My latest saddle...number four for me.

[steve mason]

Howdy BondoBob..........not Elton here but, I am going to disagree a little bit with a couple of your suggestions. The outside stirrup leather / half double arrangement is very common on cowboy rigs, and does not pinch at all if done correctly. I have ridden them for many years, and I build a high % of them. Secondly, on the breast collar / martingale Ds........there are up high under the front buttons for a purpose........that is where they need to be. If a person is using a steer tripping type collar, then the lower position would be fine. There is no strength problem with the higher placement, as I am sure that Elton has the strings running through them, and/or has them screwed down to the tree.

Everyone sure does things differently, just my take on it.

Respectfully, JW

Howdy Bob;

first off what I am about to say is "what works for me", I have in the past reccomended to Elton that he does not sew or rivet his Martingale dees to the rigs, my reason for this is that this is a spot on a saddle that I don't want to strong, the way Elton has attached the Mart Dees will be strong enough to hold up to hard use cowboying, but if a bad wreck happens Like someone screws up and drops the cinchs before the breast collar is undone, the mart dees will tear out instead of the whole saddle getting destroyed under the horse, then only a small repair is needed as you just have to replace the mart Dee tab not potentially the whole rigging.

I feel there are some things in horse gear that need to be made so that they have a weak spot to save the saddle, the horse or the rider in a wreck, things like mart Dees, rope straps, (they should be strong enough to be used somewhat as a nightlatch but they will break if your rope gets hung up as your loping through the brush), the front strap on chaps,( so if you get hung up over the horn the strap will break), and on of the most common "to strong" things I see in horse gear is bridles made of way to thick of leather, for the sake of your horses mouth make a bridle that will bust under stress, nylon bridles should be outlawed, I would rather have an easy bridle repair than have damage to my horses mouth that I have spent years trying to make soft.

My two cents.

[barra]

i echo Steves comment about certain items in saddlery need to have a weak link. My main bug is nylon headcollars/halters. You would be hard pressed to find a decent leather one these days in Aust. it is easy to go into joe blow's feedstore and get an elcheapo nylon one but that poor horse will beat itself to death with stress and fear before the nylon gives way.

Barra

P.S. How remiss of me. Great job Elton

Edited March 21, 2009 by barra

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

To all the replies, as I have said many times in other replies, "custom" means it is made to order and is made the way the customer wants it. If he is a martingale user, then so be it, and so on. If he likes the old timey look, so be it. Elton, once again, very nice job! Keep up the good work.

Bondo Bob

[bruce johnson]

Elton,

Congratulations on the win. Really good one, amigo. I echo the border, I've liked that one for a while. I am eyeballing your saddle pretty closely here, the next three orders are all pointed skirts and exposed leathers. I recently saw one with the martingale dees coming off like yours and the rope strap coming off the top back corner of the carrier too. It looked pretty cool and took away that little lump and gapping you get when you screw them in under the front jockey. I'm trying that out.

[gtwister09]

Bruce,

I saw that one as well... I really like the carrier idea for the mart dees and rope strap versus the lumps. The rope strap lumps have always been something that stood out like a sore thumb aesthetically on Wades to me. I do realize that almost everyone does it that way but it still stood out as a sore thumb.

Steve and Barra's comments about nylon, chaps and weak links have been drilled into me by my Dad and several of the cowhands that we rode with (over and over and over again...time after time....anyhow you get the idea. These were their pet peeves).

I look forward to seeing more of them and seeing how they perform/hold up.

Regards,

Ben

[greg gomersall]

I have been making my high mount breast collar dee and buckle tab portion in one piece under my conco for 10 years or so now just because I hated that lump under the front jockey that always packed full of hair and dirt. Greg

[gtwister09]

Greg,

Thanks! That's great to know. Then it's not a performance/design issue as stated by others. Thanks again!

Regards,

Ben

[D.A. Kabatoff]

I've got a saddle on the go right now where the customer asked for a rope strap that's a first for me. He doesn't want any kind of buckle to attach the strap to. Instead he wants the end of the rope strap to have a slit down the middle of it, long enough that when opened up, can be pulled over the horn to hold the rope up. He had a wreck a few years back where he got shot straight up in the air about six feet, double bounced, hung up in his rope by his foot and neither the rope strap or the buckle holding the strap broke until the end of his 8 seconds... could've been a lot worse for him then it was but now he'll never use anything other than what I described above.

Darc

[gtwister09]

Darc,

That's the type that we used all the time. In fact my Dad had us cut it so close that it would break fairly easily (only about an 1/4"). This was one of his and the other cowhands that we rode with pet peeves along with chaps and bridles having weak points.

A bag punch slot was punched into the right hand side of the fork and then the other end of the strap was inserted into the slot and a screw and washer held it in place. Some of them even used the metal strap with dee and a bleed knot to keep from having to mess with screw and dee. I repaired this many times due to the rather weak state that we put the rope strap in but we never had a wreck like that.

Regards,

Ben

[Go2Tex]

Don't know how I missed this thread when first posted, but it finally caught my eye and I must say, Elton, you do mighty fine work! Are you sure this is only #4...???!!! Whatever it is that you canucks drink up there, or maybe it's the long winters but ya'll sure must be doing something right, cause you seem to be way ahead of the curve when it comes to saddle makin'.