oltoot

Bondo Bob spoke well but I'm going to go a little further. I use Quality Mfg from Monticello, Ut but that's not the essence of my reply. When somebody wants a saddle to fit a particular horse, I usually refuse to go there. I make saddles to last ~ 40 to life and the saddle fit stable part of most horses' lives is 10-15 years at most with some changing even seasonaly. With today's selection of high quality pads, my advice is to pick a type of horse to 'fit' and build for that, changing pad configurations if necessary, perhaps even having a pad or pads for every horse throughout the life of the saddle. Having said that, tree 'quality' is basically symmetry, smoothness, and the rather subjective factor of the motivation of the maker. Good luck in finding the one that suits you. One caveat: though the adage you get what you pay for is somewhat true, it aint necessarily 100% so with trees. You will still have to do some thinking.

Mine is elk antler. I had to look through a few til I found a piece with the right curve. Was from the brow tine up to the fork on a big 4 pt raghorn. Then smooth out with green rouge on a cloth buffing wheel. Mule deer racks should also provide the right size and shape on the terminal forks of 4 pt main frames.

To get the 'feel' you could start with pieces of heavy skirting, edged to almost round, then follow Bruce's tips. As a parallel process, you could practice the assembly (sewing etc as above) getting ready. HINT: most (including me) have a marked tendency to try 'rounding' too heavy a piece. Better to start a little on the light side and work up. HINT: You may want to split the rounded portion of the core piece just a tiny bit. That will often help make the piece more pliable.

The kind of fit and attachment to the saddle actually determine how strong a BC needs to be. The 'old' style attached to front rigging dees and setting pretty much paralel with the ground needs to be pretty strong ~ 12 oz around the hardware. A vee type with a ring/dee in the middle and attached high and held down snug to the cinch-much less. Think about it. You hook up with a 3/4-1" single ply strap. Body in the body of the collar serves more to keep the body flat and in place than to add strength to the piece. So, let's say you've got a 10-12 oz tooled top. Skived just enough to make smooth and tight turns around hardware. Wet molded so as to be wrinkle free. Feather edged on back to be smooth and flat, then lined with 4-6 oz latigo and it oughta work.

Just FYI, most of the nuisance and zoning laws currently on the books have their origins as communities began to try to get rid of or limit backyard tanning. In early settlement times, their weren't a few large tanneries but one in almost every new settlement as leather was an important material for so many things and transportation and communication had not yet developed to very sophisticated levels. When the industrial revolution began to spawn concentration and specialization, tanning followed the trend and concentrated where water and bark were plentiful. Or so I've been told.

About $450 but I would have thrown in a wash & oil cause I don't like wrestling with dirty old saddles anymore.

How about something even more basic. I run Windows Vista. Don't know if that has anything to do with anything. Only about 1/2 of the posts I post get posted. On the rest, when I get done and click post it shows the progress bar flashing and it reads saving post but takes forever and still doesn't post. I have minimized one and left to do other thinks. When I came back 3 hrs later it was as when I left, still flashing and not yet posted. And they are not long and detailed. 2 or 3 sentences

Yes the little square tab is supposed to be under the needle plate, held by the two little nubs. To put it back, loosen the needle plate screws, index the bobbin case and tighten the needle plate screws. That may solve your problems for now. Yes its normal that the wheel is hard to turn. With this machine, project preparation is most important to get good results. Corners, seams, etc have to be skived, leveled, etc. Suggest you get a users manual from Proleptic. (Available PDF on the web) Singer also has PDFs available. Google and go from there. You will need to know how to adjust timing of the bobbin case, hook and a few other underneath players and it is far from self explanatory. I have a 211U566A and will probably keep it til the end. Oh and speed control will make you like it better too.

Like Lisa said we used linen long before the others were available and both top and bobbin threads were waxed. I now use poly thread and silicone lube on top. I do not lube the bobbin thread. (Union Lockstitch machine with 277 thread for most work. I use #348 for hand sewing and beeswax it, and #138 in my Singer 211 and do not lube in this machine) I think you will find that silicone lube is easier to use and much cleaner. For years I used Selaris non heating wax and used Selaris Machine Cleaner as a thinner and cleaner which are like the Randall products, I think. I like silicone better. And while I have the floor, why the interest in linen thread? modern poly threads are stronger, last longer and machines can be adjusted to pull tighter stitches with it. IMHO

I have found that using thread lube on top of my Union Lock does a lot for me including eliminating finickiness with different threads.

The plated, non brass hardware suggests middle to late 40's though there were supplies of it around for awhile after the war induced brass shortage (and it was very cheap). It is in quite good shape. How about gullet width? If the tree is wide enough to work on horses of today, that suggests SE or SW origins. Note I use the word suggests rather than someting more definitive. Without a maker's mark, all is pretty much speculation. Unfortunately it is in between collectors and modern used markets so the $200 estimate is probably high end. I just looked at the ebay link and wonder who the !?*%# was that estimated it as ~$3,000 new. It is not a wade and not high quality. But this is a lot like looking for a wife. Whatever you find, if she suits you and doesn't smell bad, what difference does it make what anybody else thinks. If you bought it to use and not to peddle, just move on and don't look back. The stuff about the Hamley EZ rigging advantages is pretty much true though the entire description on Ebay is sure the work of a clever marketer.

Is this traditional Kazakh construction or an arranged (arranged by you) marriage of Kazakh and western methods? Where does the inspiration for the tooling designs come from? This is all extremely interesting to these tired old western eyes!

Back to the maul. I found rawhide refills for mauls on ebay very inexpensive! It would make finishing one cheap and easy

Magnificant collectors whip. The thoughtless bloke who would pope this beaut oughta be whipped himself!!

If you want to try making a maul, put the rough pieces on the bolt wet and crank it down, squeezingthe water out, let it dry, then turn it or . BTW, rawhide, not plain leather is the customary material for the striking surface and generally speaking, the heavier the striking tool you use (mallet, maul, pipe wrench LOL) the less bounce and thus the least noise.

If there is such a place where you live, try a stone monument company that makes grave markers. Often they have pieces around that have been rejected. I work on a simple grave marker stone that has color irregularities all over and must have slipped by the graders a few times on its way from the quarry to the end point. It is 18x36 x 10. I have it inlet into a larger plywood surface, on a piece of rubber belting and use up to 3# mauls and they just go tunk tunk

On the leg cut Bowman, I have learned the hard way that anytime you put the welt someplace other than right down the point of the swells it can be daunting. I dont use the jigs as described by AS and I have come up with my own last minute check and cheat that has made the welt part come out much more consistently and here it is: after pinching and removing the cover and cutting 3/8 from the pinch line, I fold the cover and see if the resulting lefts and rights on each side match and if they dont, I trim to make them match. Thus installing the welts will be easier than trying to match up two unequal sides with a third line (the welt) so that they will turn out straight. JMHO

My vote, without closer examination is just a pretty good old saddle badly in need of some TLC. The Al Ray buckles and the plated looking dees say 40's-50's but some were known to hang on to old hardware for a long time. A look at gullet width might help place it. I wonder if the public library would have the old catalogues of the company to peruse? But in answer to the implied question of value, in that condition it has very little and restoration vs repair would be costly. So, if you know of someone who will rescue it from the years of neglect that it has survived for less that its resale value and the tree is still sound, that's what I would do.

I've used what I make and have two observations for you 1) you are doing great working things out and obviously paying a lot of attention to what happens as you yield a tool or even just your hands. 2) Look at the works of the many that are on the net and notice the Blevins Buckles. Ideally, the sleeve position on the stirrup leather should be on a line between ankle and knee while mounted and for most folks down far enough that they won't rub on the horse's rib cage nor the underside of the riders legs.

Also would depend on the bit. In some cases, having the noseband linked may change the bit action. Safest way is separate.

I think but am not absolutely sure that it is a mix of tradition and adaptation. The rawhide covered tree comes to us from a marriage of native American and Moorish tradition. Part of that was to put some kind of long haired hide down as a pad which eventually became a sewed in lining and tannage of woolskins developed along the way. btw sheepskin was in short supply during WWII as it was used for military clothing and saddles during that period were sometimes lined with leather of felt. When sheepskin became readily available again it regained its popularity. It really does help some in providing an interim softness layer. I have tried to convince several customers to skip the sheepskin and invest in a new high-tech pad; so far to no avail. I'll continue to advocate for it but wont break with tradition unless I get a big deposit.

Tip: most machinists can true and sharpen this kind of blade, if they will.

Try Sam on this board. His post is titled 97-10 He has a Singer 97-10 which is a cylinder arm with a good range. He is in Tennessee.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Leather-Tool-C-S-OSBORNE-86-Bench-Mount-Leather-Splitter-6-Blade-EC-/121044159065?_trksid=p2047675.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D13900%26meid%3D4478072380504191568%26pid%3D100011%26prg%3D1095%26rk%3D4%26sd%3D120876553201%26 Campbell part # OS 86 B CS Osborne part # 17054 Westernrawhide.com Mainethread.com I didn't try the #84 but I think that the blades are interchangeable My lesson learned in my earlier quest was not to try to sharpen the blade myself. My splitter is about 125 years old and had been thrown away twice when I retrieved it. I only gave up fighting with it and bought the new blade about 25 years ago. Hope this helps you find what you need. It scared me to see how much they have come up since I bought the one I have. FYI I strop mine carefully with a strop made for it: flesh side of split harness leather mounted on a board with a handle. I press down hard against blade surface so as not to round edge using white rouge. When that stops working I will make another one with green rouge and see if that will perk it up before I break down and have a machinist restore it. But, I am 70 so maybe somebody else will have to worry about that?

Well, I'm old and its been awhile but it would have had to have been either from Osborne itself or Montana leather Company in Billings, Mt. BUT, I would fall back on my wife's answer to just about everything and say, just Google it.