bruce johnson

Kevin, I assume this is a knife used for leather. It is hard to tell if the top edge has been sharpened. In fact hard to tell if the whole knife has ever been really sharpened. I would think with the long belly of the blade it will track pretty straight and would be a strap cutting or straightening knife. Turn it over and it would cut curves. I had one email from someone who saw a whipmaker use a knife like this. I had another email that it was a variation of a bridle cutters knife. Nobody has ID'd the maker yet. I am pretty sure someone mentioned the M/hammer/F logo here sometime in the past, but I am not finding it. Regarding the lino knife. I haven't tried that, but my favorite hook blade knife is $5 grape cutters knife from the surplus store. It holds an edge like nobody's business. I haven't seen a 12" round knife yet, I think the biggest was just a bit over 7".

Denise, You have found the equine version of www.peopleofwalmart.com.

I picked up a pretty cool looking knife yesterday. Looking at some old catalogs I can see the pattern is the same as the Enchancree knife that Vergez Blanchard makes. The maker stamp on this one has an "M" on the left side of a hammer silhouette and an "F" to the right. It rings a bell with me that someone mentioned who this maker was in the past, but not finding it right now. Any help is appreciated is appreciated as to maker. Also, any personal experience with this style of knife is a bonus to us all.

Truer words have not been said for a while. I know zippo about cue cases, but if you inserted names of holster makers, saddlemakers or whatever and referred to them, it would be universal no matter what our baliwick is. The cue case making deal looks like a pretty tight market, and coming up with something innovative is no doubt going to be copied. With the apparently limited number of makers, appropriate credit is a bigger deal for customers in a smaller market. In a bigger niche it is more common to hear "Who taught you to do that?" from another maker than from a customer. Pretty much every maker I have been around has been very helpful with sharing and most all of them pass on who they learned it from.

CD, That is a Landis 1. I'll leave to those more knowledgable about how it performs.

Shoe guys use them to drive nails.

Victor, Great to see your work again. That is some kind of cool.

After a few different layouts, it is still a work in progress but overall - pretty happy. Just enough space to heat and air condition easily. The lighting is good. Tons of electric outlets. The move around space is good. With this layout and storage it is a lot neater than it used to be. Tools are organized and put back. Good amount of storage for scraps and sides. Stall mats on the floor - easier on me and and dropped tools. Minor frustration factors- 1. I recently moved the tooling bench out of the cubby hole and into the center. Now to build a bench so the rock is inlaid. Design so it will be stable, no bounce, I can get my legs in under it and not be too high? How big? New rock or square up mine? 2. I need to close in the ceiling. 3. I know my music and poetry CDs better than the folks doing it. I ought to get a CD player with "shuffle".

I keep looking at the picture you posted of the tip. Granted it is out of focus on the tip, but it looks to me like someone just laid it down and ground the front of that leg flat. No way it will work like that. I use that groover a fair amount, and it works pretty well. I would get a new blade and try that first.

I use clipped off lino or escutcheons too.

A few things I see. The seat profile looks very good, it ought to ride well. the lines look pretty good and pretty flowing. There are a few little construction things sticking out to me. It looks like there is a gap at the right cantle ear cut. Also I would rub down the marks where the awl barked the bottom piece of the horn cover. Some spit on a thumb ought to correct that. On the tooling design The flowers look pretty good. I would work on taking out any straight lines in the stemwork. I would carry my swivel knife cuts further down and into the stemwork also, and then set a few muletrack stamps deeper and then fading at the major stem separations.

Frank, The ones being referred to by Pete and Celtic are made by another company than the one you probably have. They are made kind of locally here from hardwood and I never really have heard anyone with a complaint about them. There are some being sold not made by them, and may not be hardwood. I bought a few of them on sale thinking I could just leave them set to specific widths. I had a couple that the blade was not parallel with the handle and they tracked in or out. From your description, I suspect that is what you have. I haven't used the metal version other than to try it at the TLF store. Here is a link I found to the company that makes the original - The Original Strap Cutter. There is phone number and if they can't sell direct they can probably tell who carries them.

Russ, I like the colors. The drop shadow look on the leg shields is pretty cool. The hardware looks like it may have come from my fellow townfolks here?

Another way that metal loop irons are used is for fixed loops. One way to put them in is to sew down one side of the strap with the loop open. The other end of the loop is then sandwiched between the lining and top of the bridle parts. The loop iron is put into the loop and can be like an anvil. You can staple or clinch against it.

This is a dual rigging plate. This type of plate gives the rider some latitude in where the cinch hangs. The latigo can be strung on the front slot and run back through that to make it a "full double rigging". If you hang it on the back slot and then run everything through there, it may be a 3/4 rigging position. To add another twist - string it on the front, run it through the cinch and then back to the rear slot to hang the cinch between the two positions - making it a 7/8 position. Some folks like the split position because it makes a smaller lump under the leg.

Darcy, I tried to buy a "third hand" a few years ago on one of his sales. I did the whole checkout thing and it went through. My card was never charged and after a couple weeks with not receiving it, I called. The item had been sold previously, but their software at the time didn't remove the item or mark it sold. They said then they were looking at software that would do that. Maybe not. I would give a phone call to verify that you got them.

I have been checking every so often and the annual Proleptic.net tool sale is up and going. Here's the link - Proleptic tool sale link. There are 1475 items. Some are pretty tedious to look through, but there are some pretty neat ones too. A few creasers, some splitters, and some draw gauges are pretty cool. Take a peek at what $1000 can buy you in the way of a draw gauge. Nice old handtools, and some of the classic old names look to be some bargains. If you spend a couple hours, don't say you weren't warned. If you spend a couple hundred bucks, you are on your own.

RMR, It sounds like a blade edge problem to me, and a few things can cause it. One is the edge may not be sharp enough to get a bite into the leather. We've all done it and especially on a new blade. You sharpen and strop, and thing everything is good. My problem with some is that I never quite got to the edge. I had a microscopic square or rounded front to the blade, and all my sharpening was above that. Once I have finished sharpening a splitter blade I test the edge on some scrap leather. It basically should fall through some firm leather held on edge. I make a few random slices. Then I stick it part way through a piece of scrap and draw and slice the rest of the way with the blade to feel for any dragging areas that indicate not as sharp along the width of the blade. I do it a few times. Wire edges can get you sometimes too. I have also had some blades I got so thin on the edge they chipped out. Putting a secondary microbevel helps with that. The other big thing I have seen on some of the used splitters I have gotten is a bit of bevel on the flat side of the blade. Even a very small microbevel can make it so some firm leather will ride down that bevel and the edge won't get a bite into the leather to start.

Julia, Bob Douglas would be the guy to call. Like Andy, I use the skivers and Bob told me in July to at least try the heel shaves and see how I liked them. I asked him about blades for the heel shaves then, and he said somebody was going to start making them. I think he said Bob Dozier, but not 100% on that.

Shirley, The only used sale reference I can find for a Nippy is from Big Horn saddlery's auction. The Nippy sold for $325 and the SAS sold for $700 to give a relative value comparison.

The reason a lot of these tools look rough is because they are. It really seems like a lot of these old Osbornes especially and some of the Gomphs are estate finds. These date back to when tools were used to make a living and not as a hobby, so a lot of those tools have sat for 50 years or better. Grandad retired and the shop closed, so the tools came home to the basement or garage. The hollow handled cast draw gauges take it hard because they have corroded from inside and out. The gibs are lost. Seems like the bars usually are in decent shape. The brass frame ones do alright unless the wood has shrunk up. Somebody buys the whole lot at an auction and finds out that time spent to clean them up isn't worth it. They might not know what they have and how they are used, but they know they are all "vintage". There are a few guys who restore old tools and have started off with good old tools to begin with. They pretty much sell good ones that are usuable right off the bat when you get them. Bob Douglas in Sheridan WY and Keith Pommer from Worthing SD are a couple I have dealt and would recommend without hesitation. They charge more, but they have done the legwork to get them and clean and restore them. Most of my other really good usable tools ready to go have come from old guys slowing down and have been in use right up to passing the mantle to me. Once in a while a home run in an antique store. A few from trading around duplicates to other guys using the tools. I have made some pretty alright ebay deals, and some of the sellers are pretty knowledgable. I have got a few hand tools that were good, but I knew what they were and had a good idea of condition. Most of my ebay bargains have been bench tools - rein rounders, splitters, crank skivers. Seems like they will scare some people off, but there is better chance the bench tools have more care than hand tools thrown into a coffee can or box in the basement.

The tree has been glassed. It is not that old or this saddle that neat. The skirts over the bars are a nice touch. The stirrup leathers under the bars and the evident lump even better. I have had some horses I have not liked all that well, but never one I disliked enough to strap this saddle-in-name-only on. The stirrup leathers locked into that slot in the skirts would be sort of limiting. One jump you are holding their ears, the next one you aren't. I'd let this one go by too.

Funniest thing in read in a while. Another to add: 9/16 WRENCH: The size wrench used on arena panel connectors, gate hinges, and stirrup bolt nuts. The one that immediately goes AWOL from every organized open end wrench and socket set I own. Then we could get into chain saws and handyman jacks.

CWR, If that is the way it came, I would leave it alone. That sounds right - a liner under the strainer, nail the strainer to the bars, cantle, and lower fork. Then come the build-up(s) glued onto the top of the strainer. The riser pieces underneath create the clearance for the stirrup leathers and help to define their range of motion. The number size and shape of the build ups all affect how the saddle sits. They are the base for the seat. If you go to changing the geometry of the groundseat, you may have hell trying to get the seat to fit back. Some of the two piece seats will split right out at that seam when you spike them back down over a higher buildup or have bubbles in the gaps. If they have ridden it this long, chances are it may not be an issue to them as is. If it is a problem and they want a different groundseat shape, be prepared to make another seat too. Sometimes you can do some little tweaking, soak the seat, and draw it in alright though. A lot of these performance and event saddles don't have much buildup. Some is for a better performance for that event, and other times that seat is "because that is how it has been done for some time". I have worked on some saddles that a few hundred thousand probably have been won out of, and they may have one pattern skived buildup. I have one in right now where there is just the fiberglass strainer. No build ups under the chap leather seat, and the foam is long gone. It is a 2 piece seat so the seat overlay is the only thing over the strainer. I googled her, and she has won a lot in a different part of the country.

Again, there are some design issues with this one. They are not measuring the gullet width correctly. The seller is telling you the horn cover is loose, but not showing you the picture. They are telling you the fleece is all there and good, but the screws for the corner plates show - again, no picture. They are telling you the leather is dry. It looks like the cantle binding has been off and restitched at some point. It weighs 25#. Back when it was made, one of the marks of a quality saddle was what it weighed. No returns accepted. I think David hit the nail when he said at the price point you are looking at here, it is going to be hard to do much better. I don't know where you live, but here's the deal out here. This kind of saddle sits on the used consignment rack at the feedstore for about $150-200. Some sell, some don't. These saddles sell at the twice a month horse auctions for $100-150. Not many private shops are going to deal with them because there is no incentive. The margins aren't much and the liability is. The better market for some of these a while back was for interior designers. They'd buy them and nail them to the wall of the steakhouses and bars.