Big Sioux Saddlery

Add me to your list as well. I have several spur strap dies, a one ear bridle die, cheek die, several breastcollar dies, two vee-browbands, and many others.

JLS I didn't mean to start an argument, I guess I just mis-interpreted your post. I don't know if you're doing leather for a living or if you've another source of regular income, which I don't have. So in reality, yes I work for me, but I really work for whoever brings me work. If I handed my customer the two halves of his project because I didn't like his attitude, I might have to start eating peanut butter instead of steak. Bad press gets around much faster than good press, and I stand up for myself, but sometimes I gotta kiss a little ass. Cutting a guy's belt in half doesn't fall in that category. But you do what you want in your shop, I do what I want, (or have to in order to make a living) in mine. Sooo. . . ya'll have a good evening, I think I've enjoyed as much of this post as I can handle in one night.

Billybopp you're welcome to come. They're big thick juicy ones to boot!

JLS you took one sentence out of my whole post and made it sound like my whole post was about that. It wasn't. . . that was more of an exception to my theory on dies, which I felt was kind of opposite of what you wrote. Maybe I didn't read your post carefully enough, as I'm grilling T-bones as I type. It comes down to what any given individual is making. I build harness and saddles. If you want to cut wear leathers by hand, be my guest. Not one customer I've had in 23 years would pay a dime extra for hand cut wear leathers and to be honest I doubt even you could cut 16 of them to look perfectly symmetrical. Doing this leatherwork for a living comes down to this: whoever can make the best product for the money gets the customer. Dies speed up production, therefore I can get more done in a day and move on to the next project and make more money which means I can eat steak instead of peanut butter. If cutting multiples of the same thing by hand works for you, more power to you. It sure doesn't work for me.

My opinion on dies is about the opposite of JLS's. I bought my first dies maybe 3 years into business, about 20 years ago. I didn't have a clicker then, just my dad's shop press. I used his press for maybe 3-4 years before I bought my own. Even though I have a clicker now, I wouldn't give up my press for anything. I still use it if I have only one part to cut with a die, instead of starting up the clicker for just that one thing, plus many, many other jobs in the shop. As far as what point do you decide it makes sense to get them, it makes sense to buy dies if you are making many items exactly the same and you're tired of cutting by hand, or you need to speed up the process so you can get more done. Even custom saddles take parts that are greatly simplified in cutting with a die, such as catchers and rosettes. Yes you can buy them relatively cheaply, but they might not match the color of the leather you're using. I'd hate to think of building a harness now without dies, although I did build a few where I cut the wear leathers by hand. On a set of 3-strap breeching harness, there are 16 1-1/8" wear leathers, and I have no desire to cut those tedious little buggers by hand. My hands would be a lot less arthritic today if I'd invested in more dies sooner than I did. It wasn't so much about utilizing scrap, although that alone may sometimes make it worth it, as it was needing to speed up a process and needing uniformity in the parts. I have over a hundred dies, and yes they are expensive, but so is time and I wish I had a hundred more. I've gotten quite a few of my dies used. Some of them aren't perfectly symmetrical, but I've gotten manufactured saddle and harness parts that are cut from a die that wasn't symmetrical either. I've gotten dies from Big Sky--I think they've sold out now. The original owner I liked. He sold out to some folks who kept the name. I had some dies made at that point and the quality was good, but the woman I dealt with was a bitch. I had some made by Texas Custom. They were a lighter made die, but they're holding up fine. The customer service was fine for me. I have some Viking dies, out of Canada I believe, and the die quality is fine, some of the patterns I don't care for, as they were used and not from my patterns. Some of the old dies were made as mallet dies and were really well made and heavy, I supposed maybe what you'd call a forged die. If you're not ready to invest in a clicker just yet, buy a regular shop press. I think I gave $250 for mine and it doesn't owe me a dime. You'll find many, many uses for it. There's no way I'd go back to cutting everything by hand, but it may depend on the nature of your work. If everything you make is a one-off, not much point in buying dies.

Here is a Keyston Bros saddle that came to me just this way a couple years ago. I'd never heard of them before. The owner had "cleaned" it before he brought it, and did irreversible damage to the leather. I did what I could, and it ended up not looking too bad.

Just going by the look of this saddle I would guess it being made in late 60's to mid 70's, but definitely not 75 years old. I also would say, like toot, about $300-400. Even though it's a roping saddle, serious ropers aren't going to pay a bunch for it, because it's got some age on it, which means at the least, a couple different things. Even if the tree is in good condition, it doesn't have the strength of a newer saddle, and second, it's a look which is long out of style. Ropers like to be in style as much as anyone:-) Horn caps are smaller and horns set straighter, seats are flatter, and the roping saddles have a little more swell. That's for the arena saddles anyway. Look like a doggin' saddle. All of this does NOT mean it is not a good saddle, it just means it's probably worth about 300-400 bucks. But it's actually worth whatever you can get out of it, so I'd ask more to start with:-)

The trouble with learning on a cheap saddle, is the only thing you learn is how to build a cheap saddle. Now, if you have a good saddle, and understand what goes into a good saddle in way of construction to aid function and safety, you can learn what NOT to do by working on the cheap saddles. A good part of building saddles is understanding the hows and whys of function. If one bases their entire saddle education on construction methods used in cheap saddles, then that's all that person will know. Cheap saddles can teach you something, but you better know the difference.

Hoping not to sound rude, but in all honesty, I wouldn't waste my time on the saddles pictured. If you're going to go the trouble of restoring something, put your time and money into something that'll be worth something when you're done. Nothing you do to either one of these will make them worth a dime more. As far as resources, go through all the old threads in the saddle section of this forum, and the Stohlman books will certainly be helpful as well. Ask questions here as they present themselves to you. There is nothing in the way of printed material or DVDs that will replace actual experience gained from hands-on. If you can find an experienced saddlemaker willing to teach you, pay him to do so, or take a saddle-making course. I have no recommendations on the saddlemaking schools or courses, because I have never attended one, but if I had it to do over again, I would. Instead of spending 30 plus years to get where I am today (and who knows where that is) I would have drastically shortened the learning curve. You probably are thinking that you don't want to spend the amount of money that would be required for tuition on learning to do something that would be a hobby, but it is my opinion that saddle repair done CORRECTLY and saddlemaking is a comprehensive enough subject that a couple books and videos aren't anywhere near enough to teach you what you need to know. It's not rocket science, but there's a whole lot to learn. Best of luck to you.

Like many of the others, I don't toss my screw-ups. I keep them as a reminder. Usually my screw-ups are saddle parts, which can mean a pretty big piece of really good stuff. There's no getting any useable scrap out of a ruined swell cover, but a fender that maybe didn't get cut perfect or ended up a little too soft at one end or the other can provide quite a few solid useable pieces. I don't think I've ever just pitched a screw-up, but then I hate to throw anything that might possibly have a use or serve as a valuable reminder.

I've only ever bought one hide. It was a fairly heavy chrome tan, maybe even 7oz+ in places. Very glovey, and a lot of stretch when cutting and working it. Reminded me of elk to work. Made a pair of chaps for a guy as a Christmas present from his wife. That was several years ago, and he rants and raves about them whenever I see him. They do get used hard; the guy rides horses for money and his equipment doesn't get babied. The requirements were "soft, strong and fairly thick" and it was the only hide I had that came close. I had talked to this guy different times about a pair of chaps, and he always said the same thing. "They gotta be soft. Too many are so damn hard." I bought my buffalo hide from The Leather Guy. I would use it again if someone else came along that wanted the same thing, but I balk at making chaps these days unless it is a special customer or I'm REALLY getting paid well to make them.

"That 's nothing to the mid-West USA though. I recall it being -54 with windchill one day while in Chicago. Never experienced cold that hurt until I visited the mid-West." Ha ha, yes we get months of cold that hurts every year.

Temperature changes aren't near as big an issue as extreme humidity. I store leather and some finished goods, as well as ALOT of used harness inventory in outbuildings that are not heated or cooled. We have temp ranges here from 100* in the summer to -30* in the winter, but it's the high humidity, especially when combined with the 90* weather that raises hell. I've found that anything stored in a building with a concrete floor is affected more. A building with a wooden floor is much better.

They're asking a thousand, which, if you need one to use, isn't a bad buy. For an extra or a spare, more than most people want to spend. Yes, distance would be a definite expense, whether you picked up or had it shipped. There are a lot of these old "One's" that have sold for $500, or even less, around the country. Some were well worth that money, some are totally worn out. The great thing about the "One's" is that everything is out in the open and it's pretty easy to tell a good one from a worn out one.

Hmm never ever thought of or even heard of anyone using a backer. I can usually hit in between my fingers but every once in awhile I miss. Might try it and see how I like it. My 14 year old son has been handsewing for me some this summer, and doing a great job, but he makes me punch the holes! He's a tough kid in many ways but sharp pointy objects freak him out. Maybe we'll try the backer idea and see if he can stab the holes himself.

I know where there's a whole machine for sale up here in SD. Kind of sounds like you might need one

'Wow Big Sioux Saddlery, you seem to have a nice collection of splitters! Got one laying around that you'd wanna sell?' Sorry but I really don't. I become rather attached to my machinery:)

My first paying job years ago was to make some braided show tack for a gal. That was back when braided buttons on flat strap goods first became popular. She'd seen some stuff I'd made for myself just for fun and called me to see if I'd take the job. That was when I realized that maybe I could actually start charging for my work! Anyway she wanted turquoise and purple interweaves and she provided all the materials: strap goods, lace, dye. I'm pretty sure it was just Tandy's Cova dye and natural calf lace. It worked very well, and didn't flake or rub off during the braiding process.

Bruce, if you find a Dixon lap skiver that you want to sell, I am interested!

I have 5 splitters that I use routinely: my first splitter--a Tandy model that I bought about 30 years ago when it was the only model they had. Oddly enough, I prefer it over the others to split lacing and saddle strings. My second, a twist handle Randall. Man I thought I really had something when I got that one! It is a good splitter and if I had to have just one, that's the one I'd keep. The third splitter I got was either an American or a Landis, never can remember which even though I use it nearly every day. It's a 6" crank splitter, can't do lap skives. Fourth, a 10" Chase pattern splitter that I also really like, but since you can't do tapered skives on it, it wouldn't be my choice to keep if I had to keep just one. Fifth, an 18", (can't remember name) that I finally bought last winter after years of deliberating, that I absolutely love. It's awesome to level saddle skirts and plugs, swell covers, and about anything else that won't go through my 6". I have another Chase, an 8" I think, that needs a spring, and a Spitler pattern that needs sharpening. Haven't been motivated enough to tackle that. I would really, really like to have a Dixon lap skiver. I saw one in Bernie Samson's shop, and knew I wouldn't be happy til I found one. Some say don't waste your money, but if I find one, I'm buying it. I don't feel like I have more splitters than I need, as has been hinted at by non-leatherworking members of my family. I use them all often enough to justify having them, and they'll probably never go down in value.

"There was nothing in stock; I was literally waiting for a lot to come out of the tannery vat. Can take up to 12 weeks." Yet another reason we need a horse kill plant in this country! Better supply to fill the demand.

I have bought quite a little from him, but normally at a show where I can hand pick. I think he does very accurately describe his leather in the descriptions on the internet. When I need to buy without being able to look at the product, I prefer to pick up the phone and call him. I always ask for Keith (he's the owner). Tell him exactly what you are looking for and he does his best to accommodate. His customer service is tops. I've yet to be disappointed.

If I had to guess it looks like one of those el-cheapos built on a hollow fiberglass tree. Not trying to offend you, just calling it as I see it. The ones I've seen come through the shop, I would be afraid to put on a horse, much less cinch it up and ride it.

Attaching to the swells takes a special design of breast collar. The curve has to be opposite of what a BC normally has. Yours has the start of that type of curve, but probably not enough which is why it won't work up on the swells. I think it would work fine with the dee where Bruce or I put them. I do tell people that when I put the dees up higher, it might require a different style of BC, or there are a couple easy fixes. First, you can use two tugs on each side like a steer tripper collar, to position your BC wherever you want it. Or, you can forego putting the dees in, use your rigging dees, and just use a wither strap. Now with the cut of your BC, it is meant to attach quite a bit higher, and I can see where it won't work attached to your rig dees.

Wow, nice work!