D.A. Kabatoff

Go2Tex, When I die large areas of leather like a skirt or seat, I use a piece of sheepskin about 10"s x 10"s. I usually get quite a bit of dye in it so that I can get the entire piece of leather wet without having to pour more dye onto the sheepskin. If I can't get the entire surface wet the first time, I make sure that I get that sheepskin wet again and onto the leather as fast as possible. In addition, I usually get the entire surface soaked with dye. When I am dying a seat or skirt or whatever, when I am finished, there are no areas on the piece of leather that are lightening up (semi-dry). I find that if one side of the seat is drying to quickly or I only got half the seat dyed before having to re-soak my sheepskin, I end up with streaks or lines that show where the dye started and stopped. As for the cantle binding and horn cap stitching, I use an awl blade that I got from Bob Douglas... it's the larger of the two sizes he sells. I usually sew 6 stitches to the inch and use an 8 cord linen thread that I got from a local shoe repair supply house. L'Bum, After I dye a piece of leather like I described above, I let it dry completely. This gives the surface of the leather a light colored, dusty appearance. I start by using a soft old t shirt rolled up into a tight ball and lightly rub the surface of the leather. It's important that your ball of t-shirt is tight so that no wrinkles form on the bottom otherwise you can make "scratches" in the leather. It doesn't really matter if you rub in circles or back and forth as long as the t-shirt doesn't have any wrinkles in it. After the entire surface has a slight shine to it, I take a spray bottle and give the tooled areas a light shot with the bottle... you don't want to wet the surface, just dampen it. I then use a soft piece of canvas to "burnish" the surface of the leather. Start lightly and build up pressure and speed to create friction and heat... this is what will turn the raised areas of the carving or stamping a darker color. A couple things to be carfeful of... if you wet the leather too much or press too hard with your canvas rag, you will flatten your carving and it will look like hell. It sometimes takes two or three times of spraying the leather and rubbing with the canvas to get a good burnish on the surface. If you are burnishing some carving and there are areas of smooth leather around it, try not to rub on the smooth areas or you will wind up scratching the smooth leather with the canvas rag; An example of this would be on a saddle seat that is carved on the cantle or jockeys and not on the area you actually sit on. That is pretty much all I know about burnishing leather... alot of it is just experimenting, just keep in mind that it's the combination of slightly damp leather and the heat and friction of rubbing that leather that actually does the burnishing. Darc

That's a nice looking saddle Steve. Clean lines, smooth work, and a nice seat shape! Who made the tree for you? Darc

Hi Pete, there are a couple ways of getting that beaded line. You can use a beader blade in a swivel knife and freehand it or you can use a push beader tool. The push beader has a handle like an edger and a curved metal shaft and blade. Both tools are difficult to use smoothly, but I always had better success with the push beader. I got mine from Jeremiah Watt and have gotten use to it over the years... you need to sharpen them and strop them on a regular basis. I only bevel the side of the bead that the carving is on, the other side I don't touch. Darc

for those who asked, . I've altered the original photos at the top of this thread to show the saddle with the taps and added four more pictures with this post. The silver horn cap was made by Richard Tennisch of Merritt, B.C. Darc

Hey Greg, I don't have a serial number off that cantle back, I saw the saddle on Ebay and saved the photos. If I remember right the guy selling it said it had been in the family since it was new and was ordered around 1912. Darc

Hi Cowboygear, You can get trees from Karon Harwood (Dale's wife) relatively quickly... about 2 1/2 to four months from what i've heard; They are made by Warren Wright. I don't have a phone number for Karon, perhaps Alan or Greg could email it to you. I'm not sure what kind of price they are going for but would suspect around $450.00 making them about $200.00 more than a factory tree that you'll probably have to wait two months for. If you absolutely have to cheap out somewhere, try to find some lower priced, domestically tanned leather like Alan suggested. If you can manage to buy better leather, Bowden will sell you a couple of #1 Hermann Oak sides at the best prices I've seen short of ordering from the tannery (usually a 10 side minimum). If it works for what you want to build, I'd suggest building a roughout saddle to start... it's a little more forgiving finish wise and your seat and fork cover will mold a little easier cause you aren't fighting the grain of the leather. If you need advice while making that first one, make a post on the board here cause guys are quite willing to share some knowledge. If you can get a set of Jeremiah Watt's saddlemaking videos, it'll be the best $400.00 you'll ever spend. Darc

Here's a couple of photos of a very early 1900's Visalia saddle, probably 25 years or more before Hamley made the Wade tree... you be the judge of what's under the leather. Darc

Hi Cowboygear, It really doesn't matter if it is your first, second, or hundredth saddle, the fit for the horses comes from the tree alone provided the saddlemaker doesn't do anything to screw it up. If you want to get off on the right foot, wait for a handmade tree; it may cause you to be more careful and make sure of what you are doing while building that first one. It's like practicing anything with leather working, if you practice on a cheap piece of scrap you'll probably not do as good a job as if you were practicing by actually making something. It sounds like you have some skill and knowledge from being around the saddeshop; you should understand the three most important parts of the saddle are the tree, the groundseat, and the rigging. I have seen some pretty crude saddles made by working cowboys, on handmade trees that had all three of these aspects completed in a useful fashion, the saddles are all cowboyed out of on a daily basis and work as well as anything else out there. As far as a customer paying the extra bucks? It might serve you well to do what most saddlemakers have done in the past, work a little harder for a little less money... after you've made a few saddles and they start looking a little more refined, people will see you have a quality attitude from the tree on up and you'll start to build a customer base of people who are not financially strapped and looking for "cheap and nasty". All this said, if you are going to go ahead and get a factory tree, Bowden makes some of the better ones that I've seen. Darc

Thanks for the words guys, I've always liked the old style saddles, especially those out of California and I've always been a big admirer of Chuck Storme's work. I saw a portrait that Jay Dusard did of Chuck with a saddle in progress in the foreground and had never seen a tree like that one before so asked my treemaker if he could make something similar. It's a little difficult to tell from the photos but the widest point of the swell is extremely low down on the fork... makes it a little difficult to attach rigging because there is only about an inch worth of bar below the fork. The saddle in the photos is the second time I've built on that style of tree (the first one is my own saddle) and it was a custom job for a customer... not sure how well it shows in the photos but his last name starts with the letter "O" so I carved it on both sides of the cantle. The silver horn cap was made by Richard Tennisch of Merrit, B.C and he managed to copy the O into the center of the horncap... I'll try to get a better photo of the silver cause it's pretty nice work. I've attached a photo from a reprint of a Visalia catalog which shows a front view of their various forks... the one labelled KK seems to be similar from the front, but I'm not sure if that's where Chuck got the idea for the fork. The tree has a #4 Dally horn with a horn cap that finished up around 4 1/4"s. The Taylor cantle finished up around 5"s and is shovel shaped. The leather is Hermann Oak and dyed with Fiebings Pro_oil dye in a Walnut color. I usually burnish the carving when I dye a saddle, that way the recessed areas stay a little lighter while the raised areas get darker... gives it a little contrast. I probably have about 160 hours in the saddle ... I'm a bit slow compared to some guys... alot of that time is spent drawing carving patterns. Darc

Here's a few pictures of a Visalia style saddle I recently finished. It actually has 23" tapaderos with it but i didn't have a stand tall enough to photograph them with the saddle. Darc

Hey Alan, not sure if you got my email from a month ago, but any chance you could burn me a copy of those tapes as well? thanks, Darc

Hi everyone, Barra, I'm using the liquid wax that Campbell-Bosworth sells... they sent me a gallon when I had one of my machines down there a number of years back and I found it worked well for me. Art, I'm guessing the Landis bobbin won't fit in your Campbell winder unless the winder is somehow adjustable. I'm pretty sure that the Landis 3 bobbin is slightly longer than the Campbell. I've also got a Randall stitcher which is essentially a clone of the Campbell and the shuttle and bobbin are slightly shorter. It's interesting, you can use a Campbell or Randall shuttle and bobbin in a Landis 3 (noisy as hell) but the Landis 3 shuttle won't fit in the carrier of a Campbell or Randall. It's amazing how fussy these machines can get... one of my machines came up to Canada via Don King and Chuck Stormes and wound up in the hands of a hobbyist who sold it to me as reconditioned by a local sewing guy in Calgary. I've got a huge amount of money tied up in that machine including sending it to Campbell-Bosworth and having them get it run properly... It ran great for a couple of months after Connie and Randy had a go at it, but somewhere along the line it just gave up and to this day it still won't sew properly. My second machine, I drove half way across the U.S because I got a great deal on it from someone who was selling it for a friend. When I saw it in the guys garage I thought I was in for real trouble because it was pretty rough looking with a bunch of cowboy fixes on it. After I got it home I put a new needlebar and stand in it and I haven't had a problem with it ever. If you look through the throat of it, the long spring running horizontally is actually held to the old thread stand by a piece of twine; i've got an extra proper spring but I'm scared to change it because the machine is running perfectly! D.

Hi Mulefool, I think I hate winding bobbins as much as you and at one time I got so desperate that I started winding them by hand. I'm not sure if this is your problem or not, but I have experienced the same thing on both of my Landis 3s... you may be winding the bobbin too tight or you may not be winding your bobbin smoothly and evenly. I've found that when the thread is unwinding and gets to one end or the other of the bobbin, there is more tension on it and the thread can tighten itself and sink into the remaining layers on the bobbin especially if the bobbin wasn't wound smoothly and more often than not when about two thirds of the bobbin thread has been used. When this happens, it's virtually impossible to pull that thread out of the bobbin and I usually have to unwind the remaining thread by hand. I've had these types of problems when I've wound bobbins too tightly or when I don't run the bobbin thread through the wax pot prior to winding the bobbin. I've always found my Landis 3's a little fussy but because the stitching is so nice compared to modern needle machines , I work around the problems. I've also found my machines fussy about the kind of thread I run through it... if you had a change of thread about the time the problem started, you might try a different kind of thread in it. I'd start by winding the bobbins a little less tightly and make sure they are just as smooth as you can make them. If this doesn't work, try calling Campbell-Bosworth and talking to Randy or Connie. Randy is the mechanic there and Connie is the owner... they both know these machines inside out and may be able to suggest something else. They are very friendly and willing to spend the time on the phone trying to get things working for you. Their phone number is 1-800-327-9420 good luck Darc

Hi Pepi, Don101 brings up a very good point about the angle the clamp is set on. I am yet to see anyone commercially making a stitching horse that has the proper ergonomics to it. I've attached a photo of the one that I use that is roughly 80 years old. Found it on Ebay for about $100.00 and cleaned it up. You can see that the clamp is leaning to the left and slightly rotated to the right so that a right handed person has a better view of their work without leaning out to the side and and twisting their head to the left. The other benefit this setup has is that your right wrist is not bent inward when you shove your awl into the leather, instead the awl becomes a straight extension of the forearm and hand and the only bend is about a 90 degree at the elbow... much more comfortable angle to work from and easier to do consistently nice stitching. A good way to see the difference is to hold your left hand straight out in front of you and with your right hand, imitate the movement of poking holes with an awl. You will see how your right wrist is bent inward and how you have to lean outward to get a good view of your work; if you are sewing a few layers of heavy skirting like I am, you will quickly feel the difference. Now try angling your left hand off to the right a little and repeat the motion, you can see that your forearm, hand, and awl form a straight line... this is the angle you want to set your clamp when you build your horse. Darc

Greg, I'd sure like to see some people letting Chuck know that we really want to see a similar type of video coming from him. Anyone familiar with Chuck's work realizes he does things a little differently than Dale and that information needs to be available to future generations of saddlemakers. Bruce, "tape you sell that comes out of Colorado" may be the top selling tape in the nation, but comparing it to Jeremiah's tapes or Dale's tapes are like comparing apples and gorillas. Without a doubt Dusty's book and DVDs serve a purpose and they are priced accordingly to the market they serve... the beginner saddlemaker. As far as complaints go, I'd like to file one because every time an aspiring saddlemaker comes to me asking my opinion on sewing cantle bindings it costs me half a days work to set them straight. I won't put down the entire book or dvd because I think for the price and the information presented, it allows people to get a start without getting too heavily invested and that's a good thing cause after making one saddle, alot of people realize that the work is not easy and maybe not for them. On the other hand, I'd sure hate to think of any intermediate saddlemaker spending money on the series, looking to expand their knowledge or skills. Dales and Jeremiahs videos may cost more money, but the information is such that it allows people with some saddlemaking experience to deal with trouble spots or fill in holes in their skills. I for one would sure hate to miss out on some great information because of one retailer. Dusty's had lots of time to get the marketing down right... Dale's are hot off the press, I'm sure they'll get the marketing issues ironed out. Darc

Hi Roncal, If you are serious about saddlemaking and leather working in general, the best advice I could give you is to stick it out through the learning curve and learn to use the proper tools for the proper jobs; This applies to everything from roundknife use to handsewing. Learning to use a roundknife can be difficult and a bit dangerous, just remember to never keep your empty hand ahead of the knife... always to the side of the knife. It is very easy for the knife to skate off and take a finger with it. Roundknives have been the choice of saddlers everywhere for well over a hundred years and for good reason; They cut thick hides very well, can be made to cut relatively tight curves, they can be used for skiving and with two ends to the knife can be flipped over in the middle of a cut when one end has become dull. Stay away from cheap knives like the new Osbornes and some of the lower priced ones you see in leathercraft stores, they are part of the reason you will find it difficult to use this knife. Find yourself an old Osborne, Gomph, or W.Rose knife that is in good shape and have it professionally sharpened. If you cannot find an older knife, call Ellis Barnes in Arizona and order one of his $110.00 knives that will last you a life time and be indispensible on your bench. If you don't want to spend the money on one of Ellis' knives check Ebay for an old Osbornes knife (vs. modern Osborne)which is easily identified by the handle shape which is not flat on the butt of the handle... it is well rounded and smooth. Learn how to maintain a razor sharp edge on the knife and constantly strop the knife while using it to keep it razor sharp. A dull knife is difficult to use, dangerous as well, and you will never be able to cut gracefull curves with it. For times sake as well as avoiding leather waste, cut your patterns only once from the hide. When learning to cut saddle parts out of hides it may be easier for you to rough cut your patterns bigger than you need and after casing the part, cut it to the proper size. Cased leather is much easier to cut than dry leather, but avoid cutting wet leather as the drag of the knife has the ability to misshape soft, wet leather. When I am cutting patterns, I try to keep the point of the knife in the leather instead of cutting with the longer curved edge, this allows you to cut around tighter curves. Keep the knife vertical so that you are not undercutting the bottom of the leather... it's very easy to start leaning your knife around curves. If your pattern has a very tight curve, use an appropriately sized round punch in the curve, and cut up to the two sides of the curve. If you are cutting very thick hides that are really tight grained and firm, the knife can be rolled forward with downward pressure through the tough spots. Again, keep the fingers of your other hand to the outside of the knife; I often feel like I have an outward pressure on the knife so that if it does jump and skate away, it will be moving away from the fingers of my other hand. If you practice cutting cased leather, you will start to get the rythm and feel of being able to smoothly cut your patterns and in time it will become easier to cut dry leather. When skiving leather, make sure your knife is as sharp as you can get it. I only skive leather when my knife is sharp enough to shave hair off my arm. When skiving, your leather should have some moisture in it... I usually case my leather or skive while it's wet. It helps to draw a guide line with some calipers to the point you want your skive to end. Don't try to take off too much leather at once. If you are skiving 15oz leather, start about 3/4" in from the edge and try to cut towards the edge so that the edge is about 2-3 oz after your first pass; This will help you avoid thinning the edge too quickly and then having a ragged edge as the width of your skive grows. Avoid trying to push your knife straight towards the edge; A round knife has a long curved edge which should be worked in a side-ways slicing motion. It's like taking a knife and pushing the blade straight down through a tomatoe... doesn't work quite as well as a slicing motion which uses more of the length of the blade to create a clean cut. Skiving will take you more time to learn than anything, and you will be tempted to try every gimmick ever made to make the job easier. In the end, learn to skive with a round knife and you will do a quicker, cleaner job of it without the mess that some of the potatoe peeler skiving devices create. Darc

Hi Barra, I can't remember what I was taught as far as grain in or out and talking to saddlemaker friends I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference either way. I usually have the flesh side touching the bars so that the grain side of the stirrup leather is next to the horse. I'm not positive if it's fact or fiction but I've heard a couple guys claim that the grain side of the leather resists horse's sweat a little better. As far as stretching stirrup leathers, like Steve, I slick the dickens out the leathers while I have one end of them pinned to a board. I use a spike to stretch them as far as I can and then pin them down. I then take a couple of old spray paint cans and stick them between the leathers and the board to stretch them a little further. I've always maintained the stretch and set the shape of the fenders and twist on the drawdown stand because I haven't been able to justify the cost of the fancy stretching jigs on the market. I thought about building one but the drawdown stand seems to work fine and because I set them overnight, my stand isn't tied up during the day. Darc

I too was shown pounding the stitches with a wide face shoe hammer and it was for two reasons. I think the idea was flattening the thread helped to fill the hole made by your awl when handstitching, or the needle or awl when usuing a machine. Flattening the thread caused it to fill in the hole a little more to give it a more attractive appearance... it also served to prevent dirt from getting in the stitching holes and potentially wearing on the threads. I no longer do this because the machine I use is a Landis 3 needle and awl machine that is set up in such a way that the holes are extremely tight as they are. When I handsew something like a cantle binding, I use an overstitch wheel very lightly to give the waxed linen stitches a more uniform look. My feeling about pounding the stitches on a cantle binding is that I've used the stitch groover to recess the stitching, hammering on it will simply push the leather down on each side of the stitch and make it vulnerable to rubbing again. I suppose it depends on the item being made. Darc

I think that the item being made and the weight of the leather needs to be taken into consideration when making the decision to groove or not groove. As a saddlemaker, I would'nt even consider the idea of not using a stitch groover because most areas of the saddle receive alot of rubbing over the years and it is important to protect the stitching in this manner. Simply creasing the leather will not achieve this as effectively. In some areas such as flat plate rigging,which receives alot of stress, I groove the same line twice on the upper stitching. This is so after it is sewn, the threads are deep enough that the edge of the groove can be pushed over the stitching, almost completely covering the stitching from the constant motion of fenders and stirrup leathers rubbing back and forth. On a saddle I have never seen a problem that can be solely blamed on a stitch groove. I can't speak so much for lighter leathers, but on heavy leathers there doesn't seem to be any reason not to groove. Darc

In the end, it comes down to finding a knife with a good blade that suits the kind of work you are doing and a barrel that has an appropriate thickness and height that suits your hand. Thin barrels make quicker movements which helps for lots of tight curves... if you have long fingers you might want a longer barrel. My own knife is an Ol Smoothie by Chuck Smith... not sure it really improved my carving ability but it's sure fun to spin the cradle and watch it spin for ten minutes on the smoothest bearings you've ever seen! Darc

With all the talk about trees and fitting, I thought someone might find Jeremiah Watt's web blog interesting. He recently had three treemaking Aussies visit him and they got talking trees and some of the standardization problems that people have been mentioning here. Sounds like most of their ideas are quite informal at this time, but it might just be the kind of B.s session that sparks the fire. here's the link... you have to scroll down the page a little ways. http://www.westernfolklife.org/weblogs/artists/watt/ Darc

Hi, Just wondering if anyone has ever heard of a book or catalog (not sure which) put out by Fred Harsant? I think it's called "Saddles of the Old West". I have an old Chuck Stormes catalog that was sent to Fred in the 1970's, with a message offereing help in the research department for the book he was writing. I know that Fred was a saddlemaker and treemaker who apparently was interested in old saddles and did some nice work... other then that, can't seem to find anything else about him. thanks, Darc

Hey Steve, I think that everyone on your list has creativity and technical skills that make the average stamper say wow. I'd agree with you on Don King from the TCAA mother hubbard saddle alone. I'd also place R.Lloyd Davis up there as well as he is a personal favorite of mine; His later work was unbelievable but for one reason or another he doesn't often get the credit he deserves... maybe he should have stayed in Sheridan instead of going to Arizona. I may be mistaken about Ray Holes stamper but was it Bill Knight? Darc