bruce johnson

Doug, I bought it at a local industrial supplier, kind of like Harbor Freight without the line of bargain bins down the aisles and brands you have heard of. They are a one or two location outfit. It was about $15 more than HF. Thanks for the compliments on the site and work. It is all in progress.

Buddy Holly, Boston, Louis Armstrong, Bachman Turner Overdrive, REO Speedwagon, Wylie and the Wild West, Dave Stamey, Bob Seger, Richard Elloyan, RW Hampton, Kandace Kalona, Adrian, Ian Tyson (really liking the new one), Juni Fisher, Eli Barsi. I have a few poetry compilations and a couple poetry CDs from Randy Rieman. I listen to those a fair amount too.

My press cost me under $200 at a place similar to Harbor Freight but better quality. It is more stable and the ram is true. The 20 ton was more solid and not much more cost than lesser ones. I put a piece of cold roll steel under a plastic HDPE cutting board. Leather on that, then the die, then another piece of cold roll over the top of the die. The scraps of cold roll were end cuts from a local steel yard. I figured that I'd have about $1000 for dies before I would have paid for a clicker. As it is, I have dies for cinch and latigo carriers, spur straps, and Rundi has two coaster dies. Once you have cut the first piece, you just have to let off enough to slide the piece out and replace the die over the leather. On skirting that is usually 4 strokes at the most. If you let it off all the way, then the ram will go all the way up and it will be like jacking a car up every time. I use mine for embossing plates and cutting plates too. I can also mold leather in press forms that would be difficult in a clicker. I just use the ram over the male part of a two part form. Makes molded cell phone cases and pliers pockets easier.

Doug, One of my friends has one of the Lucris ones and uses it a fair amount. With the cam action and mechanical advantage it is something like a 5 ton press. The bed is decent sized and the head is adjustable. He uses it for small clicking, embossing, and a cool thing is he can set his lettering stamps in place and press them all at once. He has a big clicker too, but this one is pretty handy. They aren't inexpensive though. I priced one a few years ago and they were about 1200 then. One recently sold on Ebay for more than that. For what I need to do, I use a shop press and steel plates over my dies to even the ram pressure across the whole die. Even on heavy skirting 3-4 strokes of the handle will go through it. Back off enough to slide the die and piece out and slide another in. Not as fast as a hydraulic clicker, but cost effective for what I use one for.

This is a border I have used a fair amount recently. I got the stamp pattern off a Porter saddle I restored. The original stamp was one of the McMillen patterns. Barry King made me one up for the saddle. I also had him make me up a couple in smaller sizes. I have done it single and doubled up between bead lines.

Skip, After I bought my first powered machine and it was not what I needed, I told LCSJ it would be nice to have a generic article on sewing machines regarding different feeding systems, flat-bed vs. cylinder arm, capacity, motors, etc. I had a supplier who volunteered to write the article or series of articles. It was ignored. At one of the Sheridan show we went to, I told the Reises that it would be nice to have a class in introduction to sewing machines. "Yeah, that's a good idea" and smiled at. I think that was the year the Artisan 3000 was introduced. When I mentioned it again at another show, I pushed the issue a little further. The explanation was the same as why some topics are omitted or seriously edited by the LCSJ. They don't want to tick off an advertiser. They are afraid that it could turn into an infomercial for or against a particular line of machines I guess. There are now several introductory priced machines that weren't available when I first got one. You only have to look at this forum to see the questions people have. Something that a little hands-on or show and tell could help.

Olaf, I read another forum for boot and shoemakers (www.thehcc.org). These guys are pretty traditional. In their archives there is some info on handwax (coad). It seems like they all make it up themselves. It sounds like the domestic sources for some of the "makings" are gone, and they have to import them.

A couple weeks ago Randy Cornelius asked me to post the purse pattern book I made up a few years ago. A little injury and some forced time out of the shop gave me the time to find my last remaining book and get it scanned in this morning. I think I printed up and mailed about 450 of these a few years back. These are some patterns I have used in the past, and still do. Some things I have changed, mostly the tooling patterns. The techniques have pretty much stayed the same. It is about 35 pages or so, and a big file - 15 MB. If I was more computer literate I could probably make it easier. Bruce_Johnson_Purse_Patterns.pdf Bruce_Johnson_Purse_Patterns.pdf

Sorry about the bad experience. I have had it happen from suppliers too. It looks like a tough business to be in, and deal with sources from all over the world and customers on the other. I am glad these independents are giving us a choice "B". Just to add a bit to my Hide House experience. Last week I took the morning and drove over and visited them in Napa. I had been a casual customer before. Roger had been my rep, and I had always got good service for my orders. I had recently ordered 3 sides, and it was some of the biggest cleanest sides I had got in a while. One reason for the visit was to see if they all were that good, or my order got "cherry picked". They mostly all were that good. The warehouse is pretty big and well laid out. Neatly organized and looked like a fair amount of labor pulling and filling orders. I had a few pieces I needed and Roger pulled them, then turned me loose to wander the aisles. He came back every so often, and the other workers would ask if we wanted anything pulled to look at. Just a very enjoyable experience, and I came away with more appreciation for what they have available. It also gave me a face to face experience. While not everyone has the luxury of living a couple hours drive from someplace like this, I'd recommend a visit to any suppliers you can. I also made a trip down to Buellton and visited Siegels a while back, another enjoyable trip and similar setup. Both of these are located in different "wine country" areas and could be destination get-aways too. ntex, Thanks for the heads up on the debit card deal. Something I hadn't considered before, and I appreciate it.

David, I think your time frame is pretty close. I redid one that has a very similar tree that dates to the 1920s. Some of the Pueblo CO saddles had that scalloped seat front too and that is a possibility it came out of Colorado.

Joanne, I want to say that "warranted" was on one of the production type saddles like Jumbo, one of the Miles City shops, or someplace like that. I just can't place which one. The tree style covers a bit of a time range. I think the seat front scalloped like that is very cool also. I don't know that it is peculiar to one maker though. The pattern looks to be wheeled on, so that tells me production too. One thing to consider is that back in the day this one was made, the production shops still competed with each other mainly on quality.

Jeremiah's edgers tend to run larger by number than most anybody else's. I would figure that a #1 would be pretty equivalent. That is the size I use the most for general work. Other than skirts and doubled reins, I mostly use the 3 and 4 for trimming rather than straight edging.

There is a link to an ebay sale of a stitching horse, and it got me thinking. I have that same Tandy model they sold several years ago. I have found it to be comfortable, the angle of the head right for me, and a good purchase that has paid back several times over. Some of you have heard me talk or write of the Irish harnessman who spent an afternoon and evening with me. A thoroughly enjoyable time, and I think about it a lot. He basically took over and straightened me out. He sharpened my "points" and the ones that didn't pass muster were turned into awl darts, a rousing game to play with Bushmills at hand. He showed me tricks of handsewing and tying in your buckles on strap ends, sewn or not. He took a horsehoeing rasp to my stitching horse's jaws to add a wee bit more taper to the top for finer stitching. He actually said it was much better to begin with than most of the pictured ones sold in America. The Tandy ones operate with the left foot. I had sat at some in other shops later that were right footers, and might as well have used some other part of my anatomy to run them after a few miles on mine. He said that traditionally the saddlers stitching horses were stood up with less cant to the jaws than mine, and were all right footers. Some had the strap to tighten the jaws, and some had a cam or other hardware on the outside of the jaws to allow deeper pieces to be sewn. The harness stitching horses had more cant, and were right or left footers, and most had the strap in the slot closure. He knew of no particular reason than that's just the way it is. Since we are pretty international and have a lot of traditionally trained workers on board here, I'd like to hear more about stitching horses and how they are ta' home, wherever that is......

Got your back, Shelley. I use a rotary knife a fair amount. I use one with my 6 foot ruler for straightening backs on up to skirting for straps. It just rolls right along. I use it to cut patterns out of chap leather. It seems to not kink up the really soft stuff going around an outside curve like my round knives do occasionally. I figure I am saving the edges of my good knives at the expense of a disposable blade. I use the pinking and scalloping blades on the rotary cutters for pinked and scalloped edges on chap and vegtan too. Now another confession. The first few chinks I did, I used a meat cleaver thinned down and sharpened enough to earnotch ants. I just set it in and rocked the blade to cut fringe. It worked out well until I dropped it and took a good sized chunk out of the middle of the blade. Now I use a round knife and the plastic straight edge. One other safety deal that hasn't been brought up about round knives too. Some people will rock them or "roll" the blade to make the cut. Some people are "pushers" only. My old pal gave me the warning several years ago about rocking. Some people will roll and make a cut from almost point to point of a round knife. If you are a rocker, never go past the most forward part of the blade (half way around) and you probably shouldn't even go that far. You are knuckled over and awkward. If you lose your grip or the knife slips or the piece slips, the opposite point of the round knife is quickly approaching your wrist. That knife is coming back towards you, and the downward and forward pressure you are putting on it will shoot that knife right back and up into your wrist. I guess nobody needs the anatomy lesson that cutting any of those things like tendons, ligaments, nerves, and blood vessels will be a bad thing, more severe than a string bleeder ever thought about doing to a guy's foot.

Joanne, I have seen "warranted" before and it is just escaping me. Don'tchajusthatethat?! They sure haven't increased any value on it with the cantle job and looks like the stitching holding the felt on is not very whippy either. Those might be fixable. The biggest detraction is the illegible makers mark. Most of the time a lesser condition with a good mark will beat out a better saddle with an illegible mark. If there is some provenance that always changes things, but I am pretty sure this saddle had some age in the 60s when he bought it. Too bad, it is a cutie.

Pete, If we were to vote on it, there would be some good company but yours would be the funniest today in my opinion.

Knut, I had a treemaker set a 115 degree bar tree on one of my horses, and it it was not really out of line. There are no absolutes and horses have really proven themselves to be pretty tolerant, so there are a few schools of thought about how to make the changes for varying widths and angles of backs. To dispense with one school of thought, some say it just doesn't matter what the measurements are, fitting is bogus and saddlemakers need not concern themselves with trends of how some horses have changed. One school of thought is that with wider profiles, we need to increase the spread of the bars and not change the angles. Another school of thought is the angle is changing, but the vertebral process is in the same place, so we need to change the angles and not the width. In other words, we still need to be a couple inches lateral to the vertebral process on top and that doesn't change because a horse is more angular or flatter. You just open up the angle to be somewhat congruent with the wither profile and keep the surface area on the horse. I think both of the latter two schools of thought have merit. They both get the surface area on the horse, and time and testing might prove if one is better than the other. Some will change spread widths and angles together. Denise and Rod can bring this up again, but I think the difference in angles with the same spread between 90 and 93 degree bars is pretty small - makes for something like 3/16" at the bottom. It is not a huge number. The deeper the bar pattern the wider this should be, and their patterns are pretty deep. Also treemakers can determine how they measure this angle differently. Comparing a 90 degree bar from one treemaker to another may not even be the same finished angle, so it really needs to be compared within the same maker.

I'll admit I am not a Star Trek fan, Gunsmoke and Lone Ranger were more my speed. About all I know is one classmate in school had a Tshirt that said "He's dead, Jim" on one side and "Absolutely I will not interfere" on the other. Those are my Trekkie quotes. That said, Harvey asked me to post his pictures. So with the cyber-lost leading the cyber-blind, we'll give it a go. Here they are (or should be).

I got mine today too. I am figuring Santa must be in on the delivery for everyone to get them this close together, I can't see the postal service being that efficient. Usually my magazines show up about a week after most everybody else. I have subscribed for several years. In that time he has moved a few times and had some good and bad employees. He just moved again. I see he is in Maine now, was in Virginia last I think. Pretty much a one man show, and is a pretty decent source of information and advertising. One thing I notice is that there is no real pattern to getting them. I have gotten two separate month's issues in the same week, and gone almost two months with nothing.

I would pull it and fix it too. Feed as much excess into the dish as you can and then compress it with rubsticks or bouncers. I go for compression rather than stretching and beating into the cantle or gullets whenever I can. They just stay tighter for me and what I use. As it dries and shrinks back, it will stay tight instead of tenting up. If it is pulling away now, the glue is probably gone and you need to reglue if nothing else. Also some weight in the dish as it is drying will help too.

I would recut the whole topline of the skirts including the point that goes up into the handhole. That will raise the whole skirt front to back and keep the bottoms even, then reblock them. There are some barrel racing mother hubbard rigs that are frogged at the back, but what I see as the difference is they are shorter skirts almost tight to the bar points, and the good ones flare up across the middles. I am still more comfortable with lacing, but that may just be me.

My thoughts would be to cut a new topline on the skirts and raise them up and lace. If the gap is 3/4", then if you fix them, it would take 3/8" on each side. Unless you have a pretty small shallow pattern to start with, that 3/8" shouldn't matter much. Cut a topline, reblock them to account for the raise, and go right on. My thoughts with a frog is that you might have problems with the stitching coming loose or tearing through. There is some flex on the skirts that is not there on the jockeys. How's everything else going with it? No apologies necessary for going back to an old post either, in fact our collective thanks are in order. Having a topic all in one thread just makes it much more searchable. It is easier to have everyting in one place for future reference and new folks joining. We encourage everyone new or old to go back and add to old threads as necessary.

"I was going to get a chimp for the extra hands but then I heard about what happened with that chimp in New York, so I decided I'll get married next year." That may be as good a reason to get married as any. Just remember you were warned. I would not ask the new bride to hold the piece while you sew with the box attachment, or it will be couchville.

Yeah, you push them just like a Tandy. Barry King and Ron Edmonds make similar ones too, and old ones were made by a few companies. Unlike the Tandy, these sharpen and strop very easily, will do pretty tight inside curves, won't chatter as much, and will cut a rounded corner rather than a flat bevel.

Brent, I am not sure our guy wasn't a crook either. There is one bright spot in this deal. Theoretically he can only be paid by PayPal, his money will be held until he gets good feedback, and he can't leave bad feedback for the buyer. Isn't the braintrust of Ebay brilliant??