On Tuesday, July 9, 2019 at 6:20:45 PM UTC-4, John B. Slocomb wrote:
On Tue, 9 Jul 2019 14:00:35 -0700 (PDT), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

This old French leather saddle was left on a bike outside covered with a tarp over the winter and spring and has developed a lot of SURFACE cracks. NONE of the cracks appear to be deep let alone go through the leather. Since these are just surface cracks my buddy wants to know if the saddle is kaput? The sheen on the saddle is from Mink Oil I applied a number of hours ago.

Thanks and cheers

Why not just get on and ride? Try a few short rides and see how it
works. Since if the cracks are minor it's unlikely that there will be
a catastrophic failure so injury is unlikely.

Leather boots that aren't cared for will frequently develop minor
cracks across where the toes bend and still last a long time.

--

Cheers,

John B.

Well I ended up giving the saddle a bit of a sanding and the cracks were much more noticeable. They still are not that deep and now the saddle tope is pretty smooth. To quote Johnny Cash in has song "Mean as Hell", "I'll ride it until it is fell. Then I'll get me another. Cuz I'm mean as hell". LOL VBEG. I think there's still a lot of use in it. IF it looks like it might fail then I'll use it as a practice saddle to shave off the side-skirta ala the Brooks Swallow.

Cheers