justken

I'll try to post some pictures on monday.I have the slowest dial up in the world at the house and i'm not sappost to load anything on these puters here at work.

Mr Johnson, I just got done doing a search for Flower's saddles and found Loon Creek Leather.Will be giving them a call monday.Do you know if thay sell any of their Diamond conchos outright? The tooling on this one looks ok but not real fancy. This saddle is a 14" youth. It's complete except for the bit,it's a cheeper aluminum (sorry-no spell check).Well other than a couple missing pieces of the silver.At first,I thought the silver looked more like aluminum but there starting to clean up. When I was a kid, my Dad had a silver mounted saddle. I think it came out of southern Cal. Just remember having to polish the durn thing.If you got caught on the barn roof,you got to polish it. Other than replaceing a couple of hanger straps this saddle's in pretty good shap.He is haveing me go over it then clean it up. Then it's going on E-Bay. He's looking at a gold mounted one also. He brought in the part that would go over the rump. That's what had the green tarnish on it.Looks a whole lot like brass to me.

A customer brought in a silver mounted Ted Flowers parade saddle today. It's missing a couple of silver pieces and a couple of "belt" tips that were on saddle strings. Anyone know if these or reproductions are avilable? The swell caps are also dented up some,has anyone on here ever pulled them off to get dents out? There's only 3 pins/nails holding on that I can see,but I'm leary of scratching the silver.Any tricks to this? Also interested in any info about these saddles. You don't normally see many of these in my end of the world. The guy also is looking at a gold mounted one,but it has a green tarnish on some of the "conchos".Did Flowers make any of these saddles with brass ? I know thay were made with "rosegold" but that dosn't look like this one does.

Thank you!..I'll try to look it up..Ken

Good evening all..A customer brought in a Circle Y pleasure saddle that is needing the horn redone. I usually talk people into just letting me recover with leather but lady wants this one rebraided.Can anyone give me a ideal on making a pattern for a one piece,10 stand covering for a 3"tall x 2" dia. horn covering? I can do the braiding once I understand how to shape the horn cap. The old rawhide is to torn up to use for a pattern even if I can get it apart in one piece. Which leads into another qustion,can a polyurathane type sealer be used instead of shalack be used to seal horn? Any help greatly apricated Ken( no spellcheck, sorry)

Good evening. A customer brought in a saddle made by "Texas Saddlery" in Bastrop,TX.I'm trying to find a way to contact them if they are still in business. Tried Googleing and got a phone number but it wasn't a working number. Any help would be greatly appreciated..Thanks Ken

You mite want to look at Wagman Primus (www.wagmanprimus.com). I've always had good service from them and thay sell 1/4 lb hanks of dyed hair in 27". Have used Hitching Post in past and always had good service from them also but Wagmans are a little cheeper. Rit dye is all I've ever used for dyeing,like the way it looks. Have seen other types of dye that make the hair to shiny/plastic looking. Almost all types of dye will fade with time and the red and blue are real bad about bleeding into surounding hair. I've always liked useing natural colers the best also. Just my 2 cents worth Ken

Looking for nylon zippers for money belts.Thay need to be pretty small and low profile.Thank you for any help!..Just Ken

I'd be interested in that information also if you'd care to post it.Thanks in advance Ken

My new shop had to be more compact than our old one,so had to get creative with benches. If you have the room,you can't go wronge with a full 4'x8' cutting/layout table. You mite not need it right now but if you use sides of leather it'll come in real handy. My cutting bench is 4'x5' with a detachable piece that's 2'x4'. The removeable piece rests on a 2"x2" ledge on table and gets held in place with 2 drywall screws. Other end has a set of legs off a fold-up table thats adjustabe to match main table. Makes table look like a funny looking "L" that's 5'x8'. When not in use,I take out the screws take it down and set out of the way. My cutting table top is a piece of 1" poly cutting board that started out life as a restroom partition. Note: All names and phone numbers were removed to protect the guilty. Best part is almost all of it was gotten from remodle jobs/dumpster diveing. Table frame and legs are made out of 2"x6". Table top is 3/4" plywood with poly over that. Put 1"x4" on sides to hold poly in place. Tooling bench is 2' wide by 4' long. It has a top made out of 2x4's laying flat then 3/4 plywood layers with a cutout area that holds a 14" wide by 2' long piece of 2" granite. I tend to overbuild everything, but nothing has ever fallen apart in use yet!. Hope this gives you some ideas..Just Ken

I'd also be interested in hitched horsehair category. Do you need to be there to inter?

Try Weaver Leather,thay have have them.

Think it was Lenny Spurlock who showed me how to tie in dropped pulls like that. The graft paper I was useing probably looked like yours but was smaller almost oval shaped ,can you reduce yours to size? Didn't get a chance to go dig it out yet. I make up all sizes of tassles from big shuflys down to single hair earrings.When I find that kid I'll post some pictures. Do you have any pictures of your work? If I can help/confuse you any more ,let me know.

Hi Mulefool..Finaly able to get back on here to answer some of your qustions. Was going to tell you about clay's book.I've gotten a bunch of folks started useing his book.Like how he wrote it and it's very easy to follow. Tieing dropped pulls..When your dropping out a pull do you tie it in on next hitch? After dropping pull out,on next round or on next "down" hitch,you lay dropped pull paralel to wrap cord then make a "down" hitch over it.Pull hitch snug then pull the dropped hitch under the wrap cord. I still will leave about a min of a 1/2" before cutting off. Sounds harder than it is,try it and you'll see.(I hope!) Also find that getting blank wet then rolling flat before pressing helps.Don't use your wife's good rolling pin,trust me on that.. I don't care for needle knots so usually will hitch over butted joints. A lot of times(most) I'll build up a foundation with white elec tape. Tape covers well and you can sew thru it while tieing off buttons.That said,I really like HorsehairBraider's knot! Layouts..I used to use a graft paper that was made for beading(I think thats what thay used it for)I'll try and dig it out for you.Most of what I'm hitching now is for inlays or tassles.Got a whole lot of them trial and err pieces also. Tools..I've got a bench set up that I use.I built a rack kind of afare that holds string and has 2 tensene adjusters on it. adjusters are tophat looking things that have a nut molded in top,found them in plumbing supplys at a old hardware store but thay are still being made.But a confortable chair with armrests and good lighting are more enportant to me.When I worked for the Forest Service back out in MT,I hitched out in the back country by standing on the thread that was wrapped around a nail drove in the end of a log.That was fun but like my bench better. I'm kind of "tecno-challanged" so I'll try to find a gradeschool kid to get pictures for you.That coffee ready yet? Where do I got to go to get some? Anyway,hope I helped you a little and have fun!

Hi Mulefoot..I'll try to help if I can.I've found it's a lot easier to show how to do that than to try to tell how. You can cover ends with needle knots.I just hitch a knot.What are you makeing?

What's the standard length of pony saddle stirrup leathers? Have fixed a bunch of them,but never measured any of them. Thanks in advance..

Hi All..I'm a horsehair hitcher and do a lot of custom/keepsake items. Last time I tried to post was night whole system crashed! But I'll try not to kill it this time.. I'll try to explane one way you can do this with shorter hair. First you will need to get the hair wet, I useually wash and lightly condition it. It'll help to loosely wrap bread ties around bundle to keep everything togather. You need the hair wet and "soft". You can bind the cut end as tight as you can pull it down about an inch from end leaveing around a 10" tail on your string(will be used for 2nd knot). I'll wrap it about 3-6 times then tie it again. Now hold your tassle upside down and fold the tassle part evenly over the knot. Kind of devideing it into at least 4-5 sections. While doing this I always try to have short end(10" part) sticking out one side and running end out the other side. Draw down tightly over first knot which is now evenly covered with tassle and tie off again just like first knot.Be sure to kind of pull this down so you'll end up with a nice even button for your foundation. If you want more "bulk" you can wrap button with white election tape to build it up(with horsehair, black tape tends to darked up the pattern where white dosen't for some reason) Guess I should say to do that after sewing on your ring. I useually use size 277 poly thread to tie and hitch over,use smaller thread for smaller tassles. You can also do this same thing over a folded leather strap but I find it doesn't draw down as tight. As the hair drys it'll be kinked and that'll lock it in tight. Hope this'll help and not just confuse everyone. I can't post pictures as I'm at work. I'll be back on here tommoro night if you have any qustions. Any other hitchers on here?