Decker Trees

[mulepackin]

I'm mostly a reader here, don't have much to contribute, so just generally try to soak up all I can. My only claim to "fame" is building decker trees. Thought I would post some pics of my spring batch. I tried to build a few extra to have on hand but these were all spoken for before I got them finished. I built ten, 2 standard steel arch, four standard bronze arch, and four modified bronze arch. The first pic is the batch awaiting final assembly and finish, and then some of the finished trees.

[mulefool]

Looks like you get your arches from Herb Bork. We designed the modified arch that he manufactures. do you cut your own bars? What kind of wood? Do you wholesale them? If so how much? Chris

[mulepackin]

Looks like you get your arches from Herb Bork. We designed the modified arch that he manufactures. do you cut your own bars? What kind of wood? Do you wholesale them? If so how much? Chris

Yep, I get my bronze hoops from Herb and Nadine. I carve the bars out of cottonwood on a rinky dink duplicator I built. Finding good, consistent cottonwood can be difficult. I get $180 for modified, $170 for standard and $150 for steel. I may likely stop producing steel arch trees. I sell about 10 bronze to one steel and can't find reliable manf. for steel anyway. I actually have to put more work into the steel arches to get them the way I want them. The arches are cold riveted to the bars with countersunk steel rivets. I try to leave a very smooth surface top and bottom, and the tree is ready to have the rigging attached.

[Cross8]

The look real good, when do you plan on having onother batch? I have been looking for a new tree and sure like the way these are put together. are the rivets counter sunk enuff on the bottem to alow room to file the bars for fitting?

[David Genadek]

I'm mostly a reader here, don't have much to contribute, so just generally try to soak up all I can. My only claim to "fame" is building decker trees. Thought I would post some pics of my spring batch. I tried to build a few extra to have on hand but these were all spoken for before I got them finished. I built ten, 2 standard steel arch, four standard bronze arch, and four modified bronze arch. The first pic is the batch awaiting final assembly and finish, and then some of the finished trees.

These are by far the best designed pack trees I have ever seen. You have flair in the front and you have the trees orientation going correctly. I would say you have a lot to contribute!!!

If you need a really good foundry check out Morel industries I just got some horns done by them and they were great to work with and the quality was way beyond anything I have seen in our industry before. I got some tempered Aluminum horns for less than what I was paying from Boise foundry.

David Genadek

[mulepackin]

These trees are purposely built to allow rasping to fit a particular horse or mule. I countersink the rivets about a 1/4 in. but after the rivet setting process the are even a bit deeper. Those holes are then filled with filler and the entire surface coated with at least three coats of boiled linseed oil. They can be rasped down to fit, then additional oil applied if so desired. I recommend this, but don't honestly think many folks do it. I worked closely with the saddlers and outfitters I sell to locally to fine tune them for optimal fit and performance. I pack and use these myself, but feel the guys who make their living using them can give me a much better and honest critique. Not many of them hold back!

[David Genadek]

These trees are purposely built to allow rasping to fit a particular horse or mule. I countersink the rivets about a 1/4 in. but after the rivet setting process the are even a bit deeper. Those holes are then filled with filler and the entire surface coated with at least three coats of boiled linseed oil. They can be rasped down to fit, then additional oil applied if so desired. I recommend this, but don't honestly think many folks do it. I worked closely with the saddlers and outfitters I sell to locally to fine tune them for optimal fit and performance. I pack and use these myself, but feel the guys who make their living using them can give me a much better and honest critique. Not many of them hold back!

Here is a product that you could finish with and they would be imperviouse to weather. Clear coat I use it to seal my trees it would take about 2 oz for your bars so don't freak when you see the price. This stuff penatrates really deep so it would probable still be good after they rasped.

You might also be interested in a ShopBotBuddy for your duplicating it is the most machine for the money that I have found but would be glad to know of something better. I would love to see a picture of the duplicater you made.

David Genadek

[mulepackin]

Here is a product that you could finish with and they would be imperviouse to weather. Clear coat I use it to seal my trees it would take about 2 oz for your bars so don't freak when you see the price. This stuff penatrates really deep so it would probable still be good after they rasped.

You might also be interested in a ShopBotBuddy for your duplicating it is the most machine for the money that I have found but would be glad to know of something better. I would love to see a picture of the duplicater you made.

David Genadek

Thanks for the link. I've been looking to build or buy a better, faster duplicator. I only built and modified a Copy Carver (www.copycarver.com). Heavier router, and different mounting system. It still takes about 30 min per side, per bar to do them. Thats after bandsaw roughout cutting, then a fair amount of hand work to finish them. I used to use spar varnish for the trees, but it was cost prohibitive.

Cross8, I pretty much do these on demand. This was a big batch only because thats how things turned out over the winter, and also playing some catchup.