greg gomersall

Bruce The horn had been sawed off but I replaced it when I restored the saddle. It had a 6 carved in the seat just below the Hamley stamp and Wolf Point Stampede accross the cantle back. Interesting note; every Hamley bronc saddle built before approx.1985 had a horn. they would saw them off before they shipped if the customer requested it be removed, other wise it was shipped with the horn in. I have a set of old Clark Bucking Rolls, they have the patent date stamped right in with the maker stamp. Greg

Bruce most of the credit I've seen for the swell fork development went to Victor Marden as you stated. Hamley's actually developed the association tree for the commitees from Pendleton, Boise, Walla Walla and Cheyenne in the fall of 1919. 20 years ago I bought one of the original Wolf Point Stampede commitee rigs. I restored it and 3 years ago sold it back to the Wolf Point rodeo commitee. There was only 2 or 3 people that were old enough to remember that they had owned 6 hamleys at one point. The Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame is now in Wolf Point so it has a good home. As for what works better riding rough-string I believe that is a personal choice but one thing I have learned is that what can help keep you in the saddle will also keep you out of the saddle if you get loose. Greg

Denise John Clark of Portland Or. patented the bucking roll in 1901. When properly attached the bucking roll works more like the aussie knee roll than the swell, your thigh will make contact with the roll much sooner than it would with a swell. At times hands would tie their slicker or a gunny sack just behind the fork of their kahk to make an improvised set of rolls. Currently you can buy oregon style rolls were the roll body is sandwiched between two layers of strap leather or the nevada style where the roll body is rolled over the body of the roll and back under before stiching. Both styles can be built to lace together between 2 rings or dees or with a long tail that goes through the handhole and nails under the gullet along the top edge of the skirts. The original Clark rolls were what we call the nevada stlye and laced together. Greg

Peter generally you would not fold the piece but instead glue a seperate lining to it and then sew. Most of your better headstalls, spur straps and just strap goods in general are doubled and stitched. I also do all my belts this way as well. It makes a nicer looking more finished product. Greg

Pella it begins at the sma point and extends farthur ahead. Greg

As far as blades go Henley Manufacturing in Shreveport La. make a type of blade they call "extreme alloy" this blade with steady stropping will go longer between sharping than anything I've ever seen before. They make two sizes of shanks so you can get them to fit Craftool or King barrels. They also make swivel knives but I have never used one of thiers, if they are even close to the blades they will be good. Greg

I guess another to to say what I have been trying to say is that on an arena type saddle I would use a flatter bar (one with less rock). Maybe this is a more palateable word than the word bridging. Of course one must make sure the tips and edges of the bars are not digging in. What we ask and expect a horse to do in the arena varies a lot from what we ask a horse to do in the pasture. Greg

Continue to strop it as you use it, if you are cutting deep the metal portion where the tip attaches needs to stay polished as well as it will make contact with the leather on deep cuts. A diamond stone will cut it and also Ellis Barnes sells a diamond paste which is what I use on my strop for my swivel knives. Greg

Get yourself a piece of 1/8 or 3/16 flat iron the size you need and using a side grinder and saftey goggles you can make the piece. the catch to fit into these can be shaped on an anvil real easy. Greg

Bruce its looks like way too much bridge in both cases, at least in my opinion. As for the small pad area its not just cutting trees we see this on and it doesn't do much for weight distribution. We probably have more good tree makers at our disposal than at any other time in history but we also have some of the worst yet the average consumer hasn't got a clue in this portion of thier ride. Greg

Strop it often and you should be able to clean it with soap and water. I wouldn't be suprised if you couldn't sharpen it with a diamond stone if you had to. Greg

Bruce I fully agree with you on the bar design being a poor choice. I've seen them shimed before but even shims cut out of good stock will pack down considerably over time so the question is will they pack down evenly? If one packs a little more than the other the whole saddle will be out of balance. That is one of the things I like about my big splitter, I can level my skirts and my plugs out evenly before I start even though the skirts themselves could pack down unevenly in the bar area over time. Dale Harwood told us at the TCA seminar last year that if he had to chose between his stitcher and his splitter he would keep the splitter and sew everything by hand. Greg

Bruce the arizona bar was developed for the extra strength they would have by not having both cuts in the bar and they allowed for a slight bridge effect to keep the stirrup leather from creating a lump, I don't use this bar but just wanted to point this out. As for the PRCA rule book being vague look at the clause for rigging position. It states that it must be 3/4 rigged and that the front edge of the ring cannot be back of the center of the swell, that is fine on a 15 1/2 or 16 but lookat these 17 and 17 1/2 seats most of these guys are using nowadays. It is mathamaticly impossible to put the rigging in true 3/4 position as the front of the ring would be back of the the swell center. Talk about a contradiction in desription. I talked with some judges at Vegas last fall about this and thier eyes just glazed over. Greg

If you shim the front of a tree up to raise it up are you not in turn forceing the rear tips of the bar down into the horses back? On bronc saddles instead of shiming them up why not run a piece of all-thread thru the fork from side to side and draw the front together. From my experience most of the bronc saddles i have seen or rode tend to spread thru the front after a while anyways. Greg

Another area where a "slight" amount of briding is required is on the Arizona bars some people use on thier trees. Because the arizona bar is only recessed on the front edge of the stirrup slot a little bridge is required to keep the back edge of the stirrup leather from creating a huge knot on the bottom side of the tree bar. The majority of your factory roping saddles use this type of bar. Greg

One would also have to add a rivet setter and domer as well as either nippers or side cutters to these lists.

Spencer if you buy a machine with only 1/2" foot lift you will kick yourself in the butt real quick.If you are interested I have Pearson #6 stitcher on a full treadle stand for sale. The machine came from Don King and is mint. The Pearson is probably the simplest stitcher ever developed. The Ferdco6/6, ASE #9 and Luberto's Classic are all copies of this design but they left the best feature of the machine off when they copied it. A few years back Tony Luberto was showing me his machine and told me it was so much better than the Pearson because they were able to get rid of the yoke on the back of the machine, he was real proud of what they had done till I explained to him that that was a bottom needle assist that could be adjusted to help pull the work back from the bottom as well as the top. He had a pretty stupid look on his face as the light came on. There were just under 12,000 of these machines made and very few of them made it to the US. Needles are avaiable from 160 thru 280. Machine comes with a bobbin winder as well. $4,100.00 firm. If you are interested you can call me at 208 278 0133. Thanks Greg

The TK 1245 is a clone of the Pfaff 1245 which is an awesome chap machine and great for belts ,daytimers, headstalls etc but will not sew heavy enough or handle heavy enough thread for saddles and other larger projects. Greg

Denise; Correct me if I am wrong but with a taylor cantle is not the tree bar shorter on any given seat size as compared to the length of bar used in conjunction with a regular cantle? Blake I tend to agree with you and as you noticed I emphazied the word slight as to bridging. Greg

Alan if both your regular cantle and your taylor cantle are at the same angle on the same seat length the thigh lenght measurement on the taylor will be longer due to the more acute angle of the cantle cuts on the bar. As for Joel's talk at the TCA he said he felt a saddle should bridge a little so a horse can round up under neath it. This is not a desireable trait in a usin rig but I believe that if a person were building an areana only type rig you might reconsider, in reining, cutting etc. a horse is constantly underneath himself and his back rounded up quite frequently, The "slight" brigeing effect at this time might work to your benifet. Greg

Bruce: my 18" splitter is a crank splitter made by the International Harness Machinery Co. of Cincinnati, Oh. I have two blades for it and if I keep it sharp I can split dang near anything. Artisan has come out with a 20 " crank type on a power stand which is a copy of the Randall for just under 2 grand. It is a good pattern but so far appears to have some blade issues (Jerry would argue this point but he sells em) I wouldn't recommend one yet but I hope they figure it out as these big splitters are hard too find. Greg

I put mine on the front of the skirts at the butt of the woolskin with the bar area to the center, I also use rubber cement and direct naughty words at people who use barge( this isn't much of a problem anymore as I don't do repair work unless its something I made). Chuck Stormes told me it doesn't matter which way you place the wool as long as you have each side going the same direction ( if you were to take the woolskin going sideways accross the hide to get the wool laying the same you would need to have the skirts facing opposite directions on the hide). As for artificle fleece " A man that would rent a pig wouldn't stop at anything and we don't rent pigs." Greg

I plug my skirts all the way from front to back. I thin the area under your leg down to approx. 1/2 the thickness of the rest of the plug. I use 1 splice done on a curving angle with a 2-2 1/4" taper for the overlap and run the plug up close to the edge of the tree bar. I have an 18" splitter so I am able to level my skirts out before I fit them and then after I splice my plug I can run them thru the splitter to even them up before I skive the inside edges. One thing I've noticed is a lot of people do not take the thickness of the tree bar into consideration when deciding how thick of plug or how much to block the skirt itself up. Some trees have a thin bar with a taper that becomes very thin on the edge, on these trees the plug shouldn't be too thick and the skirts do not require a deep blocking (you will notice on Old Hamley's from when they made thier own trees that quite often they had no plug but they glued a 7 or 8 oz. piece to the entire skirt before lining, they then lined the skirt, installed it and gave it a very light block with a ball-pen hammer from the bottom.) On trees with a heavier bar you will have to block the skirts a little deeper thereby requireing a little heavier plug.. Either way unless you are using a 10 oz. light skirt your plugs do not have to be anywhere near as thick as your skirt leather but please do not use the flanks and raggy pieces, your plug should have a little body to it. Greg

Pete you do not nessecarly need a double strung cinch but with a 5/8 or centerfire rig you want to use as wide a cinch as you can find. Greg

Don King passed away saturday evening. He was one of the greatest and most innovative stampers and tool makers to ever be involved in the business. Don, you were a good freind and teacher and I am gonna miss you. Greg