Alan Bell

This is a quirt I had started a while ago but am just now getting around to finishing. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Here are some scarf slides I made for a fellow in OK. They are both horse rawhide. The mandrel is 7/16 and the strands are 1.5mm wide I ended up doing a O6 U6 on the natural one and an O5 U5 on the one with the interweave. Used almost 20' of string on each one! These are the last ones I will make for this complicated for $35! Next year they will cost $70 and up depending on interweaves. I will still make some but they will be with larger string. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Hey CW, if you are still having this problem then i think that no matter the size of the ring knot or collar you need to braid PAST the end 2 passes so that when you do the interweave and the knot tightens itself up it does not draw itself up off the ring knot! Nate is using a leather foundation now instead of the floral tape. I use either or but the end result should be the same you want the symmetry of the ends the same as the middle. Even with ring knots you would want to Braid them big enough to match the size of the middle of the noseband unless it is a straight nose band! Hope this helps! Alan

I believer both Pablo Lozano and Armando DeFerrari will be conducting the clinic.

Very Nice! Vaya con Dios, Alan

I don't know of any Argentine work done with goat rawhide. I believe you are mistaking horse rawhide for goat. (Just read the first hide off the hoof post and see that your Argentine friends are describing dehairing 3 goat hides at a time so I stand corrected! I did know they did a big rodent similar to a nutria but now I know they use goat too.) There is some Mexican work done with goat. A lot of the stuff you'd see imported into the '90's like bosals and hobbles was Mexican made using goat. By the way the some Argentines are doing a clinic in Boise for 4 days at the end of Sept. focusing on fid work! I don't think I can make it but you can PM me for more info! Vaya con Dios, Alan

I have never had to soak a hide for more than a few hours even the hide of a bull! I don't use bleached rawhide any more but when I did I would only leave it in the water for a few minutes then put it in a bag to case. Casing evens out the moisture, basically in the bag the moisture moves from the wetter portions to the drier portions. It depends on the thickness of the hide but 8 to 10 hours of casing usually works although I have done it with less. I just cut the hide of a 900-1000lb cow I skinned last winter into string. I chuncked the hide in the stock pond for a couple three hours and then into a couple garbage bags wrapped up tight for another three hours and cut my circles. Because of time constraints the circles stayed in the bag overnight and I cut them into string the next day. NO problems! If you take the rawhide straight from the water without casing you will always have problems. Hope this helps. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Thanks Jeff and JW! Andy, Thanks for the advice! I will look out for these things on the next saddle. Funny how you mention things I already know but managed to forget on this saddle!! I hope to get the time to get more consistent on my work wether it is saddle making, rawhide braiding or horsemanship, my day job really messes things up! I won't get to work on the other saddles for at least a month but I will remember to review the advice from folks on this and other forums BEFORE I start back to saddle making! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Finally got some time at home to finish one of the saddles I've been working on. Wade tree (Rod Nikkel) Hermann Oak leather, Ron Mewes 5" monel stirrups, Jeremiah Watt hardware. Comments, critiques appreciated! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Hey Mike, Those look really great! I'm the first one to say "cut them off and start over" BUT once you finished a project you should let it be!! Cut them off as you are braiding them if they are not looking good but when the overall project is done then it is DONE! Move on, sell this set, give them away, use them yourself. I still use the first set of romel reins I braided out of some Tandy lace! Pretty crude work but they work! You can go back and forth with a single project till infinity and only have one thing to show OR you can start building up quite a nice collection of items; reins, hobbles, quirts, bosals, reatas, headstalls, hondas, hatbands, bracelets, bolos, keyfobs... did I forget anything. Any you get the picture! Get to braiding. And FYI I just redid a bosal, cut off the heelknot and nose band and kept the body BUT I had used it for 3-4 yrs already even though the nose band was not what I wanted it to be! I finally redid it now that I know what I want different . I've been braiding a few things that are all not quite finished yet and will post pics of everything in a week or so! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Wow Mike, you are doing a great job on these! Seems you can teach an ol' dog new tricks!! Just kidding! I might need to get you to make me a set soon! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Way to go Jerry! Way to go!! (as in High school cheering) Vaya con Dios, Alan

VERY COOL! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Calvin, You can use all the things suggested for your buildups BUT do not ever use a metal core on a bosal or I'll have to send my uncle's monkey to teach you a lesson! The metal core bosal is a torture device and the horse does not deserve it!!! Anyway, I suggest trying all the different ways to see which one you like the most. Also, the very best thing you can do is to make something and use it. That way you understand the whyfores and theresomes about the gear you make and it will help you make fewer mistakes because you will see how your mistakes affect the fit, form and function of each piece of gear. While you can make some pieces of gear to experiment with you should only promote gear you actually use to lend some credibility to your work. There are lots of good braiders on here and you should get all the help you need but don't worry about messing up just keep making things! You'll improve Vaya con Dios, Alan

Hey Mike, don't get too upset! You will have to take the whole thing apart to redo the nose but you can also get it back together if you are careful when u take it apart. I don't think you can put a nice noseband on with out having the body laid out straight. OR you could just keep that one on your wall as a decoration AND as a reminder to slow down, think ahead, look ahead, look for the pattern, keep track of your passes, and follow the sequence. The only people that have never had these problems are folks that don't braid! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Hey Mike, don't get too upset! You will have to take the whole thing apart to redo the nose but you can also get it back together if you are careful when u take it apart. I don't think you can put a nice noseband on with out having the body laid out straight. OR you could just keep that one on your wall as a decoration AND as a reminder to slow down, think ahead, look ahead, look for the pattern, keep track of your passes, and follow the sequence. The only people that have never had these problems are folks that don't braid! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Brian, that is exactly how you do this style of work! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Knothead, i guess if we don't count cutting and beveling 1.5mm strings then the hardest part for me is spiraling all the strings arond the core and keeping them tight while doing the fid work. I have trouble maintaing the 45 deg angle of the working strands too. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Wow, Thanks for the compliments everyone! All I see is the mistakes! LOL. Bob, I started this in the middle of working on 3 saddles since my garage is not heated and I could work on this in the house and on the road! The next handle is a little larger and will be 90 strands. Lilpep, I have bought horse rawhide from chester inc. and it is from Peru and I am not sure of the process they use but it is not the same as that the Argentines make or that you would make your self. I don't really recommend using it. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Thanks everyone! Rob and Noah, I got this horse rawhide from a dead horse! LOL Actually it came from my friends in Argentina. I also have some from Nate here and a little left over from a horse that I did last year. You might mention to your vet that what you do and maybe when he puts a horse down they might let you skin it. If it gets to that point I can let you know how since it is a little different than a cow. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Here's a knife handle I'm finishing up that is 60 strands horse rawhide. Any critiques or questions are welcome. Vaya con Dios, Alan

Ok I'll chime in with my opinion. I feel that when you cut a wide strip out of the whole hide and then spit down you may waste less BUT I think that the quality of the string is diminished. There is a lot more stretching of the string when done this way as it stretches a little each time it is pulled through the splitter. The strength of the string is in the grain side AND in the connective fibers that make up the hide, when you stretch the hide you are damaging those connective fibres. In fact you can make softened rawhide by damaging those fibers enough. There is quite a bit of stretching that goes into doing it that way. When you cut uniform disk there is not so much skiving so not so much stretching and not so much damage to the fibers. I did finally get to skin an old skinny cow that died and i did a real good job of fleshing when I skinned her and her hide was the most uniform in thickness I have ever had BUT I still cut disk out of here to make string. Most of it I simply cut into strips and had to pull it through the splitter twice to even out before making string some of the circles out of the neck and hip I cut into strips and those I pulled between fence post. This is so I can compare the two processes. I'm away for a while but I'll let you know the differences I fine when I get home and make more string. The un stretched string is REALLY nice!! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Thanks Knut, that is a good idea! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Had a friend ask me to repair this Bob Marr saddle. I don't know who set it up like this but shouldn't the front rigging ring hang below the tree? Is there a better way to hang that ring other than the two straps? I got to build new stirrup leathers too as the one he had on the saddle were made uneven! Vaya con Dios, Alan

Living in Greenville Tx (the Saddle Making Capitol of Texas) I am right in the heart of factory made saddles. They by their hides by the lot and if they go and pick through the hides then the $65/side price applies if they just take from the top of the stack they may get an additional discount. That applies to hardware, screws, latigo sides, etc they are NEVER buying the heaviest sides and they care very little about scars. The ground seats can use these and their build ups are minimal to say the least! Even though they click parts they throw away a remarkable amount of good leather and I go to their dumpster to get practice pieces to tool on so that tells you how big the pieces are they are dumping! They use Mexican American toolers that are remarkably good at what they do. Their machinery cost are the same as anybodies but they manage to cut cost on just about everything else. Tandy is their "heaven"! They never use real shearling (even on so called 'custom' saddles). I am having quite a time explaining to people that ask me to evaluate their 'custom' saddle that it is custom only in name and basically from the tree up. The seat shape and the carving may be custom but the rest is stock! Tree included! I know this does nothing to help with the answer to this question but it might help explain the justification for the price of the parts a true "Custom Maker" charges vs the factory maker to others reading these post. Even though I am not of the caliber of Kieth Siedel, or Bob, or Clint, or Ashley my cost are the same as I use the very best materials I can and I use 3 sides per saddle to get the best part per piece (and I'm a goober that makes mistakes)! I set a fairly high base price ($2650) for that reason and I don't sell many saddles to my fellow Texans! But I feel that my time is at least worth that of a day laborer at a loading dock! I still drive over the road for a living so I can afford to sit on a saddle until it sells BUT I would try and look at the time I spent learning this craft (and braiding and horsemanship) and honestly consider what MY time is worth (let alone materials) if (and when) I decide to make saddles and tack for a living. There are no millionaire saddle makers......... but there should be! Vaya con Dios, Alan