Square skirt Wade

[BrianHochstrat]

Here is one I just finished. Its a 16 1/2 wade with a 5 inch cantle. I was pretty happy with my lines on this one, anyone who builds square skirt saddles know it is challenging to get everything running parallel and line up as it should. Normally I would have run the skirt out the back a bit more, but the customer rides smaller type horses so we decided to keep it as short as we could.

[Bob]

Brian, nice work. It's not often these days when you see an 8 string seat. I like it. The artwork arrangement is very nice. The lines are great too. Is that a rawhide binding? Did you double and stitch all the jockeys? Either way, it looks nice like that. I'd like to see and learn how you braided the twist. Thats a nice touch. Very good workmanship.

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Brian,

beautiful work on that saddle... i've made a few square skirts and know how hard it is to keep those skirts looking straight and square, you did a heck of a job. Beautiful carving, nice clean work with great flow. Love to see a few more photos from different angles with some close ups.

Darc

[gtwister09]

Brian,

beautiful work on that saddle... i've made a few square skirts and know how hard it is to keep those skirts looking straight and square, you did a heck of a job. Beautiful carving, nice clean work with great flow. Love to see a few more photos from different angles with some close ups.

Darc

Brian,

Ditto...

Regards,

Ben

[jonwatsabaugh]

Brian,

Four button seats are difficult to get proportionally level and ballanced with a beautiful radius. I've seen many of the so called "masters" four button seats that disapointed me. Your's however, is perfect in all aspects according to my liking. Overall mechanical ballance, proportion, and artistry on this saddle are exceptional! Rarely I add pictures of rigs I like to aspire to. This one I will surely reference often for education and inspiration.

Jon

[JRedding]

Brian, beatiful floral job, nice rawhide work, just an all-out fine piece of work, most of all the seat in that saddle is so good I can see it all the way to Utah.

[PENSKE]

brian you work its beatiful on this saddle howmany hours you

spend on the tooling,what canI said BEATIFUL SADDLE I hope

we can learn from you brian how you make the braided on the

twist its that the side button .

[ArtS]

Absolutely beautiful saddle. Great job!

ArtS

[BrianHochstrat]

Thanks for the good reviews. I do not have any close up shots of the saddle, I mostly just get a side shot for my website and call it good, if I did something out of the ordinary I will take a shot of it, but this saddle was basicly patterned after one I built a few years ago. The braid on the twist is a long knot like on a bridle rein turnback, but I just braid the foundation of the knot, so it has a over one under one sequence. -Brian

[mudman]

Very Nice Indeed!!

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Nicely balanced, Brian. The shorter back skirt matches well with the front - and is less likely to interfere with the horse. I like the shape on your seat jockey too. The rigging caught my eye at first because with the string where it is I first thought it was an inskirt. Unique way to install it so it appears like a ring rigging when it is a plate rigging. And let's just say the carving is very well done and leave it there.

Rod

[bruce johnson]

Another great one. I like the lines on this one, and the seat jockey is excellent. A bell ringer for sure. Keeps us all inspired to see the great work here lately. I appreciate that several of the top end guys like yourself are sharing advice too.

[jwwright]

Great work Brian. Causes me to be inspired, yet makes me think I should just sell my tools..........all at the same time. Thanks for posting it. JW

[pella]

magnificent...

[BrianHochstrat]

This is a cool forum, I learned something no one ever told when I was an apprentice and after 15 years of building saddles I never noticed. That is to line up your buttons, simple, easy to do, but as you can see this saddle does not have them lined up. Judging by the PM's it seems I am the only one that did not know about this, luckily it was brought to my attention and that will not happen again. After being told about this, out of curiosity I went back through some of the saddles on my website to see how far off the buttons were, and it is a crap shoot, some line up, some don't. Thanks guys for coming out and saying the truth about what you see, atta boys are fine, but real critique is what helps us improve and makes these forums valuable. Thanks-Brian

[steve mason]

Brian, you build a very top notch saddle, awesome carve job, the line are right on the money, I have an order coming up with square skirts, I will be referring to your photos when I build it.

In regards to buttons, I also try to get my buttons lined up, especially on an eight button seat, after reading this topic I had a look at the TCAA website, it looks as if the only one of those guys whose buttons are always lined up is Chuck Stormes, the others are very close but Chucks are right on. I think where I deviate from this rule is on a six button seat, if I put my buck roll screw parallel to my ear button the screw looks way to low, also I am not sure if I want my buck roll that low when the screw is even with the ear.

Hope what I am writing makes sense to you all, I am definitely not a wordsmith.

Steve