ladyhawkjm

The two wrecks we had were not too serious... No injuries to my horse or myself or the ground for that matter, just the saddle and a hard hit to my self esteem :) I did buy some 5-6 oz leather to replace all the leather but found leather weight should have been at 12+... Guess I should have asked you guys first! Not a complete waste as there are other things I can use the lighter weight for. So now I am putting my saddle off until next year while I practice getting used to my swivel knife and shading tools again. I did buy some blanks and have a pattern in mind. Hopefully by the time I get back to the saddle, I should have my "tooling" skills leveled up enough not to ruin the leather. I do appreciate and want to thank everyone for your input!

Pictures of the saddle before I started breaking things down. It's an older Hereford, Serial number is behind the cantle. Even though I bought a Circle Y from Handy's Saddle Shop, this saddle was the saddle I used to start my first horse and was given to be because "it would come in handy to use working green horses". As you can see a few "accidents" are evident by the repairs that were made to keep it usable. This was a very comfortable saddle!

I was getting ready to start my saddle restoration (replacing all the leather) when I had a thought.... So this might be a really stupid question and maybe it doesn't apply here but I don't want to mess up before I even get really started. When working with fabric, the patterns are suppose to be laid down with the grain of the material.... Is there a ceratin rule for laying out the saddle patterns when it comes to leather? Thanks in Advance~ June

@PWDrawhorn I guess I should have checked first... I just ordered two of the three books off ebay. sigh~ Had I known someone in here was unloading all three... I would have at least reached out to see what the asking price was. The books are not cheap! I saw one person who wanted 600.00, for just one of the three books.... Made me wonder if there was 24kt gold stitching somewhere...LOL I will continue to look for Vol 3 but I am not paying that much just for one book.. I just bought Vol 1 and Vol 2 for a little over 200.00, hardcover slightly used.

Hello! Would love to see photos... I also have a Hereford Brand Textan Yoaaum. My saddle is stamped 1056 with serial number located on the frog behind the seat.. I've found very little info and email inquiries have bounced back... So now I'm not sure if info is original or was replaced during a repair ...

Thank you! I have a second saddle, kept strictly in the house when not being used, and decided that I'm going to give this restoration a go... The tree is in pretty good shape but it does have a strainer plate (metal insert) which I have read is somewhat controversial... I was actually more worried about redoing the seat and getting it back on the tree properly (The glueing process). After having watched a couple of the videos on youtube, I'm pretty sure I can do this, just might take me longer.... The one important thing for me is that it's my saddle and not someone elses.... ~ Hoping I don't screw this up ~

I have not used these leather tools in over 30 years. My dad used them frequently and made quite a few items for me as he taught me... Because I was the only one who knew anything about them, they were left to me when he passed away some time ago... I have kept them stored in their toolbox in my tack room.. I have a "Hereford Brand Yokum saddle" that I primarily use when working young/green horses that's in pretty rough shape. When I went to replace the saddle strings, It appears they are run through the tree... I would love to replace the saddle strings, rework the current leather, tooling and reshading, cleaning up the edges where there is tooling. I know I can do some of this after having removed the back jockey... Because I am not a saddlemaker and consider myself a greenie , I am a bit nervous about taking this down any further. I know I have two more screws to pull on each side of the pommel.... I'm just worried about tearing the seat more.. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to do the replacement I know is needed to the seat where it has been repaired on both sides and where it is still torn up... I believe I really I need to find a saddlemaker for this portion of the restoration process, especially considering I plan to continue using the saddle... To those of you that have done restoration work or are saddlemakers, I'd like to know, if I walked into your shop with a partial, would you be offended? That would be the very last thing I want to do to someone with this skill set so would love some HONEST advice! Below are photos of the saddle I would like to restore and am still looking for more information regarding it's history prior to 1990 which was when it was given to me... Thanks in advance!