JRedding

Bob, maybe you could trade one for a horse name him Junior and write him off as a dependent.

I'm like Troy I've tried the Pro-Carve and couldn't tell a difference, maybe there's a reason it has no list of ingredients on the bottle because it sure smells and feels like plain old dish soap and water. I've used Shoe Stretch before only to find out I'd paid someone fifteen dollars a gallon to pre-mix alcohol and water for me and I've questioned whether the Pro-Carve solution is a pre-mixed potion of common household products. If someone knows what it's actually made of it would be interesting to find out, but the fact that it has no list of ingredients even for medical purposes is questionable.

Rick, I've never consigned a saddle anywhere, I've seen too many kids with sticky hands jump on saddles in tack stores and whip and spur like it was a plastic pony in front of Wal-Mart so I always had the jeebies about the condition I'd come back to find it in. I know people who do, Sawtooth Saddle Company has a couple dealers they'll consign to and have for years so there is a way to do it. If you had a reputable dealer who would take care of your merchandise it could work out. I've never seen a feed store I'd trust, and if a tack shop takes consigments and is very good with a pencil they'll know to push their inventory ahead of yours because they'll make more money turning over their stock and letting yours set so you could get disappointing results through no fault of your own. Back when horses were still good property to own I used to trade saddles for horses on occasion. I grew up a horse traders kid so trading for horses, shaping them up and re-selling them was an every week occurance to me, often making a profit on the saddle when I traded it and then it made another opportunity to clear a profit on the horses. At that time a saddle that would have sold for 1500.00 cash could be turned into 3000.00 in the right trade, but today people are trying to give me horses and I turn them down so it's not easily done anymore. But there are a lot of ways to sell a saddle if you're willing to get a little creative.

Not that I'd recommend doing what I did but I started out making up a few saddles putting them in the truck and driving until they were gone. I've sold them at ropings, stores, and gas stations, sometimes three states away. A couple times I was away a while before I could clean out my stash but I vowed to stay gone until they were gone so I could do it again. The only dependents I had at the time were a Ford pickup, one sorrell and a grey, so I had the freedom to pull something like that. Looking back it should have never worked but some of the people I met called later and some of the stores I sold to right off the street sold out and re-ordered until I had enough going to stay home. My method sounds like a better way to go broke than get started but it did work twenty years ago.

I don't case leather to tool it, I just spray it down with a spray bottle fairly damp to tap-off or trace off, usually another spritz before carving, by the time it's carved it's about how I like it for tooling, and I maintain the moisture with a spray now and then as it's needed. I know that's not how most do it but it works for me. I'm not going to tool into the bottom layers so what's the point of them being moist, I've always thought it only increased stretch if the bottom layers were moist and pliable as opposed to firm enough to help retain it's original shape. Just one opinion but most of the books that stress the need to case were written forty or fifty years ago when leather was much different than it is today, in Stolhmans day cattle weren't raised on steroids and went to slaughter at a much older age than they do today,and a greater percentage of slaughter cattle were farm raised as opposed to feed-lot raised anyway, all of these factors as it's done today have negative effects on the size and quality of the leather produced. Shep Hermann of Hermann Oak Leather makes no secret of the fact the EPA has forced them to "reinvent" the process of tanning leather several times over the last forty years in an effort to make it a cleaner process with less hazardous waste. If I remember correctly his words were "the process we use today isn't much like we used to do it" or something close to that. The leather of fifty years ago was harder than the hinges on hells door compared to leather of today and required casing to make it workable but that leather no longer exists as I see it.

What about kitchen cabinets from Lowe's , Home Depot or some place like that, I've seen them used with a solid wood top to make reloading benches with the drawers for storage. If you're not concerned with looks the guys I've seen build reloading benches with them bought scratch and dents dirt cheap.

I can only tell you how we do it, oil to the color you want and give it plenty of time to make sure it's going to remain the color you want, seal it with tan-kote, bag-kote, or neat-lac and let that dry thouroghly, then apply the antique, we use a small sponge work it into all the cuts and pick up all the excess you can after it's covered well then buff the remaining excess with a piece of wool scrap until you've got the contrast you want. Ideally you'll let the antique set at least twelve hours before you seal over it again, you will pick up a little antique when you seal the second time, don't scrub on the second coat or apply too much and "stand" it on, apply it sparingly and gently . Antique has little effect on dyed colors unless they're light tones.

Johanna, domesticated horses can survive on their own in wild horse country, it just depends on how good the feed and water are in a particular area as to how well they'll fare. Most of the wild horses in this part of the country never do well, the country their in is so poor with little feed and scarce water. They see very little green feed here. Most here cover a lot of country to make a living, they travel quite a ways everyday between feed and water. Most people in the general public have a pretty tainted view of what the life of a wild horse (at least one here) is really like. I've seen them so poor you wouldn't beleive their still standing, in this country when they become that hungry they'll start eating greasewood, if you're not familiar with what we call greasewood it's a scrubby bush that will grow where nothing else will, it's not thorny but it's said to be some of the nastiest brush outside of Texas, it's tough enough to puncture a radial tire. When horses eat greasewood it's so tough they can't chew it up and they wind up swallowing chunks that puncture their stomach causing their death. Every wild horse in this country has ticks just like every coyote has fleas, it's just a matter of how bad. I've seen horses on the tribal ground so tick infested they looked like a bag of marbles. It's a far cry from the majestic pictures of long manes and tails blowing in the wind while standing in knee high grass that people envision when they think wild horse. Just to stay on topic they sure could use some hay.

Here in our part of Utah last fall a lot of people turned horses out, we have a lot of wild horses here both BLM and Indian horses are all over the country south of here and a lot of horses got turned out with them. When hay prices last fall turned out to be so high some people who didn't have the heart to turn them out there to fend for themselves literally turned them in the street knowing the county would stray pen them, nobody brands horses here anymore so it was impossible to find the owners. They had so many they were boarding them at the fairgrounds last winter at the taxpayers expense. The last time the BLM gathered theirs here to check for disease they had several in the trap wearing halters. I've seen a lot of horses in with the wild horses near here with saddle marks and even a couple still wearing shoes once.

I usually look in my checkbook that does it for a while.

Brent, just an all out nice job, not much to add except maybe keep tooling on up under the rear D and get rid of that one plain spot is the only thing I could suggest. Beatiful saddle all the way around.

E-Z Sales in California I don't have the number on hand right now but I can post it if you have trouble finding it. They used to sell them in packs of twelve.

Tim, congrats on the job. You're telling of moving for your dream job reminded me of a friend I had in Wyoming who worked on the forest with the cows all summer, worked the hunting camps through the fall, and traded horses in the winter. He told a story you might like about a fellow he guided on an elk hunt one fall who asked him if he ever regretted living like he had, and wished he'd chosen a better profession where he could make some "real money" instead of spending most of his life sitting on a horse and living in a wall tent. I asked him what do you say to a question like that ? he said " I asked him Mr. you've been saving your money all year, and probably counting the days until you could get this week off work to come hunt with me right" the fella agreed, " well I get up everyday of my life and do what you have to save up and wait all year to come do for one week of yours, I'd say I'm pretty rich" little did he know how well this guy really did he traded horses in the winter to buy up horses for resell to the dude outfits in the spring, always took some nice horses to the mountain in the spring, rode them with the cows all summer while he was drawing cowboy wages and then sold them off when he came down in the fall so he made double wages all summer, and a good guide in an elk camp does pretty well in wages and tips. He was as well off financially as the rest of us and one of the happiest guys I've ever known.

Hoping not to get off the original topic but could the treemakers give comments if they feel there is a difference in the amount of flex between an all hardwood tree and a pine. And what you feel are the benefits of each material.

Brian, beatiful floral job, nice rawhide work, just an all-out fine piece of work, most of all the seat in that saddle is so good I can see it all the way to Utah.

I've made patterns, looked at it , thought about it to get it right, and then wrote "this side up" on the wrong side and tryed to use it. Right after that comes picking up the phone and trying to dial out on the adding machine, done that too.

Terry, call Brighton Feed in Brighton Colorado they can tell you what it's worth and may be able to help you sell it, they are the largest dealer of McCall saddles and a pretty good bunch in general.

I use a dead-blow to set maker stamps, I don't use it for anything else but I've got large maker stamps that it's the only thing that seems to work. Mine is three pound and I just bought it at the hardware store, nothing fancy.

Joanne, I'm not sure a new custom saddle will be squeak-free I've built some that squeak like a dry hinge but maybe someone has a remedy to insure they don't. As for the powder it will help immensly with the squeaking and it won't hurt anything, most of the squeak comes out of the stirrup leather area, turn it on it's back and sprinkle some in where the stirrup leathers pass over the bars. You won't even see it and it won't damage the leather.

Photostore, belt blanks are cut 1/8" under because a 1" belt buckle should be exactly one inch inside measurement, a one inch belt doesn't fit in a one inch buckle very easily without some room to slide without binding. One eighth of an inch only allows for 1/16" inch of clearance on each side of the belt as it passes through the buckle. Too tight a fit inside a buckle will make it difficult to slip together, buckle up and will destroy the finished belt edge quickly if it has to scrape through the buckle every time. If you tape the blank with packing tape before you tool it, let it dry completely before you untape it and then edge and finish the belt the 7/8" should work out just right.

Wolvenstein, Not sure what you've got but I once "inherited" some latigo that must have been fifteen or twenty years old and it looked like what you described. Maybe it's just old stock they scrounged up somewhere.

one of the Stolman books shows it if I remember right it's the pictorial carving book, not sure the cover is worn out and gone off of mine or I could tell you exactly which one. But one of them does show it.

Randy, we had a stretch last fall that seemed pretty slow we were behind enough it allowed us to catch up on a few things and it picked up around Christmas and has remained steady since. I've heard the same as you from some suppliers and I seem to be getting more courtesy calls about specials and odd lots than normal from some. I can only speak of the conditions here but the horse market is in the crapper in our part of the country. Good broke saddlehorses brought a fair price at the annual spring horse sale here last weekend but consignment was down about two thirds. With the price of hay last fall horses were being given away and dumped on the BLM ground to winter with the wild horses south of town.Weiner and yearling colts are pretty much free. The county here wintered so many horses that had been stray penned and remained unclaimed they were boarding horses at the fairgrounds because no one anticipated getting horses dumped on them like that and they didn't have the facilities to handle it. It's only my opinion but a bad horse market and seeing people get out of it alltogether because it's too expensive coupled with the fact there's fast becoming a saddlemaker for every horse still in operation, I don't see it getting easier anytime soon. I've worked with companies that have maintained ad space in the Horseman pretty much continuously since 1991 so I've watched the ads monthly since then. Last year in the pre Christmas edition I beleive it's the gift guide I counted around fourteen ads for custom saddles clustered within three pages, I didn't notice several of the old tough regulars like Big Bend, Ryons, and Platte Valley amongst them I beleive they had ads somewhere else in the magazine. Most of the fourteen if I remember right were small shops and/or new advertisers. It's just the most I've ever noticed flooding in there pre Christmas. I've gotten the feeling the middle ground market amongst the backyard horseman or pleasure rider may be taking a decrease in size due to lack of disposable income , probably brought on by high gas prices and higher everything prices because of high gas prices like you said. Add in the increased number of shops soliciting these folks for their business, it's starting to appear to me like there's more people seated at the table to get a piece of shrinking pie.

Roo, what a piece of work, when I see them posted I'm always amazed at the work that goes into them. I'm asking a stupid question here I know but what are they used for? I haven't been able to decide if they're used as decorative artwork or what so I'm finally going to choke up and ask.

Alan, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree like gentlemen here, I will respond breifly in my own defense and then I'm done.I won't compare Spanish history notes and try to draw conclusions from old pencil sketches because It really doesn't pertain to the topic. I've seen Indians ride horses I've lived on the border of the largest reservation in the state my entire life. I do understand how to cinch a bronc and ride a cutting horse I've done both of them. I'm genuinely not interested in how rearward movement will affect my roping, I've roped thousands of cattle and it's working fine, wouldn't want to foul that up. If someones pushing me from behind while I'm sitting on my horse I'm just gonna pray she has brown hair and I don't turn around to find a mustache with Copenhagen breath. And I never called David a kook. I fold, deal me out