Myth Buster: Do freeze damage saddlery?

[kseidel]

It has been my experience that freezing in itself does not do damage to leather. However, every year someone brings in a saddle that they over-oiled prior to storing in a freezing tack room. Oil, like other liquids, expands when frozen. Some oils much more than others. When over- saturated with oil, when the oil freezes and expands, it "tears" the fibers of the leather apart from the inside out. This leaves the leather soft and spongy and usually oozing and gooey on the outside. There is no way to repair this kind of damage. Keith

[Hidemechanic]

That is one of the things that I impress on people that I have given saddle clinics for is too much oil is as detrimental as no oil. Moderation I was taught growing up and it seems to hold true for so many things.GH

[oldtimer]

Hello,

a friend as me that question, it look like is is a popular idea that leaving your saddle out in a barn non-heated could damage the leather, that it will crack leather.

I believe that is a myth and not true, but what is your opinon? here, it freeze -30degree celcius very cold.

I think the only thing that will crack (let say not too old) leather is negligence and folding a piece of dry leather (or new un-broken-in leather) or cheap leather.

I believe heat is worse on leather than cold. Living in a country where temp can drop to 40 centigrades below I have never had any damage on my tack and saddles. So my experience is that cold is no problem on leather.

I think it is a myth !

[oldtimer]

It has been my experience that freezing in itself does not do damage to leather. However, every year someone brings in a saddle that they over-oiled prior to storing in a freezing tack room. Oil, like other liquids, expands when frozen. Some oils much more than others. When over- saturated with oil, when the oil freezes and expands, it "tears" the fibers of the leather apart from the inside out. This leaves the leather soft and spongy and usually oozing and gooey on the outside. There is no way to repair this kind of damage. Keith

Oils do not expand when frozen, only water does, ( at least so they told me in school once in a while) so I don´t think oil will cause any damage to leather when frozen.

[kseidel]

Oldtimer, I don't expect you to believe me by faith, this is not the gospel and I am not Jesus Christ. Conduct your own experiments. I have conducted my own and found that oil does freeze, and dois indeed expand when frozen. I froze many different kinds of oils we use on leather and found some to expand much more than others, and at different temperatures. I did not freeze any motor oil. Keith

[oldtimer]

Oldtimer, I don't expect you to believe me by faith, this is not the gospel and I am not Jesus Christ. Conduct your own experiments. I have conducted my own and found that oil does freeze, and dois indeed expand when frozen. I froze many different kinds of oils we use on leather and found some to expand much more than others, and at different temperatures. I did not freeze any motor oil. Keith

Keith, once I thought I was wrong, but that was a mistake ! LOL

I haven´t done any experiments on freezing oil, whether it expands or not, but as far as I know only water expands when frozen. But, as I don´t have any scientific background or have made any practical tests, only what I learned during the physics lessons at school I´ll pass on this matter!

[whinewine]

Keith, once I thought I was wrong, but that was a mistake ! LOL

I haven´t done any experiments on freezing oil, whether it expands or not, but as far as I know only water expands when frozen. But, as I don´t have any scientific background or have made any practical tests, only what I learned during the physics lessons at school I´ll pass on this matter!

I do think you're right, Oldtimer. I was also taught that only water expands when frozen. The problem is that many of the oils we use on leather are NOT just oils, but consist of varying mixtures & compounds in suspensions /emulsions, among them, water, which will certainly freeze & expand. (Even beer & wine will freeze & expand & break the bottle, if the temp is low enough, because they are mixtures of alcohol & water. So while the alcohol will freeze & not expand, the water will.)

If there is anyone out there who is also a trained scientist, perhaps they would definitively answer this particular question for us.

[TwinOaks]

Generally speaking things shrink when cooled, and expand when heated. Water is an exception because it sets up in a crystalline structure called ICE. I will not say that kseidel is wrong, as I don't have the oils used, nor have I experimented with them. That said, I think that the phenomenon is more likely a combination of things happening. If the leather had only oil in it, then any excess should leech out and get all over everything. Water can get into leather a variety of ways- casing, condesation, rain, sweat (in the case of a saddle, both horse and rider's sweat), relative humidity, suspensions, the new ECOflow colors, etc. I'd be interested to find out if perhaps the culprit to the ruined leather is the case where moisture is trapped in the leather by oiling it when it's wet, and then freezing temperatures cause micro ice crystals to form. Fast freezing will typically not show the same results as a slow freeze, because the ice crystals set up differently. Do it fast, and presto it's frozen. Do it slow, and the crystals will form along an axis, kinda like snowflakes. If allowed to set up along that axis, it's paramount to pushing a bunch of small knives through the center of the leather. Perhaps more experiments will be done by kseidel, and the results will be published here.

Kseidel, Please don't take this as anything against you. You've seen the results first hand, and I don't intend to argue on what you've seen. I'm just hoping to offer another explanation.

[oldtimer]

Generally speaking things shrink when cooled, and expand when heated. Water is an exception because it sets up in a crystalline structure called ICE. I will not say that kseidel is wrong, as I don't have the oils used, nor have I experimented with them. That said, I think that the phenomenon is more likely a combination of things happening. If the leather had only oil in it, then any excess should leech out and get all over everything. Water can get into leather a variety of ways- casing, condesation, rain, sweat (in the case of a saddle, both horse and rider's sweat), relative humidity, suspensions, the new ECOflow colors, etc. I'd be interested to find out if perhaps the culprit to the ruined leather is the case where moisture is trapped in the leather by oiling it when it's wet, and then freezing temperatures cause micro ice crystals to form. Fast freezing will typically not show the same results as a slow freeze, because the ice crystals set up differently. Do it fast, and presto it's frozen. Do it slow, and the crystals will form along an axis, kinda like snowflakes. If allowed to set up along that axis, it's paramount to pushing a bunch of small knives through the center of the leather. Perhaps more experiments will be done by kseidel, and the results will be published here.

Kseidel, Please don't take this as anything against you. You've seen the results first hand, and I don't intend to argue on what you've seen. I'm just hoping to offer another explanation.

I think that the damage of the leather is a result of too much oil, which ruins the leather more than the result of "expanding" oil