SaddleRider

Just over a year ago, my neighbor who happened to own his own shoe, boot, saddle repair & custom leather shop, needed someone to come in to take care of his bookkeeping and website work and offered the jobs to me. I gladly accepted both tasks. The following couple of weeks, I noticed that he was totally overwhelmed, what with all the custom leather work, shoe, boot and saddle repairs to the point that he was about two weeks behind on most everything in the shop. He and I sat down for lunch one day and I said, "You know, this really is a two man operation. From the looks of things, I'd say you need someone to help you out in the shop as well as the back office." He replied, "Yeah, this really is a two man operation, but my son left for a better paying job and I can't blame him for that. Are you interested in learning the craft?" "You bet I am!" I replied. The moral of the story is, that I got the "old-fashioned apprenticeship" which few offer in this day and age. Meaning I learned shoe, boot, saddle repair & custom leather making by working in his shop with on the job training and a very small paycheck each week. The real paycheck was from the educational gains, which will pay off down the road (I hope). Additionally, my neighbor closed his shop in November 2008, moved two hours away to semi-retire, got married and is building a new garage workshop at his new place. I've been doing it out of my home since. I do not have the industrial machines to do the boot repairs, so I mainly focus on doing custom leather & saddle repair. I do everything by hand (meaning hand-stitching everything since I don't own a machine). While I can tear down and repair saddles (and their parts or replace the parts), I have never had the opportunity to build a custom made saddle myself, which I would like to do at some point in the future. If I could find someone or a shop which offers or is interested in offering an "old-fashioned apprenticeship" and is reasonably close to me, so I would not have the added expense of additional accomodations, I would certainly jump at the chance to learn how to make custom saddles and work in your shop for the small paycheck and educational advancement in the field. I think this would be a great way to bring people back to learning arts/crafts/trades which are dying as opposed to making people pay to learn it. Some can afford to pay for schooling, while others (including myself) can't.

I am looking for leather that is soft, supple and light-weight, which is also very durable and non-stretchy. This is going to be used to make a custom leather guitar strap for a well known C&W singer. I've only been working with leather for about a year, so I want to make sure I get it right the first time. Also I need to find silver metal lacing that will embellish both edges of the guitar strap. Any and all help and suggestions are greatly appreciated!!! Thanks!

Shane, Thanks for posting the visor pattern pics. That is the one I was looking for. I bought a kit from HideCrafter, but was not happy with it. It was a plain and simple kit and I'll post the picks of the kit so all can see. I did however use the HideCrafter kit as a pattern, then modified it to be more like the one you posted. Thanks again for posting it.

Never mind. I found help on another forum.

I'm looking for a pattern to make an old-fashioned visor hat, as they wore in the old post offices, bankers and general stores. Thanks

Here is the Douglas Tools Flyer/Catalog I received today (January 23, 2009).

I just ordered a copy of the flyer, so if it isn't massively large I might add some pics. That is unless someone gets theirs first and posts them before I do.

Just in case any of you folks are in need of a granite slab and you happen to live in the south eastern Texas area, one of the local funeral homes in my area has a massive stockpile of granite stones they are trying to get rid of. They just want rid of them, so they are giving them away at no charge. They will not ship them period, due to the cost issue. If you plan to drive down to say Houston, its only about another hour south to their location. I got a 4 1/2" (H) x 12 1/2" (W) x 36 1/2" (L) polished top granite headstone base for myself free of charge (well other than the gas I ran out going to get it). The area they have the stock is about 10' wide by about 40' long, so if you need one and you are willing to drive to get it, they got plenty to choose from and they are neatly stacked so you can pretty much look them over to find the one you want. If interested, let me know and I'll send you the info.