Rod and Denise Nikkel

Traydaloor, If you go into the Saddles and Tack, Saddle Trade Resources section there is a pretty extensive discussion on the Saddlemaking Videos/DVDs thread. It gives some of the content and some of the positives and negatives of a number of different videos. Maybe reading through that will give you more information, or more choices.

Thanks for the replies. We'll check them out.

We would be interested in getting a copy of this classic. Anyone got any information on one?

Of course, if it takes 20 years for a "defect" to show up, the question would be "Is it really a defect, or what else changed in the meantime?" All part of the communication process. But I have learned to never say never...

Alan, Since, as I think we might have mentioned before , “all tree makers do things differentlyâ€Â, we are not speaking for anyone else here. Call and talk to your tree maker about this question and see what they say. A factory can turn out 100s of trees in a short time period, so it is cheaper for the factory to send out another of its cookie cutter trees than to take the time to find out what the problem is. Every one of our trees is individually made. Every situation has to be evaluated individually, because every situation is a bit different. So when we are asked a question about warranties, we don’t give out a number of years or a specific guarantee. We tell people that we stand behind our trees for strength and fit. If you have a problem, call us and we will do what we can to work with you on it. When you see 100 year old saddles that could still be ridden – if you could find a horse narrow enough for them to fit – you know that it is possible to build a tree for long term use. Five years for a tree should be just a fraction of its lifespan. On the other hand, we need to find out what the situation was. For example, if you jumped your saddled horse into the trailer and the horn caught on the top of the door and broke, or if a horse threw a wreck and flipped over and rolled on the saddle a few times and it broke, that isn’t something that could be considered a “fault†in the tree. If we gave out a time period and said “guaranteedâ€Â, then we could still be held liable, which wouldn’t be proper in this case. But if anything is damaged in normal use, we want to hear about it – two, ten or twenty years later. We don’t say you can’t break one of our trees, because anything can be broken, but we do say we want to hear the story, because it is going to be good. (And in 11 ½ years, we have yet to have a broken tree come back to us, though we have heard some “good†stories about trees that didn’t break in the meantime). As far as fit goes, it can get even more complicated. We do all we can to help the saddle maker get what they need for their customer’s horses. But if you order the wrong size for the horses the tree is used on, or put the rigging in crooked, or if the owner sets the saddle up on top of the shoulder blades and holds it there with a breast collar, or if there is a problem caused by any of the myriad of things other than the tree that affects how a saddle fits, we can’t be held liable for that. If, on the other hand, there ever was a problem attributable to a defect in the tree that sores horses, we would do whatever was necessary to rectify the mistake. The bottom line for us, and probably a lot of the individual makers, is that it is our name that is on that tree, whether we put it on two, ten, twenty or more years ago. And in protecting their good name, you will probably find the hand makers more likely than a large company to bend over backward to help keep their customers happy. That explanation may or may not satisfy a saddle customer, but it generally satisfies the saddle maker. After all, it is their name that goes on the finished product, and most custom saddle makers feel the same way.

Just some ideas for short term: Hides can safely be kept frozen before anything is done with them. Just fold it up and freeze it in a thick plastic bag. To thaw, put it in a barrel of water and keep changing the water daily. It will take a while to thaw that way depending on the ambient temperature but it won't start to go bad on the outside before the inside thaws. DO NOT salt the hide. That is standard procedure for hides to be used in making leather, but salted hides can apparently not be used for rawhide (though we have never heard an explanation of why). If you search in the forum there are threads that describe a couple of ways of making rawhide. But since you are wanting this hide and not just a hide, I would suggest this one is not the one to experiment on. Hides from different species have different characteristics. I would recommend that the person you get to work on this special hide have some experience with horse hide as well as other types of rawhide, so that you do end up with something worth the time and effort at the end of all your work.

Basically, as far as rawhide covered wood trees go, you have two factors - the weight of the wood and the weight of the hide. Bottom line is the lighter the wood, the weaker it is. Now there are differences between the wood species. Some are more flexible than others and bend more before they break. Some split lengthwise while others break across the grain. But when you compare woods overall, the lighter the wood per volume, the easier it is to break. The only ways to make a stronger tree without changing the weight would be if the same wood was used, but the wood of one tree was full of knots and the other was clear - no knots - which is definitely stronger. Or if the same wood was used, but one had lots of laminations and the other had little to no laminations. However, the makers who spend the time to laminate generally use a combination of woods, usually with at least one hardwood layer, which adds weight. In the same way, the lighter hide is lighter because it is thinner and, therefore, weaker. So you are doing a balancing act between weight and strength, and don't let anyone tell you any different. It can't be lighter and "just as strong". Some things in the way you order the tree that might make a difference: The width of the swells. The bigger everything is, the more wood and rawhide are there and the more it weighs. So order narrower swells. For a Bowman, get an 11" rather than a 12". Cutting back the stock thickness on the fork (the front to back measurement) actually makes very little difference because the extra is taken off the front of the lip, which has minimal wood anyway. But in reducing that side to side measurement, you are cutting quite a thick chunk of wood off each side, and the rawhide needed to cover it is less too. The size of the cantle. Same thing here. Taller, wider cantles have more wood and rawhide than shorter, narrower ones. Something NOT to change is amount of bar surface area needed to support the weight of this rider as determined by seat length or, preferably, the thigh length (length of bar between front point of the cantle and back of the fork where the rider's leg goes). While you might make it easier for the rider doing their three second lift of the saddle to the horse, you are increasing the PSI under those smaller bars on that horse's back for the entire duration of every ride. NOT a good trade off. If they are a small person, they will have a smaller saddle anyway. If they are a bigger person and want a lighter saddle, this is NOT the place to cut corners. As well, the thinner the bars, the weaker they are. That trade off is just an "actual fact". And while you can have thinner bars and thicker bars that both fit well, there is a limit to the thinness of the bars. Also, you can't just "thin down" thick bars. There are too many variables and too much geometry that changes when you try to do that to expect a maker that doesn't already have a system in place to make both thicker and thinner bars to "just shave down the bars for this tree". They need to be made differently from the beginning. Different makers use different woods for different reasons. Ask the tree makers what wood they use and why. Most hand made makers use some hardwood, at least in their forks. If weight is a real concern, find out from the tree maker what the average weight for the type of tree you need will be. But also find out what kind of bar surface area that tree has. If the tree is light because it has a minimal sized bar, you may have a sore horse and an unhappy customer. If the weight is a bit more than you want, ask what they figure they can do (or are willing to do) to make a lighter tree, and what difference in weight will result. They will generally have answers for these questions. Most tree makers have a lot more variations than they can easily tell saddle makers about. So ask. If someone asks us for a lighter tree, we will use a thinner-than-our-normal hide, and, since some boards are heavier and some lighter, we use the lighter ones we set aside for special request lighter trees. But since we never know for sure when a saddle will be sold or how that tree will end up being used (such as the barrel racing tree we made where the husband likes the saddle so much he team ropes out of it all the time), we have a basic quality of material requirement that we choose not to go below. Every tree maker decides how they are going to deal with the question of weight differently. And honestly, the saddle maker can make a far greater difference in weight in the finished product than the tree maker can. The last place you want to skimp on is the foundation.

A question to ask is what do people mean when they say they want to have "close contact" with their horse? Is it just another marketing gimmick? So often people want a "deep seat" when what they really want is a secure seat. You can build a secure seat with a lot of leather under it and people still think they are in a "deep seat". Is it the same way with "close contact"? You don't cue a horse with your upper leg but your lower leg. You can't "feel" a horse's muscles move under a saddle, no matter how thin the bars and seat are. You can feel the movement of the horse under you because it moves your body around, no matter how thin the bars and seat are. So what are people really looking for in a "close contact" saddle? A seat that interferes the least amount with how they feel the horse move, and that would most likely be a seat that is comfortable and conforms to the shape of their backside. At least that is my idea. On the other hand, you don't want to have excess bulk under your leg either. The bars are narrowed in the middle because that is where the leg sits, and it helps accommodate a maker putting in a narrower seat at that point. They do need to be wide enough for strength too, and since the horse is wider than the tree at this point anyway, it is the horse that determines how close together the rider's legs can come. So there is a limit to the usefulness of narrowing the middle of the bar. And just because it is a narrower point on the tree doesn't mean that the angle between the bars compared to the horse is steeper there. The bottom of the bars should still be shaped to fit the horse regardless of how wide or narrow the bar is. A lot of tree makers are going with very thin bars these days, maybe with this close contact as a reason behind it. A question to ask is do the thinner bars make a difference in the "contact" a rider has with the horse, and (not to hijack the thread) how thin is too thin? Rod

Vandy, Glad you decided to join. There always seem to be questions on here about leather (surprise, surprise) and I know with your knowledge you will be a great resource for the people on the forum. Looking forward to learning from you. Denise

"Probably need a new thread for close contact huh?" Yup.

What an interesting saddle, and a great story to go with it. Definitely a family heirloom. Rod commented on the fact that there is a front jockey plus a section of the seat that goes on top of it. When did things change from a separate front jockey to the front jockey being incorporated with the seat jockey? The EZ dee rigging ring is different too. What can you tell us about the history of it? I find it interesting that they cut the skirt low enough to go below that huge ring, yet now it is common to cut the skirt higher at that point. Do you find that the cinch knot makes a lump under your knee there?

David, Thank you for your great pictures and clear explanation on your government line. This really is what every hand maker we know uses to set up the whole tree, but is rarely known about among saddle makers. As far as the name goes, we call the “Chart Lengthâ€Â. Real descriptive name there, but Rod was never given a specific name for it (I doubt Julian knew one), and Rod was only given a couple of charts of measurements when he first started out, with the one for this measurement being the most important. Because we had no name for it at all, we started talking about the “Chart Length†and the name stuck. We have known about the term “government measurement†for a while now, but chart length is so much easier to say, and change is hard… We use it slightly differently. Rather than measure between the two corners, we draw two vertical lines up the side of the bar first. The distance between these lines is set by our chart length. Then we mark on the side the lines for the mortise cuts. So our measurement would be slightly less than the measurement between the two corners because of the angle on that line. But our chart length would always be directly correlated to your government measurement because the angle of that line never changes relative to the bottom of the piece of wood from which the bar is cut. We agree that the current seat length measurement has so many things that affect it that it is close to useless when comparing actual room for the rider in the saddle. We also use what we call “thigh length†to get a general comparison between trees. We measure that from the front corner of the cantle forward horizontally to the row of nails at the back of the fork. We use thigh length rather than the government measurement to compare trees because there are a few things (like standing the fork up, and changing the angle of the cut on the bar for the cantle, which for us means changing between regular and Taylor cantles) that give differing thigh lengths, up to ¾†or even more for the same government measurement. So the government measurement gives the length of bar between the cantle and the fork on the midline of the tree, while thigh length gives the length of bar between the cantle and the fork at the edge of the cantle and (close to the edge of) the fork. Either of these measurements is much more useful in comparing actual room in the saddle than the traditional “seat length†measurement.

Waddy, I know you are talking aesthetics, and everyone has their own taste, but you know, those big blue tarps are used mainly in times of disaster. Maybe the analogy isn't that bad after all...

Anyone want to wade into a discussion on the mechanics and differences in how bucking rolls, swells on a fork and the Aussie knee rolls work in helping you stay in the saddle when things get "exciting"? I'd be interested in learning more about the history and development of these as well. Denise

The Wade fork is thicker front to back (stock thickness) than a "normal" metal horn fork. This measurement varies a lot between all styles of forks and tree makers, but slick forks of any type often have a greater stock thickness than swell forks. To avoid having to make the bar tips a lot longer than normal, backcut is usually used on Wades and other thicker forks. This means that the front of the gullet goes back as it goes down so the fork is narrower where it meets the bars than where the gullet lip is. This can allow the same length of bar in front of the fork cut as on all other trees. On Wades, there is often a slightly longer (1/2" or so) bar tip in front of the fork cut. Whether this puts the rider 1/2" further back or allows for the shoulder blade to ride under it that extra 1/2" depends on both the shape of the bar tip and the shape of the horse. The length of bar tip is one thing we can change to help fit horses with shoulders that bulge out or come far back into the wither pocket.

We e-mailed the Blaine County Museum and eventually received this e-mail in return. No, the saddle is not in excellent condition, but the rest of the information means that what our museum was told about the saddle was probably correct. We'll pass it on to them, as well as the name of a local guy who might be able to help the saddle look a bit better... "The saddle is amazing! It looks like it is in excellent condition. We are fortunate to have two A.B. Duke Saddles in our Early West exhibit. A.B. Duke was a pioneer of Chinook. We have a few pictures of his daughter Letha in our photo collection. The Duke’s settled in Chinook in 1889. Mr. Duke owned and operated A.B. Duke & Company Manufacturers of Harness and Saddles – Dealers in Pelts, Hides, All Kinds of Furs, Tents, and Bed Paulins. He also sold shoes, and was co-owner of the Milk River Coal Co. in 1928. In the book “Chinook the First 100 Years,†there is a picture of A.B. Duke’s Saddle Shop. It was built next-door to the City Stable and stockyards once located on the Westside of the 100 block on Main Street. There are no ancestors of the Duke family living in this area. I am not sure what year they moved away from Chinook."

I'll start by saying that the most likely reason Wades are so popular today is that a number of popular clinicians and trainers use them so it is a trendy, fashionable type of saddle to ride these days even if you don't work cattle. That said, the reason some clinicians use them is that they were working cowboys before they were clinicians, and the Wade tree is a good tree to use for roping. That is why it is a very popular saddle for working cowboys to use depending on the area of the continent you are from. One advantage is that the base of the horn is closer to the horse while still clearing the withers on a Wade than on a tree with a metal horn or on a wood post swell fork. Another advantage, depending on the type of roping you do, is the larger diameter of the neck of the horn. A Wade tree has a wooden horn. If a tree has a metal horn, it is a metal horn slick fork of some sort, not a Wade, regardless of the name tag that comes with it. A fork with a wood post horn that is well made from good quality wood and rawhide has less distance between the base of the horn and the top of the handhole (which we call the gullet thickness). You need enough wood to be strong enough, but no more. For a tree with a metal horn, you need enough wood to hold the screws well. On our trees, we have almost an inch more wood to hold the screws than we need for strength with a wooden horn, so the base of a metal horn ends up that much higher off the horse even with the same clearance at the handhole. A swell fork can also be made with wooden horn, but if they have any undercut on the sides at all, you can't make them as low as a Wade without distorting the shape. The shape of a slick fork or a fork that rounds into the bars without undercut (such as a Buster Welch type) allows you to lower the gullet height without affecting the shape too much. Something like an association can only be lowered so far before it starts looking like one of those squashed photographs and there is no room left under the swell for the rider's leg. So to keep the shape of most swell forks, they have a taller handhole and gullet than a Wade needs, which raises the base of the horn relative to the horse. The reason you want the base of the horn close to the horse's back is so when you rope a cow, the pull is low down and doesn't have as much of a leverage effect on the saddle. It is much easier on the horse and helps keep the saddle stay in place better even though 1000 pounds of movable beef is trying to displace it. Wooden horns have a larger diameter neck because you need more wood to equal the same strength as a metal horn. The larger horn means that you need less wraps when you dally to get the same amount of friction than you do with a metal horn. This is why you see more working cowboys riding Wade type saddles in areas that come more from the vaquero tradition of roping (dallying), and more swell fork, metal horn saddles in the areas where the tie hard and fast roping style was traditionally used. Traditions die hard. For plain old ordinary riding, fork type makes no difference. It is just personal preference. Note: "Wade" is now a description of a shape of the fork, and does not have to relate to any other part of the tree, especially bars. Wades do not "fit better" or differently than other fork styles (except in that they are often lower under the gullet) because they have a Wade fork on them. If they do fit differently, it is because they have a different bar pattern, but that is something separate from the shape of the fork. All trees with Wade forks do not have the same bars under them.

David, I haven't seen discussion here about the government measurement as such yet, so it will be great to have pictures to explain it better for people. Looking forward to your posts. As far as I know, every hand maker uses the concept of the government measurement between the two cuts on the bar for the fork and the cantle, though we call it different things. This is what changes with different seat (and thigh) lengths between trees, while the amount of wood in front of the fork cut and behind the cantle cut stay the same. I think it is Warren who has done the history research to come up with the term government measurement (it governs the size of the tree) and has taught that term to Dennis, ourselves and probably others. I haven't heard about making a "government line" as such between the two corners. As far as slope of the face of the cantle, the way we make trees, that is not present until the bars are all shaped first, so the drawn line would be gone by then. You must just level up those two corners? What else do you measure off that line? It's got me thinking again... Denise PS. I don't know any other governments that are truly straight and that could be leveled out that easily either.

Another comment on the same tree, not in regard to fit for the horse, but fit for the rider. This tree is a great example of why measuring from the top of the handhole to the top of the cantle (the most common way to measure seat length) really doesn't tell you everything you want to know about room for the rider. You say this is a 17" seat, but it absolutely massive when you look at the amount of room between the fork and the front corners of the cantle where the rider's thigh goes (and has the long bars to go along with that). This cantle appears to be about 3" tall. Mentally make it 4" tall and follow that cantle rim back in your mind's eye till it reaches that height. How much length have you added to your measurement? You now have a tree with probably a 18" or longer seat length measurement without changing anything about the bars or room for the thigh. In general, the lower the cantle, the more room you have for the rider's leg for the same seat length measurement. And it is when you order short and tall (as opposed to middle of the road 4 - 4 1/2") cantles that you can run into more problems in getting the proper amount of thigh room based on the seat length measurement. Just something to think about.

In our opinion, a tree that fits like this could really hurt these horses. Overall surface area is minimal, so your PSI will be high. The bridging is very severe. But those back bar tips are what will probably hurt the horse first. We like to see the back bar tips lift off the back a little when you have a bare tree sitting on a horse's back. If they contact like these ones do, they will indent the muscle even if you just sit in the tree. And if you get the horse to walk with weight in the saddle, those tips will be digging in with every step. That causes pain and a lot of damage. You could look at this tree and say that because it has so little rock, the back bar tips dig in, and while the two are related, they are two separate things. You could have a tree that fits nicely through the center that has back bar tips that still dig in because there is not enough relief built into them. Or a tree with enough relief built into the back bar tips could still bridge in the middle. The "rock", or curve from front to back, is not like a rocking chair rocker. It can, and should, vary in different places, and you need to check it out all the way along. You say that you cinched it down and moved the horses around. I would like to know what you found when you did that, both in how the tree interacted with their backs and what their reactions to it were.

Is Sebie Hutchins the author of the book you mention? Where is she from and how can we best contact her? You can PM us if you need to with specifics to avoid the spam things on the net. Thanks, Denise

It was a B when seen for real. The picture was of the clearest mark, but there were three of them all together. I have sent off an e-mail to the museum there and will see what they come up with.

Thanks Barra.

Alan, By Jove, you DO have it!! The actual numbers may be different, but you definitely have the geometry idea right. Most saddle makers tend to order a consistent dish regardless of height and angle on their cantles. That is one of the reasons we wrote that article - to try to explain as well as we could about the different slopes so they could get what they wanted for their groundseat. The cantle in Eight A in that article has a very steep slope to it. The saddle maker probably had to take time to fill it in a bunch to make a nice seat, but that is what they ordered. We have two makers, both with a lot of working/riding experience in their lives, who will only order the exact specs of the cantle in Eight B. Rod is just saying here that he feels that it is possible make a good seat in something with less slope than that. It depends on the type of seat you are after. But the one in Eight A is too steep for our liking. By the way, I just checked our charts and the slope in Eight B (a regular cantle) is very similar to the slope of a lot of our Taylor cantles. So you are also correct in how you were seeing the way a Taylor cantle would work for your preferred seat. (Two By Joves in one post - great!!) Rod and Denise PS. If anyone is interested in reading the information article Alan is referring to, it is on our little, tiny, supposed to be hidden, for information only website at http://www3.telus.net/nikkelsaddletrees. It is the one labeled "Cantles" (surprise, surprise).

Bruce, I think I might have it now. The front corners of the cantle that you had problems with were quite close together rather than finishing further down the bar. So that edge finished up underneath your seat and not behind your legs. Then it had the dish starting sharply from the edge of the cantle which left a ridge rather than have a more gradual slope from the side to the center which would support you better. Have I got it right? If so, I can see how basically sitting on the rim around the cantle would be uncomfortable, to say the least. Makes sense now. Alan, OK. That means we are not clear enough in our information article on the fact that a Taylor cantle cannot have more than an inch dish. Need to work on that next time I rewrite that article (someday...in my spare time...) To quote Rod, "A Taylor cantle does not have a lot of dish, which is why it is made the way it is made." The term "Taylor cantle" was given to us by Julian Tubb from whom Rod learned to build trees. How common a definition it is "out in the real world" we are not sure, but it seems to be known in the custom saddle making industry. Between makers, the actual angles of the cuts will vary I am sure, but maximum and minimum amounts of dish allowed by the different cuts are the reason that we have "regular" and "Taylor" cantles. As far as the marketing goes, sometimes you have to make a decision between making what a person wants and what they need. That is where education can come in - helping them understand why what they are asking for won't work for them the way they think it will. If they respect your work enough, most of them will listen to you. If they still want what you know won't work well, you then have to make the choice between not taking their order, which may not make them happy, or making what they what, knowing that they will not be happy with it. But if you did a good job on your explanation, at least they will know why! Some may bad mouth your product, but some will come back and say, "You were right. Make it your way now". Depends on the person. Hard choice to make. From previous job experience I know that the last thing you want to do is make what they need when they still want something else. They will almost never be happy with it, even if it is the best thing in the world. The ones who trust you enough to let you do things the way you want are very nice to work for. Sounds like your boss is a good salesman to get people to take his advice without realizing that they are doing that.