Mini Horse Saddle Trees

[steadybrook]

I need a supplier of in stock mini horse saddle trees,does anyone know where or use mini trees?

[mike59]

I need a supplier of in stock mini horse saddle trees,does anyone know where or use mini trees?

Are you wanting a tree for actual "Miniature Horses", or for making half sized saddles? If you're looking for Half sized Saddle trees, you can get the composite trees from Ralide. Weaver Leather sells them. The Ralide trees are more like 40% the size of a full sized tree. I use some of them for my half size saddles where cost is a factor. I have even taken the standard composite trees and re-shaped them by cutting down the swells, building up the cantles, and building out the gullet, to make period saddles. If you're looking for in-stock, rawhide covered wood trees, I don't of anyone has that carries them, as most tree makers custom make them to specs.  <BR><BR>Take a look at Rod & Denise Nickkels post.  They are extrordinary craftsmen.<BR><BR>Mike Edited April 20, 2010 by mike59

[Casey Jordan]

Steadybrook,

Contact Jon Watsabaugh, he makes some pretty nice 1/2 size trees. He is a member here.

Stole this off one of his posts- If interested or for references, call me at the shop at 515-285-0799

I have one on my bench now, one on the way and another one ordered and he is waiting on the silver horn to get started.

Hope this helps.

[jonwatsabaugh]

As Casey mentioned, I make trees in any scale and style. Full size trees can be scaled down for horses or ponies just right for kids. The little trees in the picture are Casey's. The finished one is fiberglass/epoxy encased. The full sized trees in the background have been epoxy coated and are awaiting rawhide.

Jon

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

We also build trees to any scale. Ours are rawhide covered.

[mauifarrier]

Wow! I took a moment to cruise your site, (www.rodnikkel.com) and immediately started reading all the detail you offer about how you build your trees. What a FANTASTIC website and amazing craftmanship. I will continue to browse and drool at your site. Found you in the forum because of your post about 1/2 size and or miniature trees. Thank you for responding.

Best wishes to you and your treemaking business. I can only hope to be a customer someday in 2010 or 2011.

Aloha from Hawaii,

Gretchen Cardoso

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Thanks for your kind words, Gretchen. If we can help people understand more about how saddle trees work, that's what we put the site up to do. We'd look forward to having you as a customer.

[Silver Cloud]

Hi Rod.

Sorry for the very basic question, but could you please explain what the advantages are of trees covered in rawhide?

Many thanks.

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Silver Cloud,

Your question is a good one and made us sit down and write it all out. So here goes.

For miniature trees, rawhide strengthens and protects the wood which would be quite fragile on its own. Compared to other coverings, the only advantage rawhide has for miniatures is tradition, so if someone wants a fully authentic miniature, then rawhide covered is what is needed.

For normal saddle trees, rawhide has a few advantages. We did the “drive over a tree” test on one of our trees some years back. A normal pick up truck wouldn’t break it, but a loaded 3 ton moving truck squashed the center of the bars down to the concrete. Yet when we picked up the tree, although the lacing had broken in a couple places and the bottom edge of the bars were all scuffed from the concrete, the bar shape was back to normal and we could not make the bars bend. Taught us a lot about strength and flex in rawhide (and the strength of good quality wood underneath it)! So here are our top four advantages of rawhide covering on saddle trees.

1.) Good rawhide is strong. History and even the stories we have heard back on the wrecks that have happened to saddles with our trees in them over the past 15 years tell us that good rawhide covered trees are more than adequate for normal use and abuse (horses flipping over backwards, falling off mountains, etc.). We would put good hide from mature animals, particularly bulls, that isn’t split to be too thin up against any other material in use today as far as strength goes. Since rawhide is a natural material, there is a lot of variability in strength depending on the thickness and quality of the hide used, and this is where rawhide has been said to be weaker than other materials. All of the tests we have heard of have compared synthetic covered trees with built in groundseats against lower cost production trees (whose rawhide is thinner) without groundseats. And even in these tests, the rawhide covered trees came pretty close to the average breaking strength and some of the rawhided trees took greater pressure to break than the synthetic ones. We wonder what the results would be with better rawhide or against synthetic covered trees without the groundseats built in.

2.) Rawhide holds it shape once it is dry, yet it has some flex. Although we do not believe that saddle trees should flex under normal riding conditions, experience and practically tell us that when an cow hits the end of a rope that is attached to a horn there is going to be a pretty big jar on the tree that may be enough to cause some flexion. Rawhide will absorb that shock and come back to its initial shape, as the above story so convincingly proved to us. And once rawhide has dried around a tree, it isn’t going anywhere, even if the lace gets cut.

3.) Rawhide covered trees are easy for the saddle maker to work with. It is easy to nail and screw into and has good nail and screw holding ability. Nailing into it makes a hole in it but doesn’t weaken the hide around that hole. Bare rawhide is easy to glue onto and the glues stick well. The varnish or other protective coating used can affect gluing.

4.) Good rawhide has longevity. We know this because there are lots of 100 year old saddles still around with solid trees and good rawhide coverings. So long as rawhide is protected from too much moisture or sudden changes in humidity, and being chewed on by animals, it will last indefinitely. The concern about moisture is also over-emphasized at times. We have soaked some of our rawhide for a week to get it to the point it can be manipulated – not soaking wet, just somewhat pliable again. Lots of saddles go for swims in the river or are ridden for hours in the rain repeatedly without apparent effect on the rawhide.

Fairly lengthly answer here to a short question, but thinking it through so we could write it out like this has been a good exercise for us. Thank you.

[Casey Jordan]

I will throw in my 2 cents worth on miniature trees.

I do agree with everything Rod & Denise said, especially - "For miniature trees, rawhide strengthens and protects the wood which would be quite fragile on its own. Compared to other coverings, the only advantage rawhide has for miniatures is tradition, so if someone wants a fully authentic miniature, then rawhide covered is what is needed."

Here's what I have learned with miniature trees:

If the customer wants rawhide bound tree then he will get it, with with the rawhide cut off the horn from the swell up.

A miniature tree that is rawhide bound is already starting to get out of scale and "swell up." The tree looks correct and to scale with the rawhide on it, but as soon as you add the leather to the horn it gets way to big and out of scale. The neck and horn cap are way to large finished. And belive it or not the seat starts to spread pretty wide with rawhide.

Now if the tree and horn starts smaller in the wood and then the rawhide was added...........

I like to do miniatures with just the fiberglass/epoxy and keep the "bulk" down.

On miniatures where some of the rawhide is showing then rawhide bound is the only option.

The only complaint I have with rawhide on miniature trees is bulk.

Hope this helps a little.

Casey

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Casey,

Interesting points from user's end. We use deerhide on our rawhided miniatures. I can see how if you used normal thin cowhide or even calf hide that comparatively it would be extra thick and you would see that especially around the horn since it is the smallest piece. Something to be aware of for sure!

[Casey Jordan]

Rod & Denise,

It's obvious you "Get It" when it comes to miniatures by using deerhide. The thinner the better to keep the bulk down.

Miniatures are hard to make look right. Even though everything is exactly to 1/2 scale it might still look out of scale.

So what do you do, leave it exactly to what the measurements say or cheat a little and make it look right?

On miniature saddles it's hard to cheat too much because you have to go by the tree for the most part.

The tree determines the skirt length, seat measurements and then everything has to be proportional to that.

Can you do me a favor just for fun?

Can you measure around a horn neck and horn cap before putting on the rawhide and then again after putting on the rawhide? How much will it gain?

It would be interesting to see the differances on a full size and miniature one. I wonder if they gain the same percentage wise.

Hope this isn't to confusing.

Casey

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Casey,

We don't build a lot of miniatures so we don't have one on hand to measure, but we did some some figuring. Here's our results:

We have one miniature metal horn of the #4/Texas dally style. It's neck diameter is 1/2", measured with calipers. The diameter of our full size #4/Texas dally horns is 15/16", so the mini is a bit more than half size. We don't have one of these rawhided right now to check it's finished thickness, but it should be similar in diamter difference to the #6 we did measure.

Measuring a full size #6/Hamley horn - diameter of the bare horn is 13/16" and circumference is 2 3/4". A rawhided one has a diameter of 1 1/8" and a circumference of 3 5/8". We generally count on about 1/8" of thickness for our rawhide, and we put the stoutest stuff over the fork and horn, so this works out.

Measured some dried deer hide we use for strings. The super thick stuff we use for cantle thongs is 1/16" thick. (Incidentally, that is the thickness of the hide on a broken tree of unknown origin we have here to duplicate.) The stuff we use for lace is thinner but still over 1/32" thick. So it is half the thickness or less of our normal rawhide. Things to learn - use our thinner deer hide on minis so it looks proportional.

We haven't actually used a metal horn yet. Most of the orders we have built have been Wades, and those that weren't were special styles that they didn't (maybe still don't) have metal horns for in miniature sizes. The one in this picture we posted has a wooden horn that we could shape the way the customer wanted it, but it ended up thicker just because it needed to be so it wouldn't break. Maybe if we used baltic birch we could make it that small and still have it strong enough. We actually have pictures of both the full size and half size saddles built on those trees and I checked out how the proportions looked. Yes, the neck of the horn on the miniature was thicker, especially with a Sam Stag rigging, but the cap looked right.

[Casey Jordan]

Thaks Rod & Deinse!

I didn't mean to give you home work, but I appreciate you taking the time to do some measuring. That helps.

Steadybrook

If your looking for miniature hadware I know that Bork Hardware and Boise Foundry both make miniature horns, oxbow stirrups and rigging hardware.

But Rod & Denise are right they have a very limited selection, especially of horns.