Fitting Saddle Trees To The Horse With The Fit To Be Seen System

[oklacowboy]

Has anyone use the Fit to be seen system by Steele Saddle Trees? I was just wondering is this system really worked; and if it is better than just ordering mass made trees.

http://www.steelesaddletreellc.com/FTTH.html

[Denise]

There was a comment on the system well down on the first page of this thread: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=4947

[horsewreck]

I have not used that sysyem but have read about it. Most wood tree makers of all stripes, big and small will work with you to get the right tree under your saddle. That said, I think too much has been blabbed about fit with some tree guys acting like they are the first one on earth to tackle the issue. I do not know of a serious tree maker who doesn't care about keeping the horse comfortable and sound as possible! When it comes to fitting a tree to a horse we must consider that a horse has a different "back " on him in January when he is turned out than he does in August after being ridden most of the summer. If you find a real good horse that you hang on to a lot of years that horse will have a different back on him than when he was younger. For that matter on a hard days ride any horse will have a changed back from carrying the weight and fluid lose during the day. So do we fit the saddle to the fat horse or the same horse thinner, do we change saddles every few years as our horses age, do we have a morning saddle and an after noon saddle?? Of course not, that is why I like most saddlers build on trees designed to to fit a general body type, not a particular horse as he was at one moment in his life. As it has been said, if you build a saddle that will only fit one horse, when he dies you should bury the saddle with him. Just my thoughts.... Jeff

[Denise]

Most saddle makers, when they get a tree, take it out to some horses and try it on, learning how that type of that maker's tree fits the horses he is most familiar with. Then they do the same thing with different trees they get and over time they get a pretty good feel for how different makers different tree styles fit different horses. The forms just represent the shape of the bottom of this maker's normal trees so you don't have to buy however many trees to see how their different styles fit. You buy the forms instead. That said, the forms only apply to their trees (every tree maker does things differently, you know ) and if they change how they are building something, then the forms may be out of date. (But I don't know how often they may change.) Since Steel makes trees for some of the bigger name production companies, I think the idea behind these was for retail stores to have them, see which one fit best on a customer's horse and then sell saddles with that style of tree in it.