the esteemed members of this forum have their own and I for one would love to see them. I'll start by showing you mine. Some will remember the saddle from the thread I started, called Darkening a New Honey Brooks

This was how it looked after sanding and dying:
[IMG]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3119/5...7310a8e43e.jpg
IMG_3391 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

After cutting the leather back to the cantle:
[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7045/6...85e9b5ef6a.jpg
IMG_8724 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

From behind, after sanding the surface - the crooked badge:
[IMG]http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3650/5...164cc015aa.jpg
IMG_3374 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

Now - no crooked badge :)
[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7179/6...71f060cca1.jpg
IMG_8725 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

From the side:
[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/6...a593c7886b.jpg
IMG_8726 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

Here are a couple that have been mildly cut. They have both had leather removed from their noses - I haven't finished working on mine yet:

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7045/6...5a7bf688a0.jpg
IMG_1404 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

[IMG]http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7183/6...ced064a17d.jpg
IMG_1405 by Dawes-man, on Flickr[/IMG]

This an article about saddle blocking on Classic Lightweights:
http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk...-blocking.html

From that I see that 'blocking' refers to altering the curve of the cantle and 'butchering'to the trimming of the leather.

And Dave Moulton's own butchered Professional:
http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com...t-blocked.html

BTW, it was surprisingly easy to cut the leather away with a Stanley knife, or what I think is called a box-cutter in the US. At times it was like a hot knife through butter. You have to be careful not to cut where you don't want to.

I haven't done it.

Are you familiar with the work of Giuseppe Ottusi, a former racer who did this type of work 40-50 years ago? As I understand it, the Unica nitor saddle was based on the shape of his reworked Brooks saddles.

As I learn to recover Brooks saddles, I am trying to give them a Unicanitor-like shape, rather than the typical Brooks shape. I have some photos I will share as soon as I can find them.

Wow! Thank for that link. I think I'd like some holes in my Professional... :D

I have heard of "blocking" knit goods like sweaters (or pullovers if you like) but trimming saddles I've only heard as "butchering" which sounds cruder than it actually is.
We call it a Stanley knife or mat knife in the US: a box cutter is another beast that uses a single-edge razor blade. The terms are often confused since grocery clerks are handed a Stanley/mat knife on their first day of work and told it's a box-cutter...but it's not.
Measure twice, cut once...you can't put the leather back.

Measure once, curse twice.

For what it's worth, I thought "blocking" is what you do with newspapers &c wadded up and pressed inside a soaking wet saddle. You can form the leather by hand into any shape you like but needs to be blocked in order to retain that shape when dry.

The terms are often confused since grocery clerks are handed a Stanley/mat knife on their first day of work and told it's a box-cutter...but it's not.

As much as I like tinkering on my bikes, this is something I don't think I'll mess with on my saddles. Yours looks great though, Dawes-Man. BTW, do the sell oil-based leather dye in Japan?

I thought the term was "hot rodding" or "rodding". Here's a hot-rodded Brooks saddle I had, dated 1963. Only the back got the knife, you can see the chamfered edge along the sides was left intact.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4060/4...5929b938_b.jpg

Not quite what you were asking about, but....

Here are a couple photos of the Brooks saddle I recently recovered. I think you can see that the leather is cut very close to the cantle plate, and skirt cut is patterened on a Unicanitor, and the leather is curved like a unicanitor. What you can't see is that the leather is tapered from full thickness on top to just a couple mm at the edge, even around the back.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6...20162c05_b.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7060/6...8f3a6f08_b.jpg

Butchering saddles is one of my favourite things to do. Below is my butchered B17n (black) along with a burtchered hairpin saddle and a stripped down and refinished long spring saddle:
http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...k/DSC_5313.jpg

here's another view of the B17n:
http://img492.imageshack.us/img492/6...oosside2zt.jpg

I was previously unaware of this practice. Is it primarily a weight weenie thing? I would imagine that having less extra leather would reduce the longevity of a saddle, as rivets have less of it to hold on to, and there is less support on the sides to prevent sagging.

(mis-addressed post removed, sorry)

Wow, stunning work! those are awesome!

As I understand the curving of the cantle plate and cutting of the leather is to create a saddle that is comfortable immediately. It has been done for nearly as long as Brooks has been around. There were a couple of guys in the UK who made a living making such modifications in the 50's.

I think so too. Especially on that radically butchered B-17 above. Interesting. And quite decorative. But I couldn't bear to do that to my old 70's Pro's.

Thanks, rootboy! I'm really pleased at how it turned out. Even my wife likes it :)

Yes, you can get water and oil based leather dyes. Why? You want some?

That's very nicely done, IMO. My favourite seatpost, too :)

I think the terms are probably UK versus US...

Thanks for posting the pics. That's a pretty drastic cut! If the thickness is tapered, I guess they must have removed the leather top, thinned it and re-rivetted it to the frame, yes?

When you say 'recovered', do you mean the frame no longer carries that cover?

I love this stuff - making me think about getting a Brooks and trying my hand.

After all, it fits right in there with the kind of modification I like to do on the silver-colored stuff ;)

DD

Me neither. Strictly for new saddles that I have a grudge against :D

I wondered about the same things before I started on my Pro.

I think it is a comfort thing rather than a weight thing, although I wouldn't be surprised if some people did it for the latter. I'm not sure about the sagging, after all, the Swallow and Swift models had minimum skirting but are not particularly known to sag. As for the rivets being close to the the edge of the leather, you see a lot of old saddles cut very close from the 1950s which are still in use so I guess it's not a problem. Also, if you think about it, the rivets hold the leather by clamping just the leather within its diameter so anything outside that is left unstressed, or un-pulled. At least, that's the way it seems to me. If you look at 60-year-old, well-used saddles you will see that any pulling there is in the leather is to the inner side of the rivets rather than the outer.