Hidemechanic

Snowseal gets all over everything. Good for boots. A long time ago I made a shirt out of cow hide and waring it outside in the snowy weather I put snowseal on it. I went into a store and leaned on the glass of a show case looking at something. When I startyed to walk away I saw the big smeer I left on the glass counter. Guy was tict when he tried to clean it.GH

Do you know people with horses? If so, take a day and a pad and pencil, cloth tape measure , tack up a horse with the style of gear you want to make and a start making notes. take the breast collar and lay it out on some paper or card stock and trace it for your contures. Make drawings and take notes that you will understand when you get back to your shop. Remember that commercial tack is usually genaric (on size fits all so to speek) and will have a lot of buillit left over on smaller horses. You may want to adjust your paterns to allow for these differences so you work is a bit more custom. Youwill have to make allowences for lined and unlined pieces. As for protected designs. I don't know too many bridles and such that is protected. I have a saddle maker friend across town who builds enduance saddles and his design is definetely protected , but I build an endurance saddle that you could copy all day long. It's been my experience that there is little in the horse gear world that is specifically protected. Some hardware, a couple rigging styles, a few tree styles. Genaric and common tack is pretty much fair game. If you have any doubt, look it up or choose not to build it. I've never had the tack police show up at my door in 20 years. Happy trails GH

Bout everything has been said about the whys and wherefores. I also can't suggest any names, but I do suggest that when you get some names you check them out to see if their teaching style is compatable with your learning style. I've known crafters of different mediums that are masters in their craft but not good at passing on their knowlege. "Well just do it this way!", when you can"t quite see how to fineness things to suit you or them. I think a person's learning style is directly related to the outcome as well. I started building saddles around 1990 (worked on many before) and my life style choices have done more to slow my advancement. Now that my kids are almost grown I am seriously considering(not quite to the point of begging my wife) asking one of our premere saddle makers here in the northwest to take me on for a week or two for some well needed fine tuning (mostly tooling). I'm also looking into a class or tutoring in art to help with my design skills. Yes we are all students as we travel along, and even the 'masters' are still learning. Best wishes in your travels and choices. GH

I think you hit it on the head Greg, Bud has some cool 'beyond the box' designs.

Not everyone thinks the same and paterns make it easier to visualise the finished product, illuminates the path to get there. Elton, what exactly are you looking for. Demensions, intended use. closures(zipper, buckle) that kind of thing. We should be able to get something going for you. GH

Yeah, there's no hard and fast rules about much(other than physics) we share ideas and experience, mix and match whatever suits our situation. I did mean to say that you did good on the second one, I just took up a lot of space on my first post I was trying to quit while I was ahead. I do want to suggest that for shaping you don't have to make a mold block for evreything unless you plan to make a lot of this or that, it would pay to. Instead, I have a tack hammer (wood handle) the end is beveled on opposite sides so it can be used like a bone folder or heavy creaser. I use it (leather on the dry) to shape lines between corners. Not line lines but say on the bottom front of your first bag rolls up rather than following the corners as with your second bag. You'll find you come up with all kinds of tools to do a job that you normally wouldn't think of using. Keep at it and keep looking at other work. Even purses, suitcases, rucksacks, things you wouldn't think would relate to bikes or what ever your happen to be working on. We learn much that way. GH

Buff, I like the direction you and your mentor have gone with your work. I have a real pet peave about commercial design v.s. custom style. Y'all got it down. Makes me wonder if your mentor and my mentor came up in the same circles. Anyway, with chaps and chinks, I never cared for the buckle strap in back, a little too one size fits all. When the rear strap is stiched in or laced in(which I like cause you can show off an little more) it makes the whole thing look like it was special made for the customer. Thus the turm Custom, right? I like the knife too. What the heck are the 'Ds' for on the top? Teach me something new. Nice work,GH

First I want to say that this is very nice work from all you guys. I want to pose a question for consideration when designing our work. To slot or not to slot. I just want to give a different perspective about slotting. There are times I do slot and times I don't. It depends on the application. rdb's straps for the lid could use some slots for the purpose of keeping the straps alligned. I do that for some styles of saddle bags(google civil war bags and acoutriments(SP?), and after I get the strap set where I want it I hammer it down(on the dry helps if it never noves again) where it goes through the slots (I hammer everything to get a more blended finish look)most saddle bag pats and soft briefcase pats show this. As for slots for the attaching straps I'd rather go with a more custom fit approach. Keep in mind that we've seen this weave style attachent strap for some decades now, but in my experience it was deveoped by the contractors for HD who wanted to reduce labour.Not to mention their bags were genaric,like one size fits all. That's where the question comes in to slot or not to slot. I would say that if you have left over pieces of leather and want to make a simple bag, then go with slots as you probably would not be expecting to charge a higher price. so you want to reduce your laboar. But if you were doing a custome job, say like our seat makers, and wanted to do matching tooling and such, then I would attach the attaching straps to the bag and arrange the buckles so as to not interfere with any metal parts of the bike. On a note of personal preference I don't care for the straps and buckle to be inside the bag taking up space. Since I don't have pics I'll try to explain my alternetive. [ Oh, rdb, I like your ring idea but a guy has to be real carefull of their placement so as to not rub on the fork tubes ect...] What I have done with tool bags is add a second panel to the back and slot it for the horisontal fork strap as Beez and Gears show in their pics, only the buckle is on the outside. I also plan for a set of slots for a left and right verical straps(you could get away with one) to keep the bags from sliding down the forks. Again buckles outside. Now on some forks that have a wide distance between them you can plan your buckles to be centered next to the bag. They're out of the way and away from bike parts, and easier to get to. My forks are closer and it's kind of a pain but if you only remove the bag once or twice a year it isn't any more diffacult then some of the other things we have to do on our bikes. Another way is to just stich the straps to the back of the bag and use a rivit at the stress points. (An aside, somebody mentioned hand stiching v.s. mechine, there are still may hand stiched saddles out there, and hand stiching has been going on long before the mechanised age. So develope your hand stiching. Some customers prefer it and will pay more for it. Don't feel your work is sub standard because you didn't use a mechine.) With a bit of imagination we can find ways to attchieve the same ends and sometimes get a cleaner more custom look. Keep up the good guys, GH

Good looking trail rigs, Buff. Crups, BCs , rings, Jockey box, the way to go. TFS, GH

Timberline is good, you don't want to rush them. We've had issues cause from rushing but I've also had good success when dealing with special needs.Aaron and randy are great to deal with. Bowden Brand makes good trees and has a web site. There are some other tree plants with out sites like Hurcules. I'll let others chime in on that. If you are just looking for stock trees these are a good way to go. I would suggest however that you not poinch pennies. Order AAA trees. That is, rawhide over wood with rawhide lace and nails over staples but that may be in contensiion with others. Go top of the line anyway even for your pleasure saddles. If you are building for seroius ropers and buckaroos go for the laminated trees (350 to 500 dpollar range) There's one or two members here that can answer to that.Good luck. GH

Chuck, I like the patern and look forward to the rest of the bag parts. My main consern is that to my eye, there is a conflict in flow, between the left and right sides, a lack of blending the two, if you will. I like that you show the flowers from different perspectives and some have a more natural look in their application(a bit wild). Also I've found a big challenge in design drawing is using leafs and stems and such to reduce background. Sometimes when we step back to look at a design we can see that some fillers look a bit out of place or stiff looking. I find that it is equally important to find a way for fillers to stay with the flow of things. Some ways to do this is to change an angle or create more bend or curve, sometimes I find that I may need to bring the filler from a differnt direction or off a nearby stem to accomplish this. Looks good though, I envy your drawing skills. You have a real feel for it.GH

Don't give us the credit if you're doing the work. Who's taps in the pic you posted, they look familiar?GH

Before you spend too much of that 5c, you might check your area for someone in the leather craft biz and hang around, watch ask, and you'll begin to get your questions answered in a way that you can fine tune your spending w/o buying stuff you may not use more than once things that may not suit your area of interest. As for mechines, stitchers, you may be able to run across a good Singer for 1 or 2 hundred but you can spend a lot on stitchers. I don't remember where but there is also a website specifically for custom hand bags. I bet you'll find it. Welcome and Good luck. GH

I also meant to add that I think every one's idea about Tandy is going to be mostly based on their perception of their experience with their local store. The fella that took his 80? yo mother to Tandy and had an outstanding experience will think highly of the company. Whereas, I may have a low opinion of the store I may go to because they may have prioreties that have more to do with making sales rather than customer service. Same as Radio Shack. Some shops have employees that enjoy electronics and helping customers find what they need. Others just have saleman that don't care what you need and just want to sell you something. I don't expect most HAM operaters to go to RS because they don't offer what they want anymore(not that they did much). Quality of each store is going to depend on the franchisee. So Me Thinks,, GH

I only scanned most of the answers(my head hurts) but people rolling there eyes because you work for Tandy is like giving the guy that pumps your gas a hard time for high prices. Yah, I'm from Oregon we don't pump our own gas yet. Anyway, I think the answers to the poll might be somewhat different depending if you are a hobbyist or you do volume work or work that requires that which Tandy may not offer. I think the answers would be different between the two catagories might not give an accurate sence of the intention of the poll, but maybe it wouldn't be that big a deal. Like was said, a jobs a job. I think I make more money doing what I do then do those who may look down their noses at me for it. I don't know cause I don't know anybody that gets pait to look down their nose at what I do. I gave up trying to change other peoples minds. If I could make a good living with bennies and ret. I'd work there. GH

Good work. I think you could safely call that a Yakima (ja-quee-mah). That would be the name the vaqueros used for the whole out fit, which has morphed in to hackamore with time and mispronunciation. The bridle(hanger as you call it) with or without a throat latch was basically the Fiador was configured in a way as to hold the Bosal at a proper angle. The Macate' (ma-cot-ee)makes up a loop rain with the left over being a 'lead rope' (usually made of horse hair)is able to adjust tightness of the bosal on the nose. Just in case you were not aware. This is a vary traditional starter rig for buckroos. Between you and some horse hair folks on the board you should be able to come up with some real nice rigs. Thanks for sharing. GH

Dave that seat is too nice , take it back,harhar. I banged up my shoulder at work yesterday so it hurts to look at those ape hangers. Really nice work. Are the silver dollars a 'luck' thing or just an option? I've seen thos eon your other seats, curious. Yah, I miss my 63 BSA, I cringe when I think about how it went away,let's just say regrets of youth. way nice ride. GH

Rough hollidays for many Regg, sorry about yours. We keep pluin along, right? GH

I have been getting thread from a local outfit that makes tarps and pond liners. Don't know about colors other than BkWt but you might try that if you have one close. 277 is pretty heavy but you could try upolstery shops (marine, custom auto?). Try Weaver Leather. Good luck, GH

I forget who, but one of our tallented guys here explained how he made his own pats for taps. I was wanting you to clarify what you were calling 'eagle beak' taps. The first was described as a long taper that drops almost directly under the stirrup. My pats that I would call eagle beak, the wide part of the downward taper closest to the stirrup, make a turn back and points to the rear rather than toward the ground. Sorry we don't have the digi cam quite on line yet or I would post a pic of what I have. GHackett

Can someone help me see if I can recover a bunch of deleated pics I had ? It's on a 98 SE, my son one day was messing with things and somehow my photo (HP) file got copied to My Documents. In my ingnorence, thinking that that was just waisted space and maybe slowing things down I deleated the group that was in My Docs because I could still get to them in my HP photo file. After deleating I went to my photo file and all the folders we gone. I went to recycle bin and clicked restore and it acted like it was restoring but when finished I was unable to find anything that was sent there to start with. I tried a search for 'jpeg' but turned up none of those pics. Do I have to get a photo restore software or is there something I can do without it? Does the photo software really work? These lost pics are many of my leather and saddle work and I'd really like to recover them if there is a way. Any suggestions? I hope I hope. GHackett

Was that You? Ha Ha I was going to get back to it but glad i didn't because i would have been talking to the wrong person. Yes it looks like we have to start over but I have to leave for work so let me get back to ya. I was wanting to clarify what type of tap you want to build. Not a name but a description. Later GHackett

Thanks Ken, Good to know.GH

The way I learned was that most paterns were generally what you would work from after checking that the patern would cover the part of the tree you needed the part for, then you could cut the leather and fit it to the tree. I think that the only time you can cut directly from a patern and apply it to a tree is when the patern is made for that tree as with saddle kits. That's if you haven't already made your own pats for a specific tree. For skirts, after casing I align the skirt(in leather) where I want it under the tree on the draw down, when I like where it sits I tack nail it at the bottom of the gullet and just behind the cantle. I flip the tree over, block in the bar, tack nail the skirt to the bar with tacks placed about 2" apart, flip it back to right side up. I shape the skirt a bit to lay the way I will want it and let it dry(actually I remove it first and use it to copy the other side)Point is when I leave it to dry I come back with my carpenters level, and level the stand and tree then use a strait edge to mark a level line at the bottom of the skirt. I use my framing square to get my virtical line front and back. This can be different depending on the stye of saddle but I won't go into that here. Actually I was taught to stand at the rear of the tree and with a strait edge almost eye ball my back lines then the front. I guess I'm not really trying to show you 'How To' do it this way but show that there have been other ways to do saddle parts other than with paterns. I left a lot out but Don 101 has a pretty good take on it. I saw the same basics with other saddle makers. To be honest the way I was taught I have to go the the nail salon to have a nice nail put on my thumb cause that's what was used to make my marks with. Good luck.GHackett

I was going to be fecicious(SP?) and say that the indians treat their hides by smoking. I will say though that you will freek out the first time you get something on it, but I tell folks that it looks like hell til you get enough stuff on it that it starts to get a character all it's own. That didn't help a bit did it?? Heehee GHackett