ladyhawkjm

I haven't touched my leather tools since before my dad passed away in 2001.  He left them to me as I was the only one that learned anything about leathercrafting.  Fast forward, I have a Herford saddle that is in really rough shape.  Torn Skirts due to some rough activity training a horse..  I have been doing some reasearch and am now looking at actually tackling this project of mine.  Plan to tear it down over the winter (2023) as much as possible to replace all the leather.

I ordered Stohlmans encyclopedia's Vol 1 and Vol 2 just yesterday so I have some reading to do.  I understand there is a Vol 3 out there somewhere but will look for that one later.  Hopefully it won't cost more than the other two did.  Hubby said he could build my stand, I told him it needed to have a storage area for all the pieces...  I plan on using the current tooling pattern and the old leather to cutout the patterns.  I also saved the conchos and other pieces, they are in my toolbox.  Hopefully by winter, I will have a solid idea on what I should do first besides tooling and cutting the patterns out.  Hope to get some feedback as I am going through this at it is my very first saddle restoration project.  And yes, I understand the "Copyright" violations...  But I will be putting my own "signature" into the tooling design....
Not sure how I can do that with the actual saddle pattern though... 

My photos of the saddle and damage:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.9837787969572062&type=3