Denise

Ulf, Glad to see you made it home OK and have your saddlery up and running! And welcome to LW.net, at least as a participating member now. Website looks good. Well, at least the pictures do. I can't tell if you have spelling mistakes in there or not. Glad to have you here. Denise Nikkel

I know Dusty did a whole series of articles in LCSJ quite a few years back on a number of miniature things including saddles. It might have been the late 80's. If you call up LCSJ and ask I would expect they could tell you when and have back copies for you.

Sarabeth, Buying a saddle is like buying women's clothing - you have to try it on because the "sizes" mean nothing between makers. And it is worse because you have to try it on the horse for the bottom and you for the top. It has to fit both of you. The big companies, as a rule, don't make trees. They buy them from other big companies that do make trees and there aren't many of those. So you could be trying on 3 brands of saddles that all have their tree made by the same people. The best thing to do is read through posts and make a list of the things you want to check for fit. Here's some ideas. I'd start with you, because you can sit in a saddle without your horse and rule in or out the types you want to try on him. The seat is crucial. You can see that just by looking from the side at a lot of seats. It isn't that there isn't a rise to the front. The thing to look at is where that rise stops. Is there enough of a flat spot ahead of the cantle that will let you sit upright more in the center, not throwing you and your weight to the back of the saddle. If there is a slope all the way to the base of the cantle, pass on that one. (There are threads on here about seats, etc. especially early on. Even looking at side view pictures on here you can learn a lot.) Stirrup position is important too. If they are set too far forward, then again you are thrown back on the cantle as your legs reach for the stirrups. Then sit in a few and see what they do to you. You'll figure it out. The horse - you are looking at getting the bar shape to match your horse, remembering the two basic rules: 1.) Don't dig in anywhere and 2.) Get as much surface area as possible on your horse within the bounds of rule #1. Flip the saddle over and look at the bottom. How large are the bars? How much surface area is available to start with? Compare between saddles and you willl get an idea of the variety available. How round are the bars side to side? How hollow, flat or rounded is your horse? Do they match? A round bar on a round horse means contact only in the middle - not good. Feel the whole length. Are there lumps and bumps or pointy things sticking out anywhere? (You'd be amazed at how common that is.) Set it on the horse. A saddle that has lots of surface area in contact with the horse (the shapes match well) will sit quite solidly as you try to rock it around. One that doesn't fit well will slide all over the place. Then get specific. Does it clear the spine all the way down? This is crucial. Look at the back as well as the front. The width and angle of the bars should match your horse all the way down. Front, middle and back all need to be checked, not just the front. See what you can see and then run your hand underneath and feel what you can feel. This isn't easy, but you should be able to feel even contact from side to side on the bar. Neither top or bottom of the bar should be carrying more weight, or no weight. Rock - the amount of curve from front to back - is important. Is it contacting all down the bar? If the center is missing, it is bridging and your horse has more curve than the saddle. Try another saddle. If you can "rock" it on your horse (tip it forward and back while it hits in the middle) it has too much rock and will tend to fall forward on your horse. (A saddle will also fall forward if the bars are spread too far apart for the horse. Either way, it won't work well on that horse.) Check the front and back bar tips and make sure they aren't digging in. That is really important. Then you have to ride it - without a breast collar. How does the horse move? Is he comfortable? Does the saddle shift around? This doesn't help you in purchasing via brand, but that is honestly the way it is in getting a saddle to work for you. You HAVE to try to them out or you just don't know. Hopefully others who are more familiar with brand names will help you out here.

Yup. PM Johanna. She can give you costs, etc. and she can do the job for you too.

One of the first things a lot of people do when looking at a saddle is check for a maker's mark to learn who built it. (And yes, saddles out west at least are "built", not "made". Don't ask me why...) The name can definitely add to the value of the saddle. On the other hand, I have seen a saddle so plastered with the maker's mark in every available spot it was just ugly. Actually, thinking about it, that saddle wasn't overly pretty to start with... The kicker for the customer was that they had asked to have their brand on the back of the cantle. Instead there was a 2 1/2" maker's mark with Saddle # whatever it was there. Not a happy camper. They got someone else to put a large concho over it to hide it, and the bad publicity that maker gets every time someone comments on that saddle is the reverse of his intention when he placed his marks on it.

Tom, thanks for sharing your pattern. I am always amazed at the generosity of the members here on LW.

You're welcome. I figure if I can do it, anyone else should be able to as well!

Did they still have icing on them? Did anyone dare to try one? Or do you just let your dog lick the ones you bring to LW????? Congratulations on what looks to have been a great learning (and teaching) experience for all!

If I am recalling correctly, that advice goes back to Matt Eberle, a well respected saddle maker in High River, Alberta who has helped a lot of people increase their skill in building saddles over the years. He is 80+ years old and still going strong. Well worth listening to...

Mulefool's post made me remember something we discussed once with a good customer: "If you have a special customer you want to reward somehow, make something extra and give it to them rather than cut the price on something. As they saddle up they will remember that you gave them the extra breast collar long after they have forgotten the $100.00 cut on the price of the saddle." Makes a pile of sense to me.

Here is a link to a thread where this was talked about a bit. There is also a link to another forum where someone went step by step on their method. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?s...p;hl=half++seat

Holly, Buying a saddle is like buying women's clothing - you have to try it on (horse and rider) because none of the designations of size really tells you a lot when comparing between makers. Seat length is measured in different ways by different people - from the top of the cantle to the top of the handhole or to the base of the horn are the two common ways I know of. The height and angle of the cantle can really affect that measurement without changing the actual room in the seat. For example, since a cantle slopes back, the top where the measurement is taken from gets further away from the fork as it gets taller. So if the rest of the saddle was the same, a higher cantle would measure as being a longer seat, even though the room between the fork and the front points of the cantle where they join the bar (where the leg goes) would be the same. So just to be aware - if there is a really low cantle on the saddle, there is generally more room in it than the same seat size with a taller cantle. Something saddle makers often use to help determine size for a rider is the circumferance of the upper thigh. Some shorter people have bigger legs and vice versa. If she has a 21" thigh circumference (or less) she will be looking at the smaller end of the common seat sizes. If she has any opportunity to sit in a number of saddles and then get something similar, that would be the best way.

I guess it is still tomorrow in my time zone, so Happy Birthday tomorrow Johanna! Have a great, relaxing day!!!

We have a wood stove. Throwing certain pieces of mail in there gives much more satisfaction than recycling, and it is being reused - to heat our shop!

That would be quite the sight to see, Bree. How old is wagon? When did they quit using it?

Kathy, It seems people are either in flood or drought this year. Alberta is drought, with some areas having record low rainfall - like nothing at all! Right now, the sun rises and sets in the north east and north west, and there is a rim of dim light along the northern sky all night. The sky never gets black at this time of year, just dark grey. We live fairly far north - about 10 hours drive north of the Canada US border, but there is still farmland another 5-6 hours north of us yet (which is still in Alberta). The growing season is very short, but the daylight we get being this far north means that pretty much anything grown further south in Alberta can be grown here. We rotate "crops" in our garden, and grow peas, carrots, beans, potatos, beets, radish, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower (the last three under the white row cover you see to protect them from pests). We get zuchinni, pumpkins (they have to ripen in the house after the frost comes) and spagetti squash, and grow tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in greenhouse. Some years you can get them in the garden, some years not, and since Rod likes salsa, we have the greenhouse. We even have found one variety of corn that we can grow in the garden that ripens before it freezes. Farming wise, canola does very well, plus wheat, barley, oats, field peas. Grass seed (fescue, timothy). It is great cattle country too. We don't farm ourselves, but do graze some cattle in the summer, both on grass and in our bush. Nothing like your mountain lion story as far as wildlife goes, but black bears are common up here. We see more sign than sight of them though. So long as they stay in the bush, they are good bears. Wolves are in the area, and coyotes are super common. Deer (white tails and mulies) we see year round. Moose trim my bushes in the yard every winter (mutter, mutter, mutter) and we don't want the herd of elk that has been hanging around the area to find our hay for the horses. They would clean us out in one night. But they are beautiful animals to see. Yup, this is a GREAT place to live.

We live 25 minutes northwest of Valleyview, Alberta, and this is what we get to wake up to every morning - in the summer. In the winter, there are no leaves and everything is white... The dirt will be lawn again, once we get everything around the house finished and the dirt all moved to where it will permanently live. The garden is coming well because we can water it. We are getting pretty desperate for rain for pastures and crops up here. The greenhouse we move around on the garden every year so we can rotate crops. And behind the garden is our small horse pasture, and then about 2 miles of bush before you get to the next road, which is the first sign of civilization in that direction barring our fence at the south end of our land. Not as spectacular as some, but pretty enough, and very, very quiet. I like that... PS. The picture was taken at 10:20 pm, ten minutes or so before sundown. But it is overcast so it is a bit darker than normal right now.

Thinking here - you like mechanics but the big stuff is not physically handleable for you now. Being as we have an older washer and dryer, and smaller kitchen appliances that go on the blink now and then, how about small stuff? I know there are small engine repair shops. Appliance repair, parts and service for all the kitchen gadgets. We can't get someone out to look at our central vacuum. Nobody in the area does that. Stuff like that might be an option.

Thanks for the information Kate. In looking at the pictures on that site, I am always amazed by the variety within even one type of saddle. Did the original webbed seat saddles have wooden forks and cantles like the Steele trees or were they metal like the Trooper saddles?

Thanks David! That is interesting. From other pictures on here of plantation saddles, I would have thought the fork was leaning back a little. Here it just looks like a fairly straight up slick fork with a different type of cantle. Is this what the old ones are like too?

Kate, Thanks for the offer, but it is probably not worth the effort for you right now. I won't be one to fix it up so it should go to someone who appreciates it. I was just curious about how the tree was put together. All the best in finding a good home for it! Denise

I've just spent a while searching for a previous post and can't find it. Maybe someone else will be able to. It made a lot of sense to me. The poster said that you will satisfy 90 percent of your customers just doing your normal work. Another 9 percent are more difficult to satisfy, but if you make the extra effort, they can be satisfied. And they often turn out to be your biggest supporters and promoters, so it is worth the time and energy. But one percent you cannot and will not ever satisfy, no matter what you do. Those you turn down/cut your losses/learn to spot early. In other words, don't waste your time on them as all your efforts won't work anyway. (The original poster of this idea said it much better.) That has helped me a lot as I would prefer to make everyone happy. Recognizing there is the very rare person that you can't make happy no matter what makes it easier to let them go. So the question for you now is "Is this a nine percenter you will satisfy with a bit more work, or a one percenter you'll never satisfy?"

Kate, These are unusual types of saddles. Would you mind posting pictures of what you have, particularly the tree? I'd be curious to see it, if you don't mind. Thanks, Denise

Going across borders any courier will charge brokerage fees at the other end. In Canada, 30 to 40 dollars is common. So we make sure anyone who ships us anything from the US puts it in the US mail. No fees at this end that way, and you can still get it insured and tracked.