5th saddle, please critique

[mjs]

I'm new to this websight, and as I said in the heading, this is my 5th saddle, and the 1st time I've tried anything other than a geometric pattern. I wanted to do something unusual, so tell me what you think. The saddle was made on a BW cutting tree with Wickett & Craig chestnut leather.

[dirtclod]

Your saddle looks nice and the carving looks good to. Better than mine..LOL. Personally i don't care for the quilted look, but that's just me. I would dye the concho's the same color or as close as i could get them to the rest of the saddle. Keep up the good work.

[bruce johnson]

A few things I see. The seat profile looks very good, it ought to ride well. the lines look pretty good and pretty flowing.

There are a few little construction things sticking out to me. It looks like there is a gap at the right cantle ear cut. Also I would rub down the marks where the awl barked the bottom piece of the horn cover. Some spit on a thumb ought to correct that.

On the tooling design The flowers look pretty good. I would work on taking out any straight lines in the stemwork. I would carry my swivel knife cuts further down and into the stemwork also, and then set a few muletrack stamps deeper and then fading at the major stem separations.

[mjs]

Bruce, You picked up on the 2 things that cause me the most aggrivation, the horn and base of the cantle. Also, I can see where a minimal tooling design needs a little more than what I did. As for the conchos, if you've done any cutting you know when someone calls and says he has fresh cattle to work, you go. I took the pictures in case the saddle got scuffed up, then replaced them after getting to a friends and cutting some out of the same leather on his clicker. Thanks for the replies, Mike.