daviD A Morris

Is it a saddle that you made? Where does this rider position his saddle? Some riders tend to place the saddle so that the front-bar-pad is right up on the shoulder blades. - this could cause the soreness that you discribe. If I were in your position I'd be asking to drop the skirts off for a better look. Check that the screws which fasten the front rigging are not too long and gone right through the tree and out the other side. And ditto everything that Jon just said. just trying to help dam

Given those measurements, I don't believe the problem is as I described above - so forget that! At least from my experience anyway. Is the same symptom occuring equally on all of those horses? regards dam

Is the rider using a breast collar to try to hold the saddle in place? I have often seen the situation where a horse has no "wither pockets" at all, in fact the opposite, big bulgy trapezias muscles ( I think it is the trapezias??? ). These are the horses that measure D7, D8 or D9 accross the wither. This is often accompanied by an R12 rock. What happens is the saddle keeps trying to slip back till those front bar pads are in behind that muscle, so then the rider uses a breastcollar to try and hold it forward. What then happens is the saddle slips back as far as it can and the breast collar then forces it into the back of that muscle with ever stride that the horse takes. Not saying that this is what is actualy happening in your case, just something that I have seen a lot. dam

I'd be interested in seeing what the horses measured. Could you post the results here? Thanks dam Bruce, That was a good and concise explanation, I like it, you have a very good understanding of it.

How close is the "fitsright" to the tree used in the "Steve Tucker" saddles. I've seen one of those trees and I've seen a finished "Steve Tucker" saddle but no idea how they put the ground seat in. My personal experience of "flexible" trees has been all bad, however the "Steve Tucker" saddles do satisfy a lot of customers. I'll bet he'd sell more of those in one week than I'd sell in 10 years. What am I missing? It seems the more I learn the less I know! dam

Steve, Dale may have just made all the hardware himself, but I'm not sure of that. I know that last year when I visited with him, I was looking at a pair of half sized blevins which he had made himself, all by hand, and exquisitely made, he said "you're lookin at a $500 pair of blevins there - considering the time I've put into them!" There would be very little in this world that Dale would not be able to make himself if he wanted and put in the time. regards dam

Well said Denise, you understand and explained it perfectly. The DL measuring system just gives a set of numbers/sizes to the shape of a horse's back. Tree makers don't have to change their trees just work out what the DL measurement is of the horses that they have designed each of their trees sizes to fit idealy. Of course the trees will fit a range of horse measurements to varying degrees of comfort. I'd like to say here that I commend Francis Bowden for so quickly being so open minded to DL system when he saw it at Sheridan this year. Within a few minutes he was able to see the essence of what it is about - "just measuring the horse and giving it a number" not trying to tell treemakers that they need to change the shapes of their trees. regards dam

Welcome to the board AnnieO, I have known Hans for many years and he is one great craftsman can't enough good things about him as person and a saddle maker. Hope you enjoy the course and this forum. dam

Hi Guys, To anyone who may wish to contact us (us being Dave Morris, Dennis Lane & Hank Statham) between now and June 7th, we are in the USA & Cananda, and can be contacted at: damorris@exemail.com.au We are "on the road" so we will only be checking that email address every couple of days. We are having one amazing trip, meeting lots of you guys, and looking forward to meeting more of you. bye for now dam

Need some help here. I've been asked to put nylon webbing latigos on some saddles. What is the secret to making holes for the buckle tounges? Or is the secret -"only use webbing latigos as tie latigos, not with tounged buckles"? I thought that I should test drive some myself first. I melted holes for the buckle tounge and after 4 rides the melted bit around the holes had craked and then frayed. I'm definately not happy selling something that is going to do that. All suggestions and help greatly appreciated. regards dam

Just a couple of quick notes: Only open up the front of the pannel I use my pannel stuffing iron to hold the pannel open while working on the girth points The whole operation is a bit awkward but beats the time involved in any "awkwardness saving measures" I find the near side one more awkward than the off side. Make the wholes in the Girth point first, seperately, beforer you start. big coarse stitches about 4 per inch When lacing/stitching to the webbing, if you use an awl like in these photos, do not use a regular stitching awl that is sharp on the edges. THIS IS IMPORTANT. a sharp awl will cut the fibres of the webbing, use a round awl or here i have used one which is very blunt on the edges, it has to SEPRERATE the fibres of the webbing not CUT them. The saddlers that i have worked with in england don't even use an awl they use a very large needle an just push it thru using a thimble. With older saddles, carefully check the condition of the webbing. and always tell the customer to always use a surcingle with these saddles. there are a few tricks for what to do if the webbing has deteriorated but that will have to be for another post. Hope this helps. dam

I have noticed this in MSword. If I insert a 100kb image (of any type, jpg, gif, etc) into a word document, it actualy adds 200kb to the size of the word document. I'm interested to hear why this would be and if there is any alternative. thanks dam

Jim Yes that is RM's son, he is somewhere in South East Queensland, I'll PM you his phone number regards dam PS. Hows things goin with the SHMAA?

Pics of the Dean Williams whip strander. the width adjustment has 2 "stops" on it, one for your narrowest setting, one for your widest. Then as you cut your tapered strand you just automaticaly start at the narrowest (or widest if you want to taper the other direction) that you have set it and gradually work out to your widest setting. Widest that it will cut is about 7/8"

Advantages of the "Dennis Lane" card system are: - it instantly gives you a "size/category" or whatever you want to call it. - there is no need to post anything to the treemaker or saddle maker, just tell'em over the phone or email as long as they use the same system. - one set of cards measures an infinite number of horses, well infinite, untill the cards get damaged or lost! - cost around US$50 - 70 including postage. price of the production line modells not set yet. Disadvantage: - the time that it is going to take for a number of treemakers to become familiar with it and work out which sizes of horses each of their particular trees fit. The system is still in its infancy, still setting up that web site, and will need the treemakers and saddlemakers to be familiar with it. It certainly is not intended to be a "prescriptive system" which advocates HOW a saddle tree should fit, it just measures and categorises the horses back as it is on that day. regards DAM

If you are only replacing the billets then there is not need to take out those nails. regards dam

I've been using one of those RM Williams stranders most of my life, have know a lot of other people who've used them for a long time and this is the first I've every heard of putting it on the left thumb! BTW Dean Williams sells a very nice strander, a bit more complicated but heaps more versatile than the RM strander. I got one a couple of years ago. It was only about $100 and that included a complete set of instructions on making a kangaroo hide stock whip. This strander is realy good for doing tapered strands and also caters better for variations in thickness of the the hide and you can also take it off of the strand at any point and putt it back on without threading all the way out tto the end of the strand. Up till then I spent most of my life using the thumbnail method when ever I wanted tapered strands or mutliple strand cut together at one-time. if any one is interested I'll get a photo of Dean Williams's whip cutter's strander onto here. regards dam

OK, so you can get a many colors of sharpie. Here is Aus i've only ever seen red, black and blue. But that is a typical situation of the variety of supplies available in the USA compared to aus. I'll look out for some other colors of sharpie when i'm there in May. Thanks dam

I think that they are brilliant!! And very nice photography as well. The idea of using a sharpie sounds good. Has anyone thought of having sharpies (or the equivalent of) loaded with Fieblings (alcohol based). Maybe someone could suggest it to Fieblings as a good way of applying dies accuratley to small areas in a more controlled manner than brushes, which can drip. Or am I behind the game and it has already been done.

Those are amazing dog collars. Where did you get the photos of the antique ones? I'm also curious about how they work. Do the keepers (loops) slide on both parts of the strap or are they fixed to one part? dam

I agree with Rod and Denise. I also think that to keep things in perspective - I want to improve the "macro fitting" before I get to the "micro fitting" From what I have read here over the last 6 months accross a number of topics on these forums - there is a spectrum of aproaches to this "fitting of saddles to horses backs". Starting at one end of the spectrum and working down I have seen:- The "one-size-fits-all" group who say " get a good saddle and it'll fit all good shaped horses. all you people that are into "fitting saddles" are just worrying yourselves for no good reason, are you goin to make a saddle specific for every single horse - where will it all end?" The 3 or 4 sizes fits all group - "full QH, semi QH, TB, Arab" thats all you need to know, nothing more nothing less. MACRO FITTING - This group is where I put myself - I just thought up this group now The "Micro fitting" group - who came up with this term? first I ever heard of micro fitting was on this forum. - I think their approach is to fit a tree specifically to a particular horse - and personaly I can't see why these trees won't fit other horses of similar shape. So whats wrong with that. Unless, that particular horse is very unusual. The "I'm so concerned about causing my horse the least discomfort that I realy should never even get on its back" group. Tell me if you think I'm wrong

Adam, Thanks for clearing that up about "fired muscle". Terminology vs slang can be a stumbling block. What I call "ball" is the side to side rock of the bar. I have heard other also use the term. But here is one of the great problems slowing down the advancement of saddle tree design - lack of some consistent terminology. It is making the communication very ineficient. however these forums are going to speed up the evolution of the terminology. The more we talk the quicker it will evolve. To see a bar that has a lot of "ball" to it look at some of the older western saddle trees from back 1960 and earlier. bye for now dam

Adam, I only just noticed that you are new to the board. WELCOME, I'm looking forward to more of your posts. Forgive me for asking such a dumb question - but what do you mean by "topline is fired" I have not heard the term before. Acutaly the whole question "Is that designed for the case where the topline is fired, and the back dropped, or a worse case then that?" Lost me, but I am just a dumb saddlemaker regards dam

Adam, You sure have done a heap of work on this. What CAD program are you using? Personly I use AutoCad but only because when I first went to work as an engineer thats what the company used and I don't have time to learn anything else. Just a little something that "jumped out at me". Many years ago, back in the 1980's I went around making plaster casts of horse's backs and from them i made the fibreglass replica of the horses backs. This was to help me understand the true shape of horse's backs and one of the things I noticed which was different to what most people have stuck in their minds about what they think a horse's back is shaped like, is contour of that cyan colored line in this drawing or yours. Notice where you have the numbers 7, 8, and 9 that the line is convexed almost like the horse has a bump there, It is only slight and I find is further down the side, where the ribs "spring out" than what appeas in your drawing, but that is the nature of 3d stuf. When i first noticed it i thought it was something to do with my casting method. interensting that you have the same thing. This begs the question, if you are "micro" fitting this horse are you going to make the tree-bar concaved in that area? personaly it did lead me to flattening the bar in that area. But when i say that, i had previously just copied the old factory made trees from the USA, which had a lot of "ball" to them. With a bar that is convexed placed against a convex shaped horse the preasure is increased. (Of course you know that, just adding for benefit of other readers) The benifit of bars with a lot of ball is that while they will not fit any horse extreemely well they not be extreemley "bad" on a greater range of horses. Unlike the flatter bars, which will fit some horses very well, but on a horse that they are not designed for, the edges, which ever edge it is that makes contact, will cause severe problems. On another point - I am curious that you said ".... the seat should ideally be centered in the middle of the span of the bar..." It appears to me that the brown saddle on the horse in that photo has the lowest poiint of the seat way back towards the cantle, the bars appear to be quite short behind the cantle. Thus it appears, in the photo anyway, that your weight would be place a long way to the rear of middle. Your post is very detailed, I'd like to have more time to discuss more with you. looking forward to yuor reply. dam

Best report I ever heard from an American about vegemite was, "it makes for great axle-grease" dam