rgerbitz

equiss, If you haven't gotten an offer yet, I would recommend asking around to see who the better makers are in your area and get in touch with them and ask them directly if you could work something out. I have had the good fortune to find a maker within reach willing to work with me on saddlery and I am about to head out 3/4 of the way across the country to spend a week with a top braider. In each case I was referred to them and either called them or got in touch through email and asked if I could come. Both have been more than reasonable with their rates. Rob

Thanks Bruce that is good to know. I will probably be looking to sell some of them because there are doubles, and some I'm not sure if I will use. Am going to try and get them all cleaned up and sharp first to see which I want to keep. Rob

Hey thanks guys. Yeah Bruce, I am still new to leather work and the tools, but I think I made out O.K. on this deal. There are about 5 Gomph tools, some C.F. and M.F. Osborne, C. Rosecrans(?) and some unmarked tools. Gave $55 for the lot. Need a little cleaning and sharping but most are in decent shape. Thanks for the input, Rob

I picked these tools up at an auction a couple of weeks ago they are in decent shape with just a little rust. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to clean up these tools. Mainly how to get the rust off without having to grind it off. Thanks Rob

If my hide is still in a circle then I will soak that for about 3 hours and then put it in a plastic bag for a day or two. I will usually lay it on the floor and lay something flat on top. This makes it stay really flat and helps when I go to cut the strings out it. If the string has already been cut then I will just dip it in water for a 10-15 min. then set it inside a plastic garbage can. I got this idea from Alan Bell. There is a rack in there about half way up from the bottom, with a few inches of water in the bottom. You can keep string at the right moisture in there for weeks. Just have to watch out for mold. I will put some bleach in the water and occasionally scrub the sides with bleach to help keep the mold out. Rob

Very nice, I hope to one day be able to put a nose button on that doesn't twist. You make some nice looking gear. Rob

It is just squeezed in there.

Charlie, The Diameter = 1.5 inches and the length = 5 inches. The angled cut is at 45 degrees. I am going to have another one made some day and when I do I will add another 3 inches on and put another angle at 30 degrees. It would also be nice if there were some kind of finger on the collar so that there wasn't so much surface area against the string when cutting. Old timer, I have been using the small utility knife blades, they are about an inch or so long. I use a black marker and put a mark along the cutting edge that wears off as I go. Easier to tell which part of the blade has been used, when the mark is all gone I throw that blade away. Hope this helps, Rob

Sorry Charlie, The first model was one I made of wood. I took that to the machine shop and with a few modifications I had what you see there. If you would like some dimensions I could fix you up with something. Rob

Here is what I use. Cost me $50 to have it made.

Did you order one for me too.

Here are some pretty slick work benches. http://www.plansnow.com/workbenchplans.html

Very nice job on the heel knot. I see on the nose button that you could have gone past your ends a little more so that it closed down on the rounds a little better. I have problems with that myself. On the side pull you might want to spend a little more time next time tightening up everything and rolling it out a little better. The braiding all looks straight and the strings look nice. Keep in mind I'm just a beginner myself so I may or may not know what the hell I'm talking about. Overall looks good. Keep up the good work. Rob

Rawhide 1 Forgot to respond the last time, sorry. They are 8 plait braids so I used 4 strings and braided around the locks of hair which where about 6 inches long. This makes for about 3 inches of hair when finished and will be very difficult pull out. Clear as mud? Great! If this doesn't make sense ask again and I will try again. Thank you Opagan! Rob Gerbitz

Thanks for the kind words. The cores on the bosal is a twisted rawhide core braided over twice to get the desired diameter. And that dark gray color is from my first attempt at using sodium sulfide, the whole hide is this bluish gray color. I had been using it for cores till someone saw it and order this bit hobble and a bosal. There's no tell'in what some folks will like. Rob

Here are a few orders that I have recently finished up. Still have alot of room for improvement, but things are looking a little better. What do you think? Rob

It went for $220, about $20 more than what I wanted to give. I live in the middle of nowwhere between Sterling/Rock Falls and Kewanee. Rob

It is up for sale on a local estate auction, I was wondering what it whould be worth. Thank you for your reply. Rob

How much is this machine worth?

It all looks really well done, thanks for posting. Rob

Hey Mike, That's one hell of a tie down strap. She'll be proud of that for a long time. How did you fix on the hair at the end? Good work, Rob

Wide range of work around here. I am a livestock nutrition consultant. I travel around to the feedlots and dairies in the area and help the farmers to figure out how to feed their stock properly. And keep everyone on track, farmers can get a little side tracked with the 500 things they have to worry about.

I have never tried to do what you are doing but I do have some ideas. To eliminate the gaps you could put an interweave in of the same or different color. If your braid is of a o1, u1 sequence you would expand it to o2,u2. Or you might be able to do what the whip braiders do and cut your laces wider and taper them down. I would be apt to go with the first one. Assuming you have a o1,u1 braid in place look in the encyclepedia at plate 50 and start at figure 11 and you ought to be able to figure out how to add the interweave. Good luck Rob

Hey Buckskin, I'm in the beginning stages of learning how to build saddles as well. The most helpful thing I have done so far is to have gotten in contact with a "good" saddle maker and worked out a time when I could go and spend some time with him and get a better idea of what tools, materials, and education material would be most valuable. I spent 5 hours with him on a saturday morning and had to drive 3 hours to get there, but in doing so really raised my awareness of the value of good trees (nikkels) good leather (wickett and craig and hermann oak) and good tools (black, Douglas, horseshoe brand). Till I went there I would have most likely used inferior tools and material just to get the first one under my belt. Now I am content to wait till I can afford the better stuff and spend more time reading as I gather funds, tools, materials, and knowledge. I did pay him for the time he spent with me and he was very generous in not asking alot for it. Good luck, Rob Gerbitz

Ron, Welcome. I have been at braiding for a short time. And have zero experience with anything but the high tech splitter from tandys. I get along fine with it. Course I wouldn't know if it is really bad, never having tried anything else. Good luck with it. Rob