Myth Buster: Do freeze damage saddlery?

[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