mbnaegle

I've been looking for period images of these saddles, and often finding Navajo riding western saddles or the saddle being covered with blankets and clothing, but did find this one that appears to be a Navajo saddle, circa 1900. source link

Paper mache might be a good option. At least it could make a "master" bust that I can perhaps make a silicone mold from to make my own hollow plaster or resin busts. I think the labor and initial pattern is where people make money on these. The materials are cheap.

Thanks for all the ideas guys. Keep em coming!

As the title says, I'm looking for a way to display several headstalls, halters, hackamores, etc. Ideally something that can hang on the wall or somehow arranged in front of a saddle stand display with a plackard nearby explaining the what and why. I've found several places that sell plastic or fiberglass busts of horses heads, but often at $300+ and that will add up quick doing multiples (anywhere from 5 to 20 depending on how far I go). I'm wondering if anyone else has done something similar? I would actually prefer less detail so it doesn't detract from the displayed item, similar to mannequins in a department store, but It still needs to be life-size and have some form of mouth, ears, jowls, and everything else that would play into a headstall properly fitting a horse. I'm looking at 3D printing them myself, but the size makes that a challenge. Also considering a very very simplified wooden frame or lamination that again has the important area's but lacking detail. Almost like the heads used on steer roping dummies that have horns, but are not a fully modeled cows head. The alternative of course is hanging them on a hook like you would in any tack-room, but being able to see how it fits and why pieces are where they are is the real intent. This is more for educational display than for storage.

Here's a good Write up from Bill Manns on Facebook: (link) Rare NAVAJO SADDLE I just acquired this 1870s-80s Navajo saddle in Arizona a couple of years ago. The Navajo were the only tribe that made and used a saddle that was strikingly unique. Other tribes made simple rawhide covered trees of a mostly generic design except for the women’s saddles of the Crow, Sioux and Blackfoot in the northern plains. The Navajo tree evolved over time but was inspired by the early Spanish saddles appearing in the Navajo lands in the 1600s-1700s. Later they were simplified along the style of Anglo saddles used by mountain men arriving in the Southwest during the early 1800s. Much of the leather used by the Navajo in saddle building was recycled from old, damaged Anglo saddles. Not at all uncommon to see cowboy saddle fenders on an old Navajo saddle. The sling seat, cushioning detail was common on several styles of American saddles in use during the 1700s well into the 1900s. The rigging is a simple variation on the Sam-Stagg rigging that became very popular on Western saddles starting about the time of the Civil War. Brass tacking is a common detail on all Navajo saddles. Navajo horsemen were till using these saddles up until WWII. A truly handsome saddle and beautiful relic of the early Navajo equine culture.

And another. This one has the same swells construction, but also has a horn. It's referred to as a Navajo ladies saddle. According to the description linked bellow, the horn was used to hold gear that the ladies would pack, including a baby board, while the mens saddle didn't have a horn because it would have been in their way hunting and fighting. It also has skirts, and the tree sides are similarly leather wrapped, so I think mine originally likely had skirts tied under the sides. I find it interesting seeing the similarities between western saddles and these Navajo saddles. Link The link has more pictures of this example.

Here's another Navajo saddle. The stirups don't look correct (who knows, they could have been traded for?), but the stirrup straps and cinch look original. This one appears to have skirts as well.

I 100% agree. The only conservation I'm doing with this one is periodically (5-10 years apart?) cleaning conditioning the leather (no neats-foot oil). I've used generic saddle soap before, as well as a product called Victoria Cream that works well hydrating and sealing antique leathers. One of the rigging rings is missing and appears that it was cut or torn from the leather. If I can find one of the same diameter and similar patina, I plan to tie it in place with some string, but the original leather would remain modified.

I found a very similar saddle, referred to as a "Navajo Mens Saddle". Same basic shape and construction and same brass tacks. Sounds like Navajo blankets would be a perfect fit. Link

I'm going to do some digging and see if we have a set of oxbow stirrups in our collection that fit with this saddle. If so, I'll make a pair of simple stirup leathers to hang them (not permanent of course, but I'll try to color match them to the rest of the leather). I'm thinking about moving this saddle from the shelf it's been on to a saddle stand, as that would allow the rigging straps to hang more naturally. My mom has a few Navajo blankets/rugs that need to get out of her closet that I think one would fit in with the display as a saddle blanket.

Thanks for the insight. Yep that's about what I found when looking for other examples of squaw saddles. Same concept, only this one appears to be more geometrically square and the cantle and swells seem to be slightly more "western" in nature. The brass tacks seem to be unusual, but it would make sense that they were traded for. I wonder what the stirrups would have looked like? I imagine they would be similar concept to western saddle stirrups with the straps wrapping around the sides of the tree, only being exposed instead of under a leather seat (I imagine some kind of loose blanket padding was used between the saddle and the rider?).

Here's another Pic showing the rigging from the Porter saddle thread. This is interesting as it's similar to Al Stolemans style of double rigging, but also has an additional reinforcement of having the leather for the front rings wrap clear over the swells. This kind of makes sense as the front rings have so much more holding responsibility than the rear, which seem to mainly stabilize the saddle. I don't want to detor too much from the standard saddle design for this build, but I'm wondering if the very basic leather tabs that held the rings previously contributed to the bottom ears of the tree breaking off? If so, it would be good to go a step further in how the rigging is mounted to the saddle. I did some sketching tonight and am thinking about doing a simple hybrid of the Stoleman double ring design, and the Porter design. The Leather would need to have the edges tapered and skived so it dosn't mess with how the seat, jockeys, and swell cover mounts, but it could help the geometry of the tree. I'm going to stick with the welded rigging rings, but carry the leather for the front rings over the swells, and the leather for the back rings around the back of the seat with the same strap continuing forward in front of the rear rings to make the connecting strap. It shouldn't radically alter the appearance and outer design of the saddle, but improve how their holding is distributed across the tree. I'll make a card-stock paper pattern first, and will make patterns for all the other pieces as well which might help one day to eventually build out the unused saddle tree and rebuild the junk store saddle pictured previously. This saddle didn't have a metal floor panel, and there was no hand hole under the swells, but both I plan to add when I do the ground floor leather.

Just to give some perspective, these are some of the family saddles I'm taking inspiration from, and eventually want to repair, restore, or preserve. This saddle my grandfather had made in the 60's and was one of his general use working saddles. It's one that's still usable. This one was a general use saddle on grandpas ranch, though it was mainly used by my Dad in high school. He had a drop calf he raised on a bottle and eventually trained it to ride and do circus style tricks as a rodeo act, and from the pictures I'm 90% sure this was the saddle he used. This saddle was my great grandfathers and goes back to the 1880's. It's one we've decided to preserve and not restore, as every piece would need to be replaced, and the tree's shape wouldn't fit modern horses anyway. The wear and tear on it to me speak volumes of hard life in the west and give me gratitude for what I have, so I wouldn't want to lose that restoring it. As you can see, these are all standard double ring rigging, and I'm thinking I'll use their ring placement and proportions on the youth saddle in this thread. I also started a thread for a saddle my Dad started before he passed, and I hope to complete. Restoring a Porter Saddle I'll also start threads for each of these and some other saddles eventually.

I'm still extremely early in this process, but wanted to start a thread for this project as it's technically already in motion. My Dad, Conrad "Connie" Naegle, was a saddle and harness maker and leatherworker for half his working life, before pivoting towards the machinery side of the industry where our family currently makes it's living. He had inherited several family heirloom saddles and had planned on restoring them eventually (of course life gets in the way). Half are currently in OK shape needing some basic work done, and the other half are far enough gone that they would need to be totally rebuilt. His health went downhill in later life (Alzheimer's and dementia) and he passed away in 2023. Being a working man his whole life, he didn't take well to having his body degrade, and his decline in memory and mental understanding of things we never really learned to cope with. I grew up partway between his leather shop and his machine shop, though my carrier has been on the machine side of things. I worked with him a bit on the saddles, but often found myself having to hold him back from getting in too deep. In his mind he knew what to do, but somewhere between there and his senses things would get scrambled and he rarely recognized it. The saying "He's forgotten more about it that you'll ever know," comes to mind, but in a sad and discouraging way. His original plan was to restore all of the saddles to be ridable again and I think this intent was a way to put his skills to work righting the wrongs of himself and past family members who had let the saddles fall into disrepair (the saddles were all ridable in his lifetime), but we quickly found that doing so would remove a lot of their history and authenticity, especially in the oldest saddles, so we decided to preserve some (such as my Great Grandfathers 1880's saddle) as they were, and make others ridable. This Porter saddle my Grandfather Buster Naegle got sometime in the 1930's in southeastern Arizona before he went off to school and then enlisted in the army during WW2. He went through boot camp down in Ft Bliss, but was transferred to Ft. Reno in Oklahoma where he trained horses and pack mules for the army. At some point after arriving there, there was some problems with their military saddles so with permission he had his family send him this Porter saddle to use and in some way it was a model of the kind of saddles they needed, and I think the guys in charge even ordered more from Porter to use at the fort (I'm hoping to eventually get in contact with someone at the fort to corroborate this, and I've already sent a message to the guys who have the old Porter card file website). I remember in the mid 90's my dad did some minor repairs to this saddle and rode it around our place in northern Idaho. As a kid I didn't make the connection, but my Grandfather died around this same time and I'm certain this saddle was particularly special to my Dad. When we started digging into it, the hope was to soap it up, replace the sheepskin, and do some other minor repairs, but the more it came apart, the more the pieces crumbled and stitches ripped through the leather. In retrospect, I think it should have been preserved as a static display, but at this point I think the can of worms is open, and my choices are to replace 90% of the leather, or call it a loss (not really seeing that as an option). The original leather is heavily worn, which would have been nice to preserve, but I think the alternative is to reproduce the pieces as closely as possible. I'm going to need to reproduce the Porter makers mark somehow. I think hand tooling it will leave too much room for error, so I'm hoping I can have one made without getting in any copywrite hot water. I had considered handing the project off to someone with more skill than mine, but I think these kind of projects always have a level of "artistic license" interpreting what details matter and which ones don't, and it's hard to turn that license over to someone else. Also, since my Dad was the family leatherworker and the saddle is a family heirloom, I think it best to keep the process in the family, even if it takes years to complete. My leatherworking skills have always been better on the technical process side, but I have a lot to learn of the craft and wisdom it takes to build a saddle. I'm starting by rebuilding some saddles that are less sentimental (thread about the first one *here*), but my end goal is to finish rebuilding this saddle (and others I'll post about later). Fortunately, all the pieces are there and give good patterns to follow. Even the tooling I can already see how to replicate. Thankfully it's simple old-school boarders and nothing too artistic, which is how I like saddles personally. Starting with the tree, I don't think I need to remove every bit of leather. I think the floor and other reinforcing pieces will continue to work. There are a couple of places that the wood under the rawhide has degraded, and I'm considering using some modern epoxy filler to fix those points (more on that later). Part of the challenge I think is that I want the saddle to be 100% original, even though so much of it has to be replaced. I can make a new seat and skirts that look exactly like the old ones, but then getting them colored right and formed together right can be a challenge. I don't want to artificially wear or weather anything other than dying the leather to match, but I also don't want the new parts to stand out against the old. Like I said, I'm starting by practicing on some other saddles, but with this one I'm going to take my time. One of my favorite mantras is to "Avoid permanent solutions to temporary problems." History deserves preservation, and I think keeping things functional as they were originally intended to be used is always the best approach.

This is one from my Dad's collection. He always called it a "squaw" saddle (no offense to native Americans meant), though I don't know if that's the proper name. I'm not sure where he picked it up but it's old. He had a knack for collecting old western and ag paraphernalia mainly from the American southwest and rural west coast, and he also was around a lot of it during his years doing props and special effects in Hollywood, as he would buy or was given authentic artifacts to study or duplicate for film, and this could be one of those pieces. It appears to be a wood tree, wrapped in rawhide, and then wrapped in leather, with brass dome tacks added for embellishment. They also likely add some wear resistance on the edges. The rigging straps are held on with screws, but I think they are a later repair. The brass tacks seem advanced for a natives saddle? I'd be interested if anyone recognizes what culture, area, time frame, etc. this saddle is from. I have no intention of restoring or selling it. Periodically it comes down for a cleaning and soaping, bit otherwise it stays on the wall.