bruce johnson

My first call tomorrow morning would be to Aaron Heizer at Makers Leather Supply in Elm Mott TX. Aaron is a Cobra dealer, leather and tool supplier, and teaches classes. He has a video on Canvas and leather bags a few years ago and may have done classes on them. Good guy and super approachable.

I don't see that anyone has mentioned granite inspection plates yet. You don't need a tight tolerance inspection plate for stamping on. I started out stamping on the 8x12 marble that Tandy sold and when my first wife died, the headstone company gave me a second stone with a small chip defect on an edge. It was good - plenty of mass for good stamp definition and absorbed sound well. The only thing that made me give it up was I wanted a bench with the stone inset and squaring up the edges was going to cost a bit. I ordered an inspection plate from Grizzly. They had a deal with Fedex Freight for shipping that was a smoking deal to get it to me also. They have several sizes of no-ledge and 2 and 3 inch thicknesses.

Just a generality and not for a specific place you mentioned because I have got leather from all three over the years, and several others. I have seen both versions of Tandy, Springfield once they spun off Tandy 1.0, and Weaver through the family and now corporate ownership. I have nothing against any of them - a few hiccups that were early on because I didn't know then to help them out. . These resellers are most often getting several grades of leather in a pile. The old rule of thumb used to be 25% good to great, 50% good, and 25% below good. They don't tan it, they just sell it. If you click a button and go to a checkout cart, good chance the order pickers/packers are going to just pull the top side of the stack - whatever that one is. Might be good, might be the bottom ender. I rolled those dice for a few years and got along, then tried another supplier I'd heard about. The phone rep asked me "what are you going to be making?". Umm rope can covers, nobody has ever asked me before.... "can you work around a brand?"...sure. I got a side with a rib brand that would have been problematic for belts, great for my needs on those rope cans. Another time I was making belts and needed several no-brand sides with no butcher cuts on the back above the break. Below the break could have tire tracks for all I cared. Told them that and I got nice sides with low breaks for good yield. Sometimes I was basket stamping the whole project and scratches didn't bother me, other times there were going to be open areas and I needed clean sides. The deal was I was talking to a live person and telling them what I was doing. That helps them and they get to know you. I called up Matt At Maverick Leather several years ago. I told him I had two saddles coming up and needed five nice skirting sides, at least two of them deep, and then the worst piece of crap skirting side he didn't want to look at anymore. He said he had a pretty good side he'd been cutting a few sample pieces out of. No need, keep cutting samples Matt. I want ugly to cut into little strips to test splitters and tool edges. That poor cow died from a bumper crop of ticks or several shotgun blasts. I leaned toward shotgun blasts because there were multiple brands. Likely a hooky old rip or a fence jumper. By golly we used her though and I helped him move subpar piece. Here is my advice - Establish a relationship with whoever you deal with. Not every project needs A-1 leather. If you are willing to take something less, they will remember that when you do need top shelf. My two cents worth of thoughts

There were good makers and poor ones throughout history. I really don't think there can be much generalization. What changed is that most older saddles were made to a quality and durability standard for the most part with a few catalog exceptions (Sears and Montgomery Ward). When horses went from a tool to a hobby then some rider's expectations changed. Cowboys needed users. Casual riders were different. They wanted something affordable to go ride down the trail for an hour or around a ring, not 4-8 hour days. Enter the pricepoint saddles. Materials? Maybe the hides were thicker, maybe they were tanned differently. Some of those old guys talk about drowning your leather until it stopped bubbling, then put into a sweat box to case for a day to be able to work it. Was it any better or worse? Who knows. The fact is that leather is a perishable product and leather weakens over time. Would I strap a hundred year old saddle on now and trust the rigging - oh hell no. The cattle business has changed - younger cattle, less brands and scars, and smaller hides. Leather has changed and tanning has changed. Those old needle and awl machines and waxed linen thread held a ton of saddles together. Nothing to sneeze at there. Saddle trees. - some are fiberglass covered wood, some are rawhide covered wood, and some are molded composites. At one time you could not sell a fiberglass covered tree to a great basin buckaroo - had to be rawhided and some buyers were specific as to who needed to make the tree. Likewise it was a hard sell to get a Texas roper to buy a rawhide tree - had to be fiberglassed. Both are right. The casual rider either didn't care. They'd buy a brand name saddle from a store and not care what kind of tree it had or who made it. Makers - Those older saddles were generally shorter seats and had a pretty ground seat in them. They were made for longer day users. New ones from a quality maker - sure. Production saddles - maybe to no. Ground seat, stirrup set, balance points - they all affect the ride. You can sit in anything for an hour but 5 hours changes that equation. The good makers know that. Good ones were good then and good ones are good now. Horse's backs have changed, riders have changed, materials have changed, information explosion has changed a lot of stuff too.

Wayne - The back side stitch in a closed eye machine will almost never look as clean as the top side straight out of the machine. That is yet another reason they make overstitchers. Bringing back a picture I did several years ago here for the forum. In the example below, the double layer was sewn on my 1245. The left side is the bottom stitch immediately after sewing. The right side is the same, but has been rolled with an overstitcher that matches the stitch length. That sets the stitches, and rounds them up by pushing down into the needle holes. The production stuff didn't get rolled much but once I got past that - if it was the back stitch was visible and my name was on it then it was rolled.

You bet. Most of those old stamp rocks were not smooth or surfaced on the bottom. I was taught early on the put it on something besides a bare tabletop. One reason is to muffle sound but you don’t want something that absorbs a lot of the stamp force . One common suggestion is a sand bed. I had one bench I could do that with - worked great. I’ve also used poster board. My current rock is a granite inspection plate inlet into the bench. It sits on a matching size piece of 4 oz chrome tan leather underneath. It’ll never be pulled out but absorbs sound and stamp bounce.

They delivered it with a lawn mower?

Did it for years. Diluted out Elmers about 50:50 with water. It makes a hard edge, not always the most flexible with that ratio. That was my mix for stuff that didn't need to flex - saddle horns, stirrups, belts. Wallets and things that flexed a lot I used Feibings LeatherSheen or an acrylic floor wax. With the Elmers especially you need to burnish with a wood slicker or white canvas. I found out the hard way that denim scraps from old jeans bled blue color into the glue.

Fred - Nice modifications and upgrades on an old trooper. These originals are definitely the way to fly. When the knockoffs first came out I bought a few thinking I could leave them to set widths. It would have been a good plan if they would have been square. Maybe one was. When I get them in sets now, they go on Ms Rundi's Table of Bargains at the leather shows for $5. The more recent ones seem to be more square but once in a while I still get some trash can fillers. I set mine up with single edge razor blades too. Those blades will cut softer leather cleanly and I used them up to light skirting before I saw the light with a good plough gauge.

I've got a Ferdco 2000 so essentially similar in many respects to a Cobra class 4. Also have a 1245 flat bed machine for strap work and small projects. Between those I could do anything I needed from interiors and card wallets to saddles. When I moved away from leatherwork to leather tools and my wife retired she took up leatherwork for fun and makes a few things to sell. She was intimidated by the 2000 and loves the 1245. She used a 26 in some classes she took at the shows the last few years. In January she decided she wanted a 26 and we ordered ahead to pick one up at the Prescott show in February. She loves it, and the side benefit is that it got her over the fear of the 2000 also. Bigger thread and more layers she might go to the 2000 now, but most of her bag and wallet work is done on the 26. She's using 138 top and bottom last time I checked.

Back when I was shopping machines money was a factor. Any powered machine that could reliably sew a saddle was either a relic that came with a spare machine for parts or cost around $6000 to buy new. My dream machine then was and still is - Ferdco 2000 with the original diamond hole bottom foot and all the accessory feet and plates. Leased mine for 5 years and paid $1 at the end to own it. Added a servo motor when they became more available. Still tight after at least $800K worth of stuff through it.

Looks great Kevin, I'm a fan of the look of snapping turtle as well.

Probably so… LOL. I found these on a quick search.

No, they are for using a mecate rein on a snaffle bit instead of flat reins. The rmecate is looped around the right slobber strap and through the hole and the knot makes a bind, the end is brought back to make a workable rein length and the tail is looped around and through the left side slobber strap with a bind over the tail, then brought back for the rider to tuck into their belt to use as a lead or a safety line to the horse in case you get bucked off. These are realistically a big country piece of gear. They are a weak link according to some to break if need be. Others want them a heavier for signal (the horse feels the slobber strap raise before bit pressure). Finally if the horse slobbers they help keep the mecate protected.