Repair Of Loose Horn Cap

[thenrie]

Hey folks. I have an older youth saddle that is in excellent shape except the leather of the horn cap was loose (horn itself is solid). Thought I'd open it up and see what the problem was. The saddle was stored for many years in a 55-gal drum, on it's nose, surrounded by saddle pads and other tack. I expect the drum was handled roughly by a mover or two over the years and stretched the leather of the horn from constant pressure. After removing the stitching, I found the horn is a brass casting with a round wood cap screwed on top. The wood cap is tapered at the edges to give the horn cap its domed shape. This, in turn, was covered by a leather cap glued in place over the wood piece, to give the horn proper thickness, and stitched around the edges between the top and bottom pieces of the horn cover. Apparently a jolt caused the leather piece to separate from the wood cap, breaking the wood piece and allowing the horn cover to push back. Over time the underside of the horn cover stretched from the constant weight of the saddle sitting on the broken horn cap.

Now here's the question. I have made a new wood cap to replace the broken one. I can screw it into place as the original was. I can also re-use the original leather piece that went on top of it. I intend to glue it back into place with contact cement, as it was done originally, and will probably stick a couple screws in it from the top as well. The question is on the bottom side, where the leather has stretched. I want to add a piece on the bottom to fill out the stretched leather of the cover and just give the horn a bit of a thicker look than original, and restitch the horn. The piece would be skived thin around the edges and not stitched into the seam, to retain the original seam thickness. What would be the best way to add that bottom filler piece? I have thought of using contact cement, but I was worried that it wouldn't hold to the brass horn well. I thought of J.B. Weld or some other epoxy-type cement, which I could simply carve to the shape I wanted and not use leather, or simply make another wooden filler piece to match the one on top and glue them in a sandwich over the brass horn with wood glue. No experience = lots of ideas and no way to judge the value of them. Some advice would be appreciated.

I'll try to post pictures later.

[CWR]

If I were you I would just start over and recover the horn. It doesn't take much leather or time and I think you will be happier with the results.

CW

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Since you are going to do it, do it right. You can't expect just glue to hold it all together for ever. Proper way is to use 3 pieces of leather. Bottom, top and filler sandwiched between them on top of the wood. The strength comes from the filler. You glue it in place then add some tacks just slightly longer than the thickness of the wood and leather piece. That way when you pound them in they actually clinch against the metal horn. I usually use 6 in a circle 1/2" in from where the stitching will go. That way the filler is secure and once you glue the top and bottom in place, and then stitch it all together, it is strong enough to last through hard use. Here are some views of how the three layers look when done.

Bob

[thenrie]

CWR: I really don't want to disassemble the saddle to re-wrap the horn when the horn and leather is tight. This appears to be a pretty simple fix. My problem is just that the bottom cover leather is a little stretched, so I need to add some sort of filler to fill it out and make it tight once it is re-stitched.

Bob: The way you described is exactly how the horn was originally done, as you can see in the pics, except for the tacks. Had they used tacks I might not be doing this. However, the problem I now have is the stretched bottom cover. Should I add a leather filler under the horn or would wood be better. I could make a wood filler and glue and screw them together over the brass horn for shape, then put the top filler and stitch it all back as original, or I could use a leather filler on the bottom and try to tack and clinch it to the top one and stitch that all up, but I was afraid it would make the seam too bulky and look bad.

What do you think?

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

First off, I agree with CWR. I would redo it from scratch, but; if you are set on not doing that, at least I would put it back together correctly. It appears from the pics that the leather is not stretched as much as it was made to make the horn look larger than it really is by putting a larger piece of wood in over the horn and is also part of why it did not last. Given the solid foundation for the horn is the brass/bronse horn, everything needs to be based off of that and anchored to that. The wood piece should be screwed to the horn through the holes already there. Then the filler leather should be tacked and clinched to the wood, and should not be larger around than the horn. That will leave you with a lot of extra leather around the outside both on the top and bottom. Wet the top and bottom, glue both together to the filler and then remark and stitch. Trim off the excess and die and burnish. Again, it appears from the pics, that originally they tried to make the horn larger than the base and is probably what caused it to fail. Just my opinion.

Bob

[Denise]

It is common/normal for wooden horn caps to be added to metal horns to give the desired horn cap size and to give the saddle maker something to nail into. The wood should be screwed solidly to the horn, not just glued.

[CWR]

I would still recover the horn. You don't need to disassemble the whole saddle. Untie the bleed knots at the front jockeys and pull any nails then undo the screws under the swells and pull the seat back enough to get the the swell cover. You will have to remove it but its not usually a difficult task and should go back on with little trouble after you recover the horn,

With that being said, it appears from the pictures that the saddle had a pretty big horn cap. Would it be possible to screw a smaller wooden horn cap to the brass? If so you could crimp around the horn inside the old stitch line. This would take the slack out of the bottom piece. Then scribe your stitchline, stitch and trim the horn. I just don't think a filler will ever look right.

Good luck,

CW

[thenrie]

I think the pictures distort the size relationships relative to the horn. The horn, as it was originally made, looks right for the saddle and is not as large as the pictures make it look. In the same vein, the brass horn is not as large as it looks either. Trimming everything to the size of the brass horn would make a pretty dinky horn cap, in my opinion, but I'll take another look at that possibility. I think I'm going to let it sit a while, and consider taking it apart and re-wrapping it. I need to learn how to do that anyhow. Time is my biggest problem right now. When I removed the stitches to take a look, I figured it would be a simple matter of reattaching the cap and stitching it back up. I am a big proponent of doing things the right way the first time, so I'll just wait until I have the time to do it right. Thanks for all the input.