Why Is Woolskin Put On The Underside Of A Western Saddle?

[GrampaJoel]

Is there anyone here that can tell me why wool skin is put on the underside of a western saddle?

Does it serve a practical purpose?

[AndyKnight]

  On 4/15/2010 at 4:32 PM, GrampaJoel said:

Is there anyone here that can tell me why wool skin is put on the underside of a western saddle?

Does it serve a practical purpose?

helps to prevent pad and or blanket slippage...

[jwwright]

.........my answer is the same here , just as Andy said...........In my experience, the "cushion" effect of the woolskin is minimal, if any, after it is broke in. It serves to help keep the blankets from slipping. Another material, wool felt, was widely used in the past, and in our part of the cowboy country, is coming back in popularity. JW

[steve mason]

  On 4/15/2010 at 4:32 PM, GrampaJoel said:

Is there anyone here that can tell me why wool skin is put on the underside of a western saddle?

Does it serve a practical purpose?

because it's to hard to find dog skins that are big enough.

[TwinOaks]

since there's' already a legitimate answer.......

....because it'd look just plain silly to put a sheep on horseback.

[Traveller]

and because it's pretty

[GrampaJoel]

  Quote

jwwright

.........my answer is the same here , just as Andy said...........In my experience, the "cushion" effect of the woolskin is minimal, if any, after it is broke in. It serves to help keep the blankets from slipping. Another material, wool felt, was widely used in the past, and in our part of the cowboy country, is coming back in popularity. JW

Thanks for your response Mr. Wright and also AndyKnight . On both sites.

I am truly looking for an answer here. You seem to be the only person(s) willing to commit to an answer that isn't a silly reply.

[TroyWest]

I believe that much of what we do on western saddles is done done for aesthetics and/or tradition. Aesthetics simply means the study of beauty, and there is nothing wrong with tradition, if it is a good tradition. A saddle doesn't have to have woolskins. It doesn't even have to have a skirt. You could cut out a set of rigs with a pocket knife. Hang them on a tree , add stirrup leathers and ride a horse, rope, barrel race, whatever. You don't have to have a swell cover, housings, horn cover, not even a seat, certainly doesn't need tooling. Without all of these things it just doesn't look very western. I don't think there is a set of rules that says it has to be a certain way, but if it's not that way, it won't look like a cowboy saddle. These things simply developed over time and became acceptable in a western culture. Saddles from the Orient look nothing like our western saddles. But we like the look of our western saddles much better.

I have seen western saddles lined with woolskin, felt, foam covered with chap leather, and synthetic wool. A top end saddle will , for the most part be covered with a real woolskin. Somewhere in the past some maker lined his skirts with a real woolskin. He probably had it readily available, and it looked good, worked well and liked it. Others followed suit. It is now a very well accepted method of lining saddle skirts. I don't know if anyone could really say it started at a specific point in time as they have been saddling animals since the book of Genesis. Somebody, somewhere, threw a woolskin across his mounts back. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm guessing they didn't start sewing them on until the invention of the sewing machine, although Al Stohlman did sew his all by hand. I have built a saddle where the customer requested that I sew his woolskin on by hand. That's my $.02.

Troy West

[bruce johnson]

Troy,

Was sewing the woolskin on by hand as much fun for you as my first couple were? Made me appreciate a machine more when I got it. Now I even cringe when I have to resew pocketed bars or riggings.

Joel,

I am going to agree with everyone who said woolskins help hold blankets. I am sure historically they got started because they were the best source of cushioning available too. I rode a saddle back in the day called an "Innovater". It had a slick bottom and that was the era of the carpet pads. Might have been the tree, rigging, the pad, or the horse but it rolled all over and nothing stayed in place. This was western pleasure show ring stuff. You hear about the cavalry guys dismounting, airing the back, resetting blankets, and leading a mile every so many too. Makes me sort of wonder how those saddles really worked.

[Saddlebag]

A friend was loaned an economy saddle that has almost zip for fleece. Everytime the horse cantered her pad shot out the back. Proof that the fleece helps hold the pad, especially if the top of it is wool.

[buckaroo93]

I personally think that woolskin looks better then foam covered with chap leather but some guys like the chap leather better because its easier to clean. Does the chap leather hold or not hold the saddle pad as good as wool?

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Well Joel, with the answers from the likes of Troy, Jim, Andy, Steve and Bruce, I think you got what you you were asking for, real answers from guys who take their trade seriously and have a lot of experience to draw upon. You can't do any better than advice and comments from them . They tell it like it is.

Have a good day!

Bob

[GrampaJoel]

BondoBobCustomSaddles

Bob I posted this thread almost a year ago.

It appears that someone found this thread and posted to it instead of asking a new question.

Oh BTW, yes I did get my answer.

A big thanks to Troy, Jim, Andy, Steve and Bruce.

Thanks

Joel

[Mechanical Cowgirl]

I know I'm jumping in late, but maybe we could keep this going a bit? I think I remembre reading somewhere that folks where saying real sheepskin under the skirts helped with temperature and shock absorption. Has anyone done any tests with this? If you have a good pad on your critter, is there any difference at all between synthetic, real, foam, ect? If the fleece is just to keep the saddle pad from sliding around then why don't you line the skirts with the hook side of velcro? Your pad sure wouldn't go anywhere :-)

I just had a saddle in that had fleece in good condition (I thought) it was just all the stitching that had rotted out. I started handstitching it all back together using all the original holes, I got about a foot done and gave the fleece a little tug and it all split down my stitchline so I ended up refleecing the whole thing. So, that to me is a drawback to real fleece, you can't exactly condition it like you do the rest of your saddle, plus bugs get into it and mice like it for their nests.

If you are relying on the fleece to give you cusioning, then synthetic fleece isn't that great, but it is easy to use and econimical and an accepted lining (to most saddle buyers I think it is safe to say).

With all the advancements in synthetic fibers and materials, shouldn't there be something better than fleece out there now anyway? If fleece was really great for controling temperature, then wouldn't you see anthletes going around in sheepskin clothes?

And, I'm not 100% convinced that the skirts do much to distrubute the weight of the tree or the rigging for the horse. Leather is flexible, it will do a little, but is it significant enough to warrant the weight of the skirts added to the saddle? So I'm thinking you could do a saddle with no skirts, drop plate type rigging and velcro under the tree and be setting pretty on a very lightweight saddle :-)

...sorry for the ramble at the end...

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

My question is about woolskin, I always knew it a sheepskin, and wool as the fibers that had been removed from the sheep. Unless there is a critter that is called a wool that I don't know about

In regards to a stripped down saddle. who needs a saddle at all when you can ride bareback?

[Billy H]

Howdy Folks,

Well since this thread was resurrected, thought I would add a little interesting tid-bit that I came across.

Chas Weldon did some restoring work on a Will James saddle built by Jack Connolly. As Chas Weldon tells the history of this particular saddle--- Will James had the Connolly Brothers build this saddle with Carpet lining because of his distaste of the Sheep-Man. What I found really interesting was how Jack Connolly used "Binding" to wrap the edges of the carpet to the skirt. Beautiful craftmanship for sure!

If your interested-- Keith Valley filmed some of the work being done by Chas Weldon. He has the video on YouTube. You can also find it on Keith Valleys website.

Billy

[rdl123]

I know of a saddle maker up here in Saskatchewan who uses no sheepskin...The skirts are made up with the bottom side piece rough out...He runs the grain like you do sheepskin to keep the pad in place...And this guy was a PFRA manager for years and rode his own saddles so it obviously worked for him...He just roughs up the bottom rough out side every once in a while and had no issues with balankets or pads slipping...A friend rides one of his saddles on his own ranch and says it sits really well on a horse...specially for roping....Wonder if maybe the lack of the sheepskin layer helps there...

[Love4ever]

  On 3/7/2011 at 7:32 PM, Billy H said:

Howdy Folks,

Well since this thread was resurrected, thought I would add a little interesting tid-bit that I came across.

Chas Weldon did some restoring work on a Will James saddle built by Jack Connolly. As Chas Weldon tells the history of this particular saddle--- Will James had the Connolly Brothers build this saddle with Carpet lining because of his distaste of the Sheep-Man. What I found really interesting was how Jack Connolly used "Binding" to wrap the edges of the carpet to the skirt. Beautiful craftmanship for sure!

If your interested-- Keith Valley filmed some of the work being done by Chas Weldon. He has the video on YouTube. You can also find it on Keith Valleys website.

Billy

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Do you have a link to his YouTube video and his website im very interested as I'm fixing up a saddle and trying to figure out what to use to replace the fleece on the underside.

[Burkhardt]

  On 12/19/2023 at 4:25 PM, Love4ever said:

Do you have a link to his YouTube video and his website im very interested as I'm fixing up a saddle and trying to figure out what to use to replace the fleece on the underside.

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That post was made over 12 years ago.