heath

When I first started building saddles I used rawhide, but then I started using nylon like in a seatbelt. It holds up better and it has less bulk.

I guess me too.

All I do is edge, wet, rub down with saddlesoap, then rub with canvas. When it Has dried I used a mix of shalac(?) and dye. I have a belt I made 8 years ago that I wear everyday that is still in good shape.

I'll take $1400, and am willing to do some trading. Heath

I use 138 on pretty much everything but saddles. I can do a shorter, finer stitch than you can with the bigger fatter threads. Heath

Have you tried wrapping it with athletic tape. I've done it on some smaller stamps to give a little more grip, or in your case a little less.

How wide is the belt and what does it taper to.

Much better put than my one sentence response. I tend to be brief and very uninformative if you don't have an idea what I'm talking about. Heath

Just use a china man. Heath

If you wet it, and "glass" it with something hard and smooth, it will slick it up like it's been used. Basically all you do is rub it smooth and it will compact the grains of leather. Heath

olsmoothie@sbcglobal.net

I've used Chuck Smith's Ol' Smoothie. It works well for me. Heath

I've recently started back after quitting the shop I used to make saddles at. I was a saddle maker and only tooled there a few times when we were swamped. Our tooler would lay it out and from there I'm confident. I was wanting to find a cheat for laying out corners on saddles, don't have the demand or desire as of now to do a full tooled rig. Was wondering if anyone had any suggestions.

In the shop I worked for all we ever used to clean was Lexol. First we went over it with Lexol PH leather cleaner and then with Lexol NF ( neatsfoot but a non-darkening formula). If you rub in the cleaner with a piece of wool, the used a toothbrush for the tooled areas it will get the dirt out that is what caused the most damage. We dealt with alot of show guys( ropers and pleasure) they were big on keeping there saddles as light as pssible and this combo left them shining and with as little darkening as possible. We oiled our new saddles and tack with olive oil, it gives a nice light honey color and goes on even. We never had to set stuff out side to even out the color, like I've read in several places on here.