bruce johnson

Art and Ann, Thanks for doing the newsletter, Ann. Thanks for referring to it Art, and thanks also for the testimonial on the LED lights. I was wondering also. I have bought 3 of the Artisan standard lights, and think they are the best ones I have used. Powerful enough to light the way, and small enough to be out of the way.

Roo, That hide looks familiar. I am thinking that it looks a lot like the "frogs" I buy from Jerry Van Amburg. Pretty cheap and makes dandy little inlays. Shameless plug for Jerry. I have seen him pass out free frogskins to little kids at leather shows. You know they were there with their folks, and weren't going home with anything but a case of boredom. Jerry gave them each a frog, and they had something to talk about at recess on Monday. Good guy. Scouter, I enjoy slugs. I am a slug salter from way back, and passed on the tradition to my son at a tender age. Twenty years later we still enjoy a good salting together. If I dig back in my music archives I am sure I can come up with Too Slim's (of Riders in the Sky) version of the Salting of the Slug.

And then to further confuse the issue, we have '58 Wades, Homestead Wades, Cliff Wades, .....

Jon, I am not the most computer savvy guy, but here's how I do it. First I have the pic(s) individually on my desktop, I'm not very handy with files. I hit the browse button on the LW.net reply window and bring up the desktop. I click on the picture icon I want to highlight it and hit "open" on that little window there. That should bring a string of numbers or letters into that little box on the LW.net reply window next to the "browse" key. I hit the green "upload" button, and let it cycle through.

Alan, Yes the way the groundwork is put in has as much or more effect than the tree width through the waist. However the wider tree in the waist can have more build up in the center, be scooped for the thighs, and narrowed up top to make the same profile as a narrower tree. This is almost like the pitch of a roof thing. If you don't have as much build up on the narrower tree, and leave them fuller across the bars, you could make that one ride wider. I keep thinking back to those early flat seat cutters. They were much like straddling a 2x12. Some women had a heck of time in them. I did, and I was pretty skinny back then. As an aside, I have 4 different Timberlines sitting here. The Association (bronc tree) has the narrowest width of 8". The two Dee Picketts have a width of 9-7/8".

Alan, I am pretty much in agreement with Darcy's take. Pete Gorrell has a pretty good little section on this he brings up in some of the classes. Basic take-home is a wider spot for the pins, faster narrowing forward, and a narrower or more "pinched" rise and/or more thigh scoop for increased contact because women are theorized to carry more mass inside the femur than men. Regarding trees, as the Nikkels are prone to say, no two tree makers do anything alike. I have two of theirs here, three Timberlines, and have built on Sonny Felkin's too among others. Comparing Wades to Wades here - same handhole width. The Felkins bars are very similar to the Timberlines in shape and thickness. Rod's bars are thicker and wider, they drop deeper. They are a bit wider through the waist. Just put my 24" wing dividers to Rod's and the Timberline. The Timberline is about 9-1/8 wide measured at the narrowest point (rear stirrup slot) and Rod's Wade is about 10". For what it is worth, I think this Wade from Timberline is one of them I ordered with a "half-narrow" bar. It is supposed to be a 1/2" narrower bar in the waist, and I have been told it is the Lady Wade bar pattern. If we figure a 45 degree slant for arguments sake, then a half inch of narrower bar should make each side a little less than 1/4 narrower. The engineers can help me out with the math here. Rod's bar is 4" wide measured with the plane of the bar here, vs. the Timberline which is 3-1/4, both in the rawhide. So yes, you can get a narrower tree from Timberline. I have built three for a guy who rides the tar out of them, and he likes a narrow seat. They have worked for him.

Ryan, That is a very cool buckle, and congratulations again.

Happy Birthday Kathy from Rundi and I. Hope you have a great day, and yak it up with all your friends.

Mike described the function well. I used to buy them by the 6's at the local architectural salvage place. I made nice handles, and then watched them roll off the bench, hit the floor, and break. I got to where I just wrapped the square metal stem that went through the door with duct tape. They broke just as easily, I just had less labor in them. A couple years ago Norm Lynds made me one that hat has two ends on it. One is smaller and has more curve to it. Like all of Norm's tools, nicely made and very functional. I'll attach a pic of Norm's.

Don, A few issues I see with the shearling padded seat. They tend to get lumpy sometimes as the fibers go one way or the other. Pretty tight quilting patterns help prevent that some, but that also makes hard lumps between the stitch lines. THe high spots tend to wear pretty quickly. As they are used more, the wool packs down, just like it does on the skirts. Also I have seen little tufts of wool working up through the needle holes from the quilting. A guy up the hill from us used to do those shearling seats. My first wife's saddle he made is quilted pretty heavily with fancy stitching. Much like sitting on a lumpy rock. It will eat on you after a a while. One of those things you just can't bring yourself to sell though.

Blake, Thanks for the info. After I did that seat, I got some gray dense foam from Don Butler. He said it was AC foam (1/2"?) and he bought a pretty large quantity of it. Since then it has been slick seats, and haven't got to try it yet. I would like to get some a little thinner like maybe 3/16 or 1/4" for the barrel saddles and some of those type seats. Let me know a contact for Rubatex. The good thing is I haven't had to reseat a Dale Chavez couch cushion for a few years, just thought of that. Thanks for tip on the English veg pig. I haven't used that, but have used some pig suede on some of the padded seat repairs. Do you or how do you attach your inlaid seats to the seat?

Might as well brew another pot and add another related topic to Ryan's saddle. How does everybody do a padded inlaid seat? I have done one, and was having a heck of time finding the right foam. Most was too soft for what I was looking for, or my previous experience was that some broke down. Eventually that would leave a crater. I backed up and made a buildup of 3 layers of scrap chap leather, glued each layer and then edge sewed the pad. I used elephant for the seat, figuring two things. One was that it was durable, the other was that it came pre-wrinkled. I had watched a guy put in a padded seat who had done several. Demonstrations are doomed to failure, and his roo wrinkled. Mine came out pretty decent. Since then talking to several guys, no two are alike. Some guys use a thin backer and sandwich the padding, others stitch the seat cover in and cement the seat and pad down to the ground seat. Some guys use foam, others use a chap buildup. All techniques, tips, tricks, and trivia are welcome here.

I sew stingray inlays on spur straps with my flatbed with no deflection either. Biggest issue I had heard from a couple motorcycle seat makers was that stingray was abrasive on jeans. I think it was before the crash that Greg said he hadn't seen problems with it. Others have since said the same. Biggest problem I have had is that sometimes the cut edge will be sharp - paper cut type injuries. A quick pass of the Dremel will smooth that up. On another note, what is everybody using to cut it with? I have been using the "super scissors" that we used to cut pennies with. I found the $4 ones last about 3 times as long as the center aisle ones at Harbor Freight.

Barra, I like it. I got my money's worth out of it.

Keith, The more I think about this, the more I am inspired. I understand that there are only so many customers that can afford or desire that pricetag, but it does prove to leatherworkers that there is room to go up. It gives me faith when there are customers that will pay that for a belt, boots at 10K, and saddles are selling for 50K. I was in a shop last year, and watched them quote a guy $400 for a plain basket stamped belt, lined and stitched. They had a rack of $55 Vogts off to the side that to most people would have been hard to tell the difference. Customer ordered the shop belt with a 6 week wait. There is room at all levels. It also gives legitimacy that what we all are doing is an art and people are willing to pay for something that has our name on it. Then to further make it real, they are using it as intended.

Ryan, Usual neat job. Folks, just to show how humble Ryan is. We were talking on the phone Friday for a while. Chatting about we had been up to, recent local events. He mentioned he had been to the show at Kamloops, and said Chuck Stormes was the judge, it was humbling to have him look at your work, etc. What Ryan failed to mention was that he WON the contest. I have to read it here. Congratulations.

I would probably start with the Lexol products. Use the cleaner first to get rid of the "grunge". Most of these have a finish coat applied that resists penetraion of much for quite a while. It may all be surface. If it needs some conditioner, then I have used a light coat of Lexol conditioner for these. If the leather is cracked, it is gone. Any of the "leather-fix-in-a-can" products are just superficial, but may patch it for a while in this application.

Keith, Thanks for the explanation and breakdown. Great job on the belt, it really sets off the set well. Impressive is about all I can say.

Clay, Great job on the tutorial. Yep ol' pal, you should teach. Your figure carving and embossing are great. Even I would take a class, and I leave figure carving and silverwork to those who can. I had 6 "do-overs" to get one to pass eons ago when they had the Tandy Leather College thing going. My squirrels looked like bears, my deer looked like a bear, my bear looked like a pig, my grass was fat and looked like a crop of sticks, and my trees had leprosy. I finally passed with a "snake in the desert scene". I can tool sand, rocks, and a cactus. I would also be willing to serve as seargent-at-arms if necessary and will do a fruit-check at the door. If you get nervous, imagine the students as a bunch of monkeys (the imagine them in their underwear thing is not PC anymore apparently). Second thought, monkeys don't fling fruit..... There is a reason that monkeys are behind glass, we know what they toss. Ernie and I got your back, but we'll stand behind you.

To give credit for using the low point of the front and back bar pads as references. I first heard it from an older guy sitting in on one of Pete Gorrell's roundtables at a Reno LCSJ show. His name escapes me, but it was a pleasure to just hear him talk about some of the old days and ways. Old men are generally wise. He had a few other pearls. One of my favorites was cutting strap work. In the old shops the foreman usually cut the parts out. On the really good saddles they cut the strap work and stirrup leathers out of the righthand sides. Reason being the rumen sits to the left side of the living beast. The rumen is filling and emptying, creating methane to ruin our environment, eructates or bloats up, fills on good feed and sags in on poor feed. All of that creates a just a little more stretchiness in the finished left sides in that area. I have never heard that referenced to before or since, but it makes sense to me. I do it just to honor the thought.

Alright I am not the most internet savvy guy. This higher speed connection deal has enlarged my horizons though and a pal introduced me to internet radio a few days ago. Who'd a thought of that?? I am not exactly a mainstream listener of broadcast radio. One suggestion he made was www.ranchandreata.com. Streaming radio of mostly the western persuasion. Pretty listenable for me. Other than the Yahoo ads, Wylie doesn't get much regular airplay on the top 40 stations. He's here. Another site worth checking out is www.clearoutwest.com. A couple of horsehoeing brothers from Pinedale WY have an hour long weekly radio show. They have the current one streaming on their website, and the past year's episodes are archived. I downloaded some and saved them to CD. A little humor, history lesson, music, and poetry in an hour. These boys are funny. I am getting looks at the stoplights laughing in the cab by myself. Any other suggestions are welcome.

JW, I haven't done a ton of these either. I was taught to put my fillers on the back, probably doesn't matter a whole lot once you have the reasons set in your mind? The last Cheyenne roll I did, I put it on the front and got a pretty good break. That was prior to the Cheyenne roll discussion, and I have some new fish to fry on the next couple after ythat discussion. Rawhide bindings are one of those things guys like or hate. Some guys can keep them intact. Others will wear and abrade laying under the gooseneck on the flatbed. Then the weather will eat them. I was shown a few years ago to put a strip of heavy skirting on from the back the width of the crimp depth. Glue it in place, secure it with a running stitch, and put the binding over that. The backside stitching lays right in the channel under that little lip. It gives you a little ridge to catch the fingers into if you are a saddle lifter and not a slinger. Makes kind of a cute little lip and look. I am not sure if it is a finger roll, pencil roll, or what. I am thinking those terms could stand some explainin'. I would also like to expand on this and have some guys explain how they do a blind stitch. I had one of Ryan Cope's over here, and it was about as good a job as it gets. Very clean and no marks evident.

One other thing about the Hopper book. Probably a third of the book is dedicated to patterns for other gear - saddle bags, hobbles, halters, bucking rolls, etc. I find these a good resource sometimes too.

Andy, When I had my 205, it would do that once in a while. Most of the time it was because of some crud or a loose piece of thread getting down in the shuttle or around it. Other times it would be because I wasn't holding the ends tight enough at the start, and the top thread would get down and loop around the hook and then not pull up tight. This usually happened more often when I started off in reverse. I had it happen also if the top tension came loose for some reason. The first few times this happened I was a machine neophyte. The service guy told me to check the bobbin case for something sticking out or catching the catching the top thread and not allowing it to be pulled up all the way. He advised applying a drop of oil the the case and wiping it around with my finger before sewing everyday. Other times the hook would spear the thread and it wouldn't pull up. All that other space and that hook point decides to dead center a thread.

Looks like a weapon that some of the old-line makers call a trimming knife. There is also a similar knife I saw somewhere called an Encher-something pattern. Looks pretty cool, and it should work pretty well. It might have a real name in Salaman's book on leather tools.