kseidel

I'm glad you enjoyed Cody. We think it is a pretty special town. I think you may have misunderstood my post..... I am not trying to help you evaluate and correctly fit your horse, only pointing out that a new saddle may not fit all four of your horses any different than the one you have now. If all of your horses are the same conformation, then a single saddle can fit them all properly. However, if you have three that are same conformation, and one that is different, then one saddle will not fit all four. I can and am willing to help you with evaluation and getting a tree to fit, but that was not the original purpose of my post. I feel your pain and frustration trying to describe trees. There seems to be more confusion these days than ever in layman terminology regarding tree bars. It was simpler when there were only full and semi quarter horse bars. I fear it may never be "simple" again! HaHa. Borrowing saddles may not be helpful either, since there is no industry standard and no way to know for certain what tree is in each saddle that you try. Even if you find one that fits all of your horses, no one may know for certain what tree was used in that saddle. The best way to get a proper tree for your situation is to photograph and profile all of your horses, and have that information evaluated by someone knowledgeable in fitting ranges of horses. If your horses are not too different, it is possible to fit them all with one saddle and possibly some variable padding. But that is impossible to guess at without some profiling. (this is not all that difficult) You do not have to have the highest quality tree to fit a horse well. An inexpensive tree can fit horses the same as the finest handbuilt. The factories have dozens of bar patterns to chose from and they probably have one that will fit your needs. The trick is to figure out which one is right. Do not assume anything in this process. The art of fitting horses is governed by some fundamental rules and breaking those rules, regardless of good intention, will result in an improper fit. Assuming that you need a wider gullet and different pitch is premature without hard facts to back up the diagnosis. The width and pitch may be correct but the shape of the bar pad be wrong. The correct fit of saddle trees is a hotly debated topic. Many people have theories of what works, but the final proof is how well the saddle actually performs in use. It requires experience to know to fit a bare tree to a standing still horse and know how to compensate for the horses' range of motion. It can be confusing, but it is not rocket science. Don't give up hope. Start with evaluating what is causing your current problem, and go forward from there. We can help you get the correct fit if at all possible.

I was just catching up on this thread and this statement caught my attention. If you are wanting a saddle to fit all of your horses, and what you have now fits all but one, you may find that a new one may do the same thing. Your "odd" horse may have different enough conformation to be outside the tolerance range of fitting the same saddle as your other horses. It all depends on where and what is causing the white hair. Just an observation to consider. Keith

Aurelie, You can do all of the skiving you need to do with the safety skiver you are using. I have best luck with them shaping the area where the blade sits. You can shape this both in curve as well as pitch to the blade. Most of them cut too deep when new from the factory, and changing the pitch to the blade is very advantageous. I use 3 of them, each shaped to remove more material than the other. ( one shallow, another medium, and another deeper.) They are easy to shape with pliers. It is difficult to explain how to properly lay up a ground seat with words alone. And even more difficult to convey the shape one should "feel". I would suggest maybe a refresher visit with your previous instructor. He should be able to help you diagnose the problem you are having using his method of laying up your ground seat. As Bob suggested, Al Stohlman books are very informative, as well as many other books and videos on the market. Most saddlemakers develop their own twist for putting in ground seats, so becoming familiar with many ways will help you with the knowledge to develop your own method. Good luck! Keith

Really great looking saddle! You did a great job on the details. Interesting combination of different tooling styles. Nice rolled welt on the swell cover. Congrats on a job well done! Kieth

The concho is soldered onto a 5/16" carriage bolt. The complete unit is called a stirrup bolt.

Dyed leather is usually a bit harder than natural, but not so much that it should cause you that much trouble! Where you cut it out of the hide is most important. Gullet covers are best cut from the front leg part of the belly. It does not need to be great... it is just a gullet cover. Swell covers work best when cut from the belly just in front of the rear flank and as low as possible on the hide. You should have no trouble with the swell even with dyed leather. You can always welt the swell. Keith

You must have been to the TCAA show in Oklahoma City. I was there also. Pedro's saddle had an antiqued finish. It is achieved with oil for depth and a resist then antique then a topcoat of tankote or lacquer. Good luck on your saddle. Keith

Jerry, In 34 years in the saddle business, I have never heard anyone from your side of the industry talk like you! How refreshing! Adams reply was quite frank and your response was very gracious and unexpected. I greatly respect you for reaching out in this manner. You made mention of "over-paying for what you get can be as bad as not paying enough." That is so true. It is one thing to say "you get what you pay for", but it is important to "get what you are paying for." Sometimes a commercially made saddle is better than a handbuilt one because the knowledge and designing put into the factory saddle is superior to an inexperienced custom maker even though the custom saddle may cost much more.As you know the entry level market is saturated in the US. There is room in the market for a much more expensive saddle, however, it must be equally superior in quality of construction and aesthetics. There are some pretty talented and experienced saddlemakers in your area. Most of them are never given the opportunity to excel due to time and cost restrictions. It is impossible to do truly superior work without extra time. additional time translates to higher expenses, and thus to higher retail prices. Cost of living and quality of lifestyle also dictates how much one may charge for their time. Then there is the experience level and training of the craftsman. A higher skilled craftsman is worth more than an entry level. In a commercial situation, more experience and higher skill level does not always translate into more volume or faster production, and therefore is not necessarily rewarded with higher wages. In the custom world, higher skill levels and more experience produces a higher quality of saddle and therefore can command a higher retail price and rewards the maker with higher wages. Even a factory made saddle can fetch a higher retail price if it is better made and better designed so that it is more desirable. In the end, it is all about what the consumer is willing to pay for what is important to him. Similar to the art world, where notoriety of the artist and desirability of the product dictates the saleability at the asking price. It is hard to keep prices in perspective. Saddles are basically a luxury item and each consumer has a value they establish their luxury is worth to them. The market that you are currently selling to places a lower value on their luxury than other consumers who are willing (and able) to spend a great deal more to get what they want. If you want to expand your product line and offer higher priced items, you will find that there is a completely different market of consumers to buy your goods. I have been preaching higher prices for years. If your saddles are higher quality then they should command a higher price. You may be leaving money on the table. In a time when inflation is rampant, you will need to keep up with rising costs, or you will not survive, and it is imperative that you stay ahead of the game. Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks for your input into this forum. Respectfully, Keith Seidel

Howdy Adam, I'm surprised you haven't gotten any responses yet. You are correct in that black covers up the tooling and all you are left with is texture. Dying the edge and the background while leaving the tooling lighter should give you the look you want. Travis Stillson has a good example of this on his website. Black antique works nicely; be sure to use a resist before antiquing. Now lets talk about your pattern. You want a more delicate "Sheridan" style tooling. The pattern you posted is not sheridan style. Even though you have classic Chester Hape domestic roses, you do not have the proper stemwork to go with them. You also have too much background and are not using your space completely. Redraw your pattern enlarging your flowers, leaves and stemwork to extend to and beyond your border. This will fill up your space completely and reduce your background significantly. I would also encourage you to change the roses some to be your own and not a direct copy of Mr. Hape's. I will attach a quick redraw of your pattern to illustrate my point. Hope this helps you. Keith

Adam, I hope you do not think we saddlemakers always tool an entire saddle part in one sitting without ever re-wetting! Thanks for the compliment, but NO. You must periodically re-wet the surface as it dries, maintaining the moisture in the core of the leather. When you must stop, simply wrap the part in a plastic bag, and it will retain its moisture until you are able to resume. If you must leave it for several days, it will be best to either refrigerate, or let dry and re-wet later. If you let it completely dry, you may loose some of your depth when re-casing. I prefer a sprayer to re-wet, and add moisture slowly over an hour or so until sufficiently wet. Keith

Thanks Blake, How do you use it? Spray bottle? Soak tank? How much? I have used Calgon to make hard water softer and that works well for lubricating the leather. May have similar properties... I will try the soap trick. Keith

I would like to know more about this soap in your casing water. I have found some advantage to "soft" water, but do not know about using soap in the water. Would you elaborate please? Thanks, Keith

Billy, There is a lot of trial and error (sometimes more error) in learning how to fit saddles to horses relative to specific performances. Denise's original question about specifics regarding packing down sheepskin and how it affects the fit of the saddle is something all saddlemakers should know. We makers with extensive training and personal experience sometimes take this knowledge for granted. There are a lot of novice makers, both of saddles and trees, that do not know these fundamental basics, and their clients become their unsuspecting beta testers. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that we need to better educate the next generation in order to sustain and improve our trade. You also bring up a good point about returning a used saddle. If we "guarantee" saddle fit, how far does our guarantee extend? Are we willing to admit our failure after 3 months of riding? We could no longer resell the saddle as "new." But most saddles that are close to the correct size and angles will fit acceptably when new and not settled into their final fit. It is not until then that the problems may surface. It is only through experience that one can confidently build for that final fitting. Keith P.S. Sales people also have a responsibility to properly assist a buyer in getting that new saddle that will actually fit for the duration.

My experiences are similar to Bruce's. About 1.5 - 2 inches of settling of the front of the saddle from new to packed woolskin. Of course, the back settles too, but not as measurable. The saddle settles overall throughout the back quite a bit from new to "broken in". It is difficult to accurately fit a new saddle to a horse by trying it out. Seems best to have a competent saddler that you can trust to construct the saddle to properly fit your horses. A new saddle would not show much sign of improper fit initially. Once broken in, it would not be very "new." Keith

You can put a coat of lacquer on your tracing paper and that will resist the moisture from the leather from ruining your paper pattern. You can also put a piece of plastic wrap between your pattern paper and the leather to prevent the moisture from wicking. Best to draw your patterns on acetate film then you can transfer to leather without any problems. Keith

Steve, I have been using Lazy M woolskins, a division of Nugget Company, for several years now. They really are superior! Every once in a while I will get one or two that are not up to standard (no better than the Nugget Brand), and I send them back for replacement. They are good about sending me what I expect from them. They are quite expensive. I think they are worth the extra. Keith

The amount of time and degree of compression depends heavily on the length and density of the sheepskin. A 3/4" shearling that is sparsely haired, will matte down in a couple of hours. A 1" shearling, densely haired, will take weeks of hard riding to compress and will always retain some degree of cushion. For my saddles, it takes about 100 hours of riding to achieve normal compression that will then maintain for many years. Keith

As JW has interjected, the cantle dish is largely relative to the height and width of the cantle, as well as shape and slope angle. Also, how the maker puts the strainer into the cantle dish. If the strainer is not shaped into the dish of the tree, then much of the dish will be lost. Andy, I am a little confused by your post. If you use a tree with a flatter cantle angle (less vertical) then you would be more apt to sit the rider over the points of the cantle then if it were stood up straighter. You would, however have less tendency to feel the top edge of the cantle. If stood up straighter (more vertical) you would have more tendency to feel the top of the cantle, but less at the corners. In order to feel both the corners of the cantle under your thighs as well as the top of the cantle into your back, there would have to be a lot of dish in a very flat cantle. Maybe I am reading it wrong. respectfully, Keith

Of all of the things that I have done to a saddle, this is one of the hardest to accomplish well! It should only be attempted by experienced saddlemakers. (disclaimer) That being said, give it a try.... The edge of the swell cover that is creased to a sharp edge around the seat is not that thin. It is skived some, but not too thin. If too thin, it is hard to get the sharp edge. Once past the fold, you can skive as thin as you want as there is no wear under the seat. There should be no compromise in strength, durability, or thickness for tooling. The hard part is getting the final fit to be tight as you plan. It does not always cooperate, and it looks bad if not fitted tightly all around the seat. A few pointers: 1) Stretch the seat in before fitting the swell cover or plug. Leave pinned in place and allow to dry thoroughly! At least two days! 2) Be sure to remove any plugs under the seat used while fitting, before marking swell around seat. 3) Use a wide enough plug to raise the swell to the seat thickness. You may need to re-shape the swell. 4) Use press cement or toe box cement to harden plug before fitting swell cover. There are probably a hundred things that I could tell you that might help, but then I would be giving away trade secrets. Good luck (you're going to need it) Keith

1/4" is 16 oz leather thickness. Unless you are lining your stirrup leathers you would not bet them thicker than 16 oz. If you are making a saddle with full double stirrup leathers, you may encounter a need for slots a bit thicker. otherwise leather is not available thicker. Keith

Joel, It is certainly possible to create too much rock in the bars of a saddle tree, however, if a couple of ounces of leather create too much rock as to affect horse performance, then IMHO, your tree is too closely fitted to the horse and does not allow for fluid movement of muscles under the tree. That being stated, I have certainly seen results of trees with too much rock created from stirrup leathers, usually from Arizona bars styles that have only front stirrup leather cuts. Keith

I usually use 14/16 for full sized working saddles. Lighter if making a light weight pleasure saddle. Lightest I have used for an adult saddle was 10/11 and that was 8 oz lined with 3/4 and stitched.

Bruce has described a great method for wrapping your horns. Just a tip to add to his instruction... after soaking in hot water and wringing it out, saddle soap both sides of the wrap. This will help it slip on itself while wrapping, and will set hard when dry. This makes it easier to get the wrap extra tight. You asked a couple of questions: 1) Is it okay to put the screw in the wrap with the rope strap on an association tree? It is okay, but is not very user friendly to put the rope strap that high on a swell fork. If you put the rope strap where it is best, then there is a long tab of horn wrap between the horn and the rope strap screw, and it will not hold up well under use. It will not hold the tail well either. It is best to either nail under the gullet or use a slit around the horn and then go under gullet. 2) Any advantage to splitting and wrapping under gullet and around front? No major advantage. Some people have experienced some extra durability from the wrap in front over the front gullet keeping the rope from wearing on the swell cover as much, but it is not usually much of an advantage, if any. There is also not disadvantage. Keith

I hear this talked about a lot. Many people say re-wetting causes the tooling to "come out" and loose definition. When working on large items, you will need to re-wet the leather many times during the stamping process. When you are loosing definition when re-wetting, it is usually a result of tooling too wet in the first place. To clarify further, even though the surface may be the correct temper, many times the leather on the inside is still too wet. This wet middle causes the tooling to be soft and not adequately compacted in order to hold its form deeply. When you re-wet, the tooling shallows to the actual depth that you have properly tooled. I prefer a sprayer to wet my leather for tooling. A sprayer lays an even, uniform coat of water over the entire surface. When using a sponge, the raised edges of cuts and tooled areas strip more water from the sponge funneling it directly into the center of the leather, when all you really need is to moisten the surface that has dried out from air circulation and from your hands wicking away the moisture. Hope this does not confuse you further. Keith

It is also fine to let your tooling dry out. We seldom put things in the fridge and never freeze. If we are unable to finish a large project and must leave it for some time, we just let it dry out. Then re-case it when ready to work on it again. Freezing can cause a lot of problems... the water in the fibers expands and stretches the fibers. If there is excessive moisture, the leather will be torn apart from the inside out! This is also possible with excessive oil in freezing temps. Even when properly cased, after freezing, leather tends to have a "mushy" feel. I would rather dry and re-case. Keith