This Is What Influenced Me

[Tanthathide9]

My grandpa told stories about this man named Pedro who was one of his best ranch hands and coming from my grandpa that goes a long way. Well talked about him braiding making his own rawhide so on so forth. Until some personal health issues and arthritis kept Pedro from working with his hands, he ultimately loss the battle and I thought I'd share the quirt of his that really just influenced me to wanna learn the art of braiding. There aren't many pieces of his owned by many people my uncle bought all Pedro had before time of his passing so a tribute to Pedro and something for those who appreciate some good quality work

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Hope these pictures work

[Tanthathide9]

Posting from iPhone sorry not sure if pics posted

[gringobill]

Posting from iPhone sorry not sure if pics posted

Thanks for showing that neat old quirt! You're story about the ranch hand hits close to home. I grew up right on a ranch right on the Mex border in southeast Arizona and we had Mexican cowboys working for us the whole time I was growing up. These guys were from Sonora and Chihuahua and the best ones came off ranches down there. From time to time different ones would be craftsmen and they braided some riatas and quirts etc when they were there. The gear they made was using gear and not art pieces.

I remember them cutting a green hide into a long strip about 1/2"to 3/4" wide with the hair on and stretching it around the top of a waterlot fence and letting it dry. Then they would scrape "most of the hair," off of it with pieces of broken glass.

I can kind of remember them making a notch in the top of a cedar post set in the ground about chest height. they could drive their pocket knife in the notch at the width they wanted their strings to be and start cutting the strings. They split the strings in a similar way if they need to.

I can remember that there was still some patches of hair or short stubble on the finished riatas but like I said they were making them to use not for show.

Some of them could work with horse hair too and one of them showed me how to get hair ready to twist and then how to twist it using an incredibly simple device that was a stick about a foot long, bigger and heavier on one end with a hole drilled through it a couple of inches from the smaller end. You stick a nail, bolt or another stick through the hole., then tie the start of the hair to a groove whittled around the short end of the stick below the hole and start whirling the stick around holding the shorter stick . It takes a two people to run this gadget, one to spin it and back up and the other one to feed the loose hair into the strand. It's not nearly as good as an old hand crank churn or of course a reversible cordless drill but it works.

Some of those guys were pretty handy at making gear. I was pretty young at the time and looking back I really regret that I didn't pay closer attention to what they were doing, take photos or videos and preserve how they made the stuff.

Sadly all of that has changed now. There are very few of those kinds of cowboys left and the remaining ones stay in Mexico.

Thanks again,

Bill

[Tanthathide9]

Yeah Pedro was pretty darn good, the same stories as what u told were some of the stories my grandpa tells he would see hides nailed to trees and the way he cut was very similar to how u mentioned with the cedar post he didn't do anything with horse hair to my knowledge but countless quirts and bull whips are at my uncles house. The tools he used and ingenuity is what was so intriguing to me. How they made suchfine gear with such skill and common tools is crazy thanks for replying bill

[curlyjo]

I was fortunate to be neighbors with Bill Dorrance and really got to know him in early High School as I was the same age as his twin boys. My cousin and I would either ride up horseback or drive up through the hills and learn the old style buckaroo ways of handling cattle and learn to make rawhide and buttons and lots of other stuff. We used to scrape hides until we thought we would cry but thats what it took to learn. Then I headed to Nv. and Oregon and when I'd get a little vacation time I'd come home to show off the daugther and head up to Bill's to make string and braid. I also worked with Lige Langston at the Bare Ranch in Surprise Valley, Ca. and Nv. He got me started on Hondas and using them on nylon ropes. There is a good movie on Lige made in the 80's. Just look up his name on Google and it's there somewhere. He also told me of stretching wide green hide out and shaving the hair with broken glass after it dried. I quit Braiding for a while and then started up about 12 years ago building Hondas and 2 years ago relearning Bosals. I'm using more Roo now as it is just nice to work with and you can put it down and take off again any time you want. Sorry if I rambled on and good luck to all you new braiders out there. Brad

[megabit]

Link to film about Lige

[curlyjo]

Link to film about Lige

Thanks megabit for posting that link. My computer skills aren't high enough to do that sort of thing. Probably need to use more than 2 fingers on the keyboard. Brad

[megabit]

Brad,

Did you go to the Vaquero Fiesta in Alturas back in August? Just wondering if we've ever met.

Mike

[curlyjo]

Mike, no but someday hope to attend. Worked east of there and north of there years ago and have a cousin outside of Alturas. Brad

[Tanthathide9]

Thanks for the link megabit I tried watching the full video I do all my work from iPhone I guess it's not compatible to watch it but I saw the trailer and the 2:06 sec I saw had me highly interested wish I could get my ole' lady to help me like he got his too thanks to all who commented