TroyWest

I dont know if you've made that offer but that would be way out of my price range. I would even go back to hand sewing.............everything.

I have owned a Union, a Randall, and a Landis 3. A Union is real finicky. Designed for sewing harness 90 mph and it does it well. I have built many saddles with them but it really is a high speed machine. You can move the machine 2 ft and you have to readjust everything. Your question was comparing the Randall and the 3. I agree with Don King. The Randall made immaculate stitches. It also seems to sew lighter weights better than the 3. I actually got my 3 from Don King. The advantage to it is a deeper throat than the Randall and it sews saddles well. If I were choosing between the Randall and the 3, I would get the Randall. They just tend to cost more. I think Darcy must have a 3 and a Randall. Which do you prefer Darcy?

Congratulations Darcy and Elton.

Longhorn Saddles had a huge pair mounted on the wall. There was a section of a telephone pole that the horns were slipped over with about 2 ft. between them.

Thank you Johanna. Life has returned to normal. Did we do something to make it change?

I'm totally with you Barra. I'm not a fan of the new format either. Maybe I need educating too.

Real glad it helped. Troy

Happy Birthday Clay.

Jake, I'd like to share a thought that I hope will be helpful. The Stohlman design is a good design except it is too high in the front end. This means your tree will sit higher in the front on your stand than it will when sitting on a real horse. What will happen is your saddle will look great on your stand, but when you put it on a horse your skirts will run downhill from back to front. The bottom skirt line will not be parallel to the ground when on a horse. I see this on a lot of saddles and it is a result of the tree not sitting on the drawdown with the same degree as it does on a real horse. One way to compare this is with a tree, a ruler, and a level. You'll need a horse with nice conformation as well. Set the tree on the horse. Hold the ruler against the back of the cantle, just resting on the top of the bar as close to the center of the cantle as possible. You'll need a level about 2 ft. long. Set one end of the level on top of the horn and hold the other end against the ruler in the rear. Get your bubble level by raising or lowering the back end of the level while holding it against the ruler. When level, take note of the measurement against the ruler, say the top of the level against the ruler says 7 3/4", that becomes your standard. Take your tree back to your drawdown and repeat this. Set the level on the horn and the ruler against the cantle back and now set the top of the level at the 7 3/4" mark. Now raise the back of the tree up until the bubble is level. The space between the back of the bars and the drawdown is how much the back of the stand should be raised. On that Stohlman stand it will probably need to be raised 2 to 3"in the rear. That amount really affects a lot of things, including how the groundseat is built and how you actually sit when on a horse, not to mention all your other lines. I know this sounds like a lot of trouble but it will be very important to the look and quality of all of your future saddles, so it is very foundational. I hope I explained this adequately and I hope you find it helpful. I wish you the best, Troy West

John, A relatively simple way to make a press plate. Have a carver tool 2 identical pieces, say wallet size roughly 4 x 10", but leave one maybe 1" larger than where the border stops. Then build a small wall around the larger piece on that border. You can do this by glueing 2 layers of skirting, 1/2" wide on top of each other. You will then paint that with a releasing agent, all over the tooling and the small walls. I think it's called PVA releasing agent, sort of a clear green color, comes in quart bottles. You can use fiberglass resin or epoxy resin, mix it up, pour on the leather, place some fiberglass cloth in that, a bit more resin, til you have about 3/8" to 1/2" thick. Let er cure, and pull it apart. You now have a press plate that will press the pattern exactly like the other piece of leather that is hand carved. Now all you need is a big press to push it into the leather. I dont know if that would be easier than the method you are currently using, but I do know thousands of press plates have been made in this fashion. Hope that helps. Troy West

One other thought that I had would be to do this. I dont know if you do any press plates or have access to any, but, if you could take a floral pattern that was pressed or embossed into the leather. Then have someone hand carve the exact same pattern. Color them the same. Then simply ask anyone who comes by. Which of these looks better? I believe the hand carved one would win every time. You could then easily explain the difference. This one took 30 seconds, this one took 2 hrs., 3hrs., etc., to tool this one panel. This would explain and justify the difference in cost. Our industry is very much a visual industry. It is about quality, but it is very much about how it looks. The pressed one may look pretty good on its own, but when put up beside a hand carved one it will pale.

I understand what your saying Allen. My brother traded for some tools once and got a snuff can full of swivel knife blades. One of them was the ceramic blade. We had it for several years until I decided to try it out. I dont remember it having those marks so whoever had it before me had already removed them.

Well, that's good to know Bob. I'm quite happy with the steel blades I'm using. Your the first person to say anything negative about the ruby blades so it had my curiosity up, and I'm pretty sure I could sharpen a dull one on these diamond wheels.

grstools.com is the web site. I'd do a link but I'm too illiterate. Click on sharpening and then power hone It's called a power hone. Works like a small record player . Costs about $380.00 for the hone, about $90.00 per diamond disc in 300, 600, and 1200 grit and the stand which holds your bits for another $100.00. It's too pricey to purchase for sharpening swivel knife blades, but, if you already have one, it's handy for sharpening them, and I can change the angles on the blades to whatever I want.

I think your line of reasoning in this matter is positive. I appreciate your wanting to take the higher road. It is the right thing to do regardless of what the competition does. I would agree with your interpretation of the terminology. It is the same as my own, although the terms tooling and embossing are sometimes used interchangedly. I think educating your customers is the best route to take. In the photograph his case actually looks pretty good, but it also looks embossed. Embossing, in my mind, is making a plate, of metal, fiberglass, or plastics, with the design. Moisten the leather, put the plate on top, and press the design into the leather.This process takes seconds to put into the leather. The plate can be used hundreds of times to put the same design in leather, rapidly and inexpensively. Tooling, as we commonly refer to it, is drawing, or transferring the design to the leather, cutting each line idividually, beveling each line with a beveler. Using a number of tools each one individually tapped with a mallet taking hours to produce a hand carved piece that would take seconds to emboss. Hence, the tremendous difference in price. It takes no skill to emboss, but a lot of time goes in to developing good carving skills. I know that you are aware of all these things, but you asked for opinions of others on these matters, and these are a few of my thoughts. I hope they will be helpful. Troy West

Thanks for the information. Apparently, that blade was gone when I got to ebay. If you should run across another, I'd like to try one. Thanks, Troy West

If they are as good as you say they are, I wonder why they aren't being made anymore? Who originally made them? Why did they stop? or, is anybody making them now? The only ones I have seen were angled blades, which I don't care for. Did they make a straight blade?

I don't feel you trumped me ATX, but it certainly doesn't mean I'm infallible. No one is. She didn't ask if it needed to be sharpened. She asked if it needed to be stropped. If it needs to be sharpened, that's a different ball game. I used a ceramic blade for several years, when one day while cutting, the back corner broke right off. I went back to using a metal blade, but I really liked the ceramic. It was really smooth.Then one day it occurred to me that they have to sharpen those things before they ship them. It must be possible to sharpen them. So I took it to my grinder and ground it down. Then I put it on my GRS power hone with diamond impregnated wheels. These are made for sharpening silver engraving tools. It works fine on ceramic too. It sharpened the blade quite well. I sharpen all my swivel knife blades on it now. I used that blade for some time until I just decided to use my Henley knife and blade. Sharpening it the same way I couldn't tell the difference between it and the ceramic. It is a great blade. Last fall at Wichita Falls I tried out one of Pablos knives from Leather Wranglers. I expected not to be impressed at all but was pleasantly surprised. It is a great knife and blade and has become my personal favorite. So much so that I recently ordered a thin blade to go in my Old Smoothie from him as well. The fact is that I dont know of a swivel knife blade that doesn't need to be stopped from time to time, including ceramic. I have never used a ruby blade, but I'm guessing it would need to be stropped also. That's my $.02. Have a great day, Troy West

Yes, when it gets to feeling a little drag, strop it.

Jed, I think what you have in mind is pretty good thinking. A simple stamp that conveys the information you want is best. I would agree with you on leaving off the rope border. That leaves you the option of using any border you want later or using no border. The one thing you didn't say was on the stamp was your city and state. You have no idea where your stuff will go but if they have your name and location they can find you. I really like the name Flat Hat Saddlery. Conveys to me a buckaroo origin. I've never heard of another one. The magnesium stamps are the least expensive and they actually work pretty well. I have a couple of these and they work fine, however I dropped one of them once and slightly damaged the border around the stamp. That is the disadvantage of magnesium. It is a soft metal with a low melting temp., which is why they can make a stamp as inexpensively as they do. The delrin stamps like Grey Ghost makes are next and seem to produce a very nice stamp also. The most expensive stamps are the steel ones. These are like the one from Harper Mfg. I have a couple of these. One I had tempered to be able to strike it into sterling silver as well as leather. It works great. They are excellent stamps and very tough. Hope that helps, Troy West

Darcy, I have a 3 also and your problem intrigued me, so I took some scrap and actually sewed through 3/4" of just leather and it sewed fine. Added woolskin and it was too much. Backed off to a full 5/8" of leather and added woolskin and it did sew it, so yours should too. It looked like in the video you had a little room you might possibly be able to raise the arm a little closer to the looper and that might help. I tried that on mine also and it sewed fine although mine didn't need it. Hope that helps. As food for thought I used to plug mine with very heavy plugs but I take my plugs down a bit thinner than I used to. Just gives it a little more of a refined look and would make it easier to sew on your machine.

I did not post those links correctly, but the web addresses are correct.

The Boise Foundry in Idaho....www.boisefoundry.com or Bowden Saddle Tree Co. in Texas...www.saddletree.com I get horns from both of these. Welcome to the forum. Troy West

I have never needed parts for mine. Don King recommended that I get one years ago. He was always buying machines and I knew I could always get parts from him. Carl Chappel, a well known boot maker from Texas, who teaches bootmaking, also liked them for sewing boot tops. I would contact Carl if I needed some parts.

Very nice work Andy.