jonwatsabaugh

firephil, I have'nt had any experience with Paso Finos personally but I would be interested in building a tree. I would need some pics and back tracings is all. I have watched them perform at horse fairs and such, and they are truely magnificent little horses. They certainly deserve a good western saddle that fits properly. Jon

Pella, That is absolutely fabulous work! Hats off to your incredible detail and extraordinary craftsmanship! Jon

I make hand made trees in any scale you like. I've not rawhided any of them, but they are identical to their big brothers with the size exception. If fiberglassing is acceptable I can cover 'em that way. Fiberglassing offers much finer detail anyway in the smaller sizes. Jon

Will Ghormley is a good friend of mine and probably one of the foremost authorities of 1800's saddles and cowboy gear. He is a great historian, craftsman, artist, and writer. I know he has been working on pattern packs for several old saddle designs but I'm not sure if he is finished with them. Give him a shout and find out...he's the man! Jon

Thanks for all the nice comments! I always find many short comings after finishing a project but I guess thats part of trying to be a perfectionist like most of you. I got the color by oiling three coats, lots of warm Iowa sun, then Tan Kote, Tandy Highliter, then Tan Kote. The saddle actually had much more contrast in the tooling than the photos reveiled...summer mission, new digital camera. Jon

Tex, Very, very nice carving and tooling! As far as fitting the seat back in after all tooling is done, here's what works for me. While initially fitting and trimming the seat I make sure it's drawn in very tight. I draw spike the seat in 6 places. The rear concho ears, the srew hole at the base of the fork, and the front concho ear where the skirt meets the fork. I also "iron" the seat leather before the fitting begins to get some additional stretch. I do this by taking a very smooth hard wood slicker and burnishing the leather on the flesh side on my rock pulling from center out all the way around the piece. With these 6 places to re-index the seat it always fits back where I want it after its tooled. Hope this helps. Jon

I hesitated even posting these pictures after seeing Brian H's last rig (man, that's a cool saddle!) but anyway here goes. I just finished this one for a fella who's last name happens to be Wade. Steve Mason's back cinch (love that design!) was the inspiration for the one I did for this saddle and I liked some tooling I saw on William Hape's saddle from last years Sheridan show and used the same concept in the seat floral. Jon

Brian, Four button seats are difficult to get proportionally level and ballanced with a beautiful radius. I've seen many of the so called "masters" four button seats that disapointed me. Your's however, is perfect in all aspects according to my liking. Overall mechanical ballance, proportion, and artistry on this saddle are exceptional! Rarely I add pictures of rigs I like to aspire to. This one I will surely reference often for education and inspiration. Jon

Tim, I've not done any studies on the amount of deflection under load in a western saddle tree, but if I were to speculate, it would be negligable(probably measured in thousands of an inch if that). Contrary to a lot of myth circulated throughout generations it was believed a tree must deflect under high load to act as a shock absorber. A good padding system and a good natural wool skin lining serve this function. In a well engineered and constructed tree, it is my opinion they should not flex at all. Jon

Tim, Actually poplar is considered a hard wood. Lots of different types of wood have been used in tree making over generations, and poplar seems to posess all the characteristics benefitial to tree construction, longevity, and saddlemaking. It's easy to obtain good straight grain clear lumber, It has outstanding nail and srew holding properties, it machines very well, has a high degree of dimentional stability when moisture content is at a minimum, is relatively light weight for a hard wood, and doesn't split easily. Most hard woods posess many of these characteristics, but the weight consideration and namely the ability to drive nails and srews is paramount. Jon

Ian, As Rod and Denise strongly suggested, I would opt for Dennis Lane's card system if I were you. They listed the inherent advantages and I strongly believe this will become a universal system...the first credible one our industry has seen. All ya gotta' do is e-mail the tree maker with the template numbers and you are there. I'm in the process of adapting and translating his system into my tree contruction as I hope others will do. Rod and Denise already have this deal figured out and I think it's working out pretty good for them. Jon

Andy, I've used West Systems epoxy and a variety of lesser name brands. There is a whole host of companies formulating epoxy systems with even a wider variety of features, namely cure rates and viscosity levels. For wet hand lay-up a higher viscosity material works best for me. The cloth I am using is an 8.9 oz. twill weave E-grade that is highly drapable. Jon

I wouldn't expect a poorly engineered glass encased tree to withstand high stress levels any longer than a poorly engineered rawhide covered tree. I just love to tinker, and in my tinkering away I discovered the huge world of composites and the vast array of applications for which they are used. Styrene emissions from polyester and vinyl ester resins are indeed unpleasant and harmful to inhale but I don't use either of these two resin systems. Epoxy is the way to go for a number of reasons, lack of nasty vapors is one of them. They are of a different chemical makeup than the previous two mentioned and do not contain styrene. Maybe Adam Till would comment. I know his knowledge and expertise far exceeds what little knowledge I posess on this subject. Jon

It's been very busy around here as of late, and as a result I've had little time to sit down and keep up on the current posts, let alone offer any response. This is one subject though, I wanted to chime in on. All aspects of tree construction and materials used are very fascinating to me. Relatively new to the craft (about 4 years) of tree making, I've not built even a fraction of the number of trees that folks like Mr. Severe, Andy Knight, Rod Nikkel and many others have. This continuing journey though, has led me to experiment with different construction techniques and materials. By no means will I denigrate the use of rawhide as it has been used quite successfully for generations. Rawhide will probably always be the covering of choice because of it's proven track record and it's tradition. I still cover trees with rawhide on a limited basis, and probably always will. However, using the proper materials and application techniques composites will out perform rawhide, simply put. I am by no means an educated engineer, but my study and testing of composites has led me down this path to explore these materials as the strength covering of choice for my severe duty trees. To date all of the saddles I've built for cowboys that I know will abuse their gear, get glassed trees. The process of my using composites has evolved over the past 4 years to the point where I feel very confident about the performance of these materials. I had done all this work previous to this bit of history told me by Troy West when he came up to visit about a month ago. Back in the 60's and 70's when Phil Lyne was winning big time in calf roping, tree breakage had become a big problem. Phil broke 14 rawhide covered trees in all before getting a saddle built with a glass encased tree. That was the saddle he won his championship with and it is still in use today. Were they high quality rawhide trees? Don't know. Are glassed trees for everybody? No. But believe it or not there is a segment of the market that insist on them. As far as old growth timber, I'm not real concerned about that as I laminate my bars in addition to my fronts and cantles. Some call it over kill, but I like the extra stability it gives the base structure. Jon

If in fact the wood is hedge you are speaking of, I wood be interrested in seeing one. It seems it would be a very impractical material because of it's characteristics. We let it grow wild in groves her in southern Iowa and use it for fence posts. You have to build your fence when this stuff is green because when its dry you cannot drive a staple in it. I built some new fence at our farm a couple of years ago and pulled alot of hedge posts that my grampa planted long before I was born. The core of every post was hard as a rock! I used all of them for fire wood. Man do they burn hot! Jon

Adam, Thanks for the tip on thinning the resin! I was wondering, would this would effect the cure rates and final strength of the epoxy? The typical vacuum infusion process is what I'm using by drawing resin into the bagging mold after sufficient vacuum has been achieved. Jon

Yonatan, I glue all laminations with Titebond II. All my parts are laminated including the bars. I use epoxy only to join the bars, front, and cantle. Jon

Yonatan, West System epoxy is pretty good stuff. I use it as an occasional filler and also to glue my tree parts together but I don't use it exclusively because of the cost and the high viscosity. The reason I mention viscosity is because I've come full circle in my application method and have settled on the vacuum infusion process which requires a very low viscosity resin system. Pre-preg materials are great, but to do it right it takes much more than I'm willing to invest. Jon

Brian, I've been admiring your outstanding work on your web site for some time now. It's great to have makers of your caliber join in the discussions. Welcome! Jon

Andy, Nice clean work as always, especially your lines. Your seat jockey shape, depth, and radias are right on the money. Jon

Doug, The bolts always protrude out from the box face. The tree is supported by these and it touches nothing else. Hope that answers your question. Jon

The support bolts serve to elevate the tree with the skirts off the face of the jig. They will locate somewhere on the pad surface of the bar... it really doesn't matter where. After you get the tree squared up on the jig, just firmly press down on the top of the tree and the points on the bolts will embed slightly in the skirts to hold it in position. Then all you have to do is measure front to back and from bottom up for rig placement and translate those measurements to the other side. Bolt extention doesn't matter as long as the front bolts are extended the same height and the back bolts the same.The jig went through a short evolutionary process when I was initially trying some different procedures so there is some stuff on there that's irrelevant. Basicly all you need to do is build half a box and locate the bolts. Obviously it must be absolutely square and semetrical. Yes, the two planes of the box are at 90 degrees. Jon

There are a lot of mysteries concerning tree shapes, styles, etc. The reason being, most people never get to see a tree sans saddle leather, let alone inspecting one in the wood. Just having the opportunity to hold one and place it on a horses back would answer many questions for them. Most folks aren't aware that any style of fork can be attached to any style of bar, and that those pieces constructed by the tree maker are open to interpretation. Although all the custom, hand made tree makers I know of are very consistent with their own patterns and construction techniques, there are no standards in our trade to define a standard or “base line” for rock, twist, and flair for a particular horse type (not breed), as well as the fork design( I believe Dennis Lane's card system will definately move us in the right direction for fit). However, after having the opportunity to inspect and evaluate a number of trees from different makers there are only subtle differences in the bottom side profiles of the bars among the well known custom makers( and I stress custom makers). Most of the difference is in the angle and spread they have. Makers of hand made trees have the ability to translate their rock, twist, and flair profiles to any width of bar, whether it be a wider(Northwest) bar or a narrower(Arizona) bar and ending up with the same fit, only less surface area contacting the horse. Northwest and Arizona mean about as much to me as Semi-Quarter horse, Quarter horse, and Full-Quarter horse bars. These are terms that have been, in my opinion, used unsuccessfully in the equine industry only adding to the confusion and mystery of the saddle tree. The same goes for a Wade front. When someone orders a Wade tree or complete saddle from me, I speak to them in terms of dimensions. Sometimes they will have a picture...that's easy to interpret. I have yet to see any of the mass producers of trees that have been able to interpret a true Wade, with the exception of Sonny Felkins, and I'm not wild about all of his. Jon

mulefool, That is Herman Oak chestnut skirting. It's kind of wierd stuff in that it seems to be a bit on the waxy side. It requires very warm water to penetrate for casing purposes, but the end results in color and workability are quite pleasing. It works a lot like the old Muir McDonald skirting and is very firm. Jon

rwc, Get on Kent Frecker's web site, click on saddle trees and you will see some great examples of Kent's and Lennis Arave's Wade trees. Also Rod Nikkel has very fine examples on his site also. Jon