Rod you say you havn't known of anyone who on their own figured out how to make saddle trees.my Dad "Wilford Lewis" did. In 1979 the quality of saddle trees was perhaps the worst in history so with a mitre box & a hand saw Dad made a sort of a saddletree. It would of course not work,He saw that it could be done so He went & bought a band saw built a sander & viola Dad begin making trees.He taught himself to rawhide & with time & practice became quite good at it.In 1980 He taught my brother & I. Over the years we have made trees here in Texas Until retiring.Retirement does't suit me though & I am again making trees.My brother being a self made engineer built a series of duplicators all with reverse image bar making capability.These machines are the very best ever built bar none.They can be finely adjusted & will make a right & left bar off one pattern.These bars are a matched pair every time.While A skillfully built handmade tree may well be the best tree.Trees made with parts from our machines are straight & true.While many think only handmade trees can be made good,with good equipment & careful assembly saddletrees made by me are very close in overall quality.Looking foward to some replys to this little rambling. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Lewis Brothers Steve & Ray
