Don101

nice seat and detail, shame it gets lost in black

nice stuff asusual david its interesting to hear how long it takes you guys as i was wondering if i was slow as it took me around 35 hrs to compleet the seat i did, but i spent most of the time desighning and working out the template than actually on the leather work

Well im finished at last i suppose the first is always hard and they get better the more you do but its been a really great experience and i thoroughly enjoyed every moment making this seat because it was somthing tottaly different than i normally do im now bald on one side of my head because i was scratching so oftern thinking how the hell would the guys and not forgeting shirley do this and make such a wonderfull job believe me you all should be proud of what you do as its not as easy as you make it look and i take my hat of to you all and ill just stick to making gunleather, ah maybe now and then a seat or two, and i would like to thank every one for the responces and advice while i was making this project. Don

really nice i can now appreciate what work goes in to building one of these seats as i now know from experience as ive finished my first seat great job beza

thanks for the nice coments, no i didnt use airbrush, i wish i still had mine as i used to have a pasher airbrush when i did airbrush paintings but i gave it up years ago and now i could have used it, i aplied the bottom base colour fibings oil saddle tan all over the seat then just as it was nearly dry i applied tandy saddle tan which is slightly reder from the outside working inwards, i used a clean rag and worked it in circles so i didnt have any staight lines of dye, i then buffed over the two coulours with another clean rag working from the center lighter colour outwards, i thed applied the black with a rag using circular motion from the outsid wotking inwards and buffed again with another clean rag from the center outwards to blend the dyes, when it was nearly dry i then crispeled ( rolled the leather creasing it ) the leather to give it an antique used look,

another update the front of the seat is finished and drying,

Very nice, i ve been wanting to build a saddle for a long time but dont seem to convince myself to go a head as there isnt any courses or really good western saddle builders over here where you could gain experience from one day maybe, still nice work. Don

sorry if it came over wrong, i was saying its probbably easier to aline and not so much work than to stitch i was only going from holsters that i had laced and made then i stand corrected and appoligies if it came over wrong i wasnt trying to put lacing down as i know its an art to its self. Don

Did you make the knife? if yes wow nice finish, ive made a few and know what work goes into geting the blade right how you want it, and i also collect antique bowies and double edge blades and pocket knives, Don

LOL, thanks i take it you like them then

a welted seam is when you have two pieces of leather and put another in between (piping) and stitch the now three pieces together like on a gusset of a bag or boots and so on, Don

UPDATE : well ive made the template and cut and formed the backing of the seat and rivited it, the next stage is to shape and fit the foam then ill cut out the front and carve it dye it and stitch it together then im finished, thanks for the responce and tips so far, Don

really nice work, nicely burnished edges clean stitching i bet the comercial sling doesnt use the same quality leather and finish though, nice job done it should last him a life time

@ snakehorse, he wanted fast to no foam in the seat so ive got some thin pvc foam that wont absorve water from where i work and will keep it to a minimum of thickness, thankks for the thickness guide im going to use about a 9oz for the backing and as you sugest 5-7 for the front as it will be carved, @ David ive noticed this as well and i can only think its to go with alot of the biker leathers as there is also on waistcoats and so on lacing, and its a lot less work to lace around the seat that to aline and stitch

Very nice i like it

This is a very hard topiic to deal with as its not just in one country but a world wide agenda we in germany have the same problems as in the US or Canada monney being used from the goverment and the catholick church to fund the building of mosks in the large towns, they did a survey their are more mosks in lare towns than churches be it catholick or protostant, maybe this should be a warning to us to stop wasting our funding and use it for more needing prodjects, at the end of the day the muslims are not gratfull because they still go out and demonstrate on the streets and condem this countrys politics and the way they live here, they even want that their teachings be part of the schooling agenda here, come on they seem to be forgeting that they live in a foreighn country and they should adjust to that countrys laws and ways if they dont like it then go home, as to the korahn teaching beeing violent, yes we clas it as beeing violent to todays standards and barbarick but back then it was seen differently and if you read the bible and take it word for word you would see it as the same, there is so much violence and killing and barbarick teachings in it, maybe the muslims should just use the korahn as a guide line for the good things in life and chill out a bit more.

well im jumping in at the deep end, my work college came around yesterday with the bike, we decided to go with the theme on the bike and do the bike logo and tribal flames on the seat, i tried to talk him into something along the lines of the fantastique seats that are displayed here, (i love the pin up art,) but he wasnt having it, so the first question to the experts is, he wants to rip of the foam padding and use the original hard seat thats made out of some sort of hard plastique and cover it with a thinner foam and then leather so that the seat is lower, is that a good idea or does it have to be a metall seat? second question what thickness leather would you guys and ladys recomend, as im not sure if its to thick that it would be uncomfortable or not? any way ive got a week or so because he wants to go to a few biker meets and doesnt want to give me the seat just yet, ive worked out a rough desighn, let me know what you think. Don

sigh of relief... i wasnt sure how you would react as to beeing new and words from a page can be some times missunderstood when read from a nother person .... anyway the program i used is microsoft picture it premium 9 its not to complicated and works well to my needs... you can copy and paste a part of the pic as i did for your background and even resize as i did from your flowers, you can turn and flip and reverse items or even merge different pics hope that explained the program a little for you Don

nice i like it, some nice hunting bags there and nice work, did you do thr scrimshaw on the horn yourself?

nothing really when the piece is finished i give it a light oil and buff it with a soft rag just to polish it up a bit

Thanks everyone for your kind coments and for making me feel welcome

i voted other as ive only lightly touched this type of thing i dye with oil dye either light tan to brown or black, natural also looks good with a bit of oil, from what ive seen from pictures that have been coloured they can and the ones on here look fantastique, i am a oil painter lanscapes and portraits but on leather its another ballgame, at least with the canvas i can paint over it, really at the end of the day i woild say if you can do it and want to risk it go ahead because if you can pull it of it would be a stomper of a picture, but hey dont listen to me i dont know what im talking about LOL. Don

i have used in the past a white wood glue which also worked it took a little longer to dry but is was a cheeper alternative to the expencive leather glues

Hope you dont get affended clay but i took your desighn and played with it on the PC its only rough and maybe needs a ranking vine coming through the center between the leters it seems more balenced and you can clearly see the letters as a central focall point which i was trying to put over in my last post its probbably broken all the rules in the book as to this type of carving but im no expert, hope it helps or maybe brings up a nother idea for you.Don

I couldnt fault the work its superbly carved, im no expert on rules for sheridan carving, your first desighn i liked i t was very clean and simple and pleasing to the eye and you could clearly see the letters which is important and to my opinion should be the main focal point, as now you have brought a lot more action in to the desighn and the lettering gets sort of lost and seems a bit bottom heavy but im no expert, have you tried the desighn with the letters central and maybe a smaller flower coming of the letters as not to make it to cluttered. Don