Saddle treemakers-sub topic

[greg gomersall]

We need to keep in mind that wood over the long term never quits shrinking and that rawhide never quits shrinking . That is part of why they work so well together. I don't know if the line-x or the bedliner will do that. Time will tell. I realize eventually there will be a better mousetrap but till I can be convinced otherwise I will stay with the tried and true. Greg

[Doug Mclean]

In starting this I would like to say how much good this web site is for people in the leather industry. My hat is off to who ever it was that started the ball rolling. I have enjoyed everyone's ideas on this saddle tree issue as we go along there have been some good comments all the way around.

This is how I look at the whole thing. I like new things as well as the next guy (faster, better, cheaper, etc.) There are some real fine people out there making a living building rawhide covered saddle trees and hopefully that will keep going for some time to come. The rawhide comes from a cow that was raised here in the good old U.S.A. When you get to thinking about it maybe progress aint progress. I think the cowboy way of life is under enough stress. If it aint broke don't fix it!!!!

[Johanna]

Just curious, guys, how was it done in history? Have saddles always had rawhide covered trees since trees began to be used? Which horse culture thought this up, the Spanish Moors? Uh-oh, this might need to be a different thread. But you guys have me curious now.

Johanna

[mulefool]

I do have one of the LaPorte trees with the cable rigging. I haven't finished it yet since I was just going to build it on spec and I've got too many real orders to get to it. So far all I've done is cover the fork. It seems like it will be easy to work with and if you were making up a bunch you've got that consistency so it might work in a situation where you want to make up a bunch all the same. It's got the ground seat and the cable rigging so you save time on that. i rode one several years ago and really liked it. It was pretty much skeleton rigged and real light. My friend ropes off it all the time and it real happy with it. I've tried is on several QH with well defined withers and nice backs and looks like it fits that type horse well. They do have other sizes, though. When I ordered it I got it within a couple weeks so you don't have a long lead time.

[buffalo]

This is how I look at the whole thing. I like new things as well as the next guy (faster, better, cheaper, etc.) There are some real fine people out there making a living building rawhide covered saddle trees and hopefully that will keep going for some time to come. The rawhide comes from a cow that was raised here in the good old U.S.A. When you get to thinking about it maybe progress aint progress. I think the cowboy way of life is under enough stress. If it aint broke don't fix it!!!!

I concur. I'll stick with rawhide.

Regards Buff

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Interesting topic. I looked around at the linex.com website and it appears that Line-X is the company name that makes a number of different products. If you click on the Industrial Coatings (plural) link, you check under Blast Force Mitigation and it says “The military and the defense industry in the U.S. and other countries, have recognized LINE-X coatings' blast mitigation product, PAXCON® for its high levels of protection.” There is also a Line-X Xtra that has KEVLAR in it. These are different than the standard bedliner, and I doubt these are the products used on saddle trees.

In the section on their website called Line-X vs. Spray Ons, they compare themselves to other bedliners. There, under CUT IT, you find "When you cut a LINE-X sample with a sharp knife, notice how the cut nearly disappears. When you cut a competitors sample, it’s easier to find the cut!" The picture alongside is a hand with a small pocket knife. I don’t think you can cut bomb resistant material with a pocket knife.

On that same page under RUB IT, they say "Take a sample of LINE-X and rub it together with any other bed liner sample...notice how our higher performance product sands away the softer competition?" What does this do to stirrup leathers over time? Anyone know?

I got to go to the “big city” today and drove past a place with a big Line-X sign on it, so my curiosity got the better of me and I went in to ask some questions. The guy who knows the most won’t be back till Monday, so if I find out anything new, I will let you know, but I talked with the guy who knew the second most. He said that the material doesn’t stretch, but that if you drop something in your truck bed that would normally cause a dent, it will still dent. (Even on their website when they say “HIT IT”, they are only comparing the damage done to their product compared to other bedliners, not saying that Line-X protects the metal underneath from deformation.) And when I explained how the product was being used and asked his opinion if it would add strength to the wood, he was pretty skeptical that it would.

Overall, Line-X is much faster and much cheaper than rawhide covering a tree. (And you can get it in pretty colors too. Hot pink saddle tree, anyone??) Strength wise, I really doubt Line-X would compare favorably to good rawhide. It is made to protect what is underneath it from scuffs, etc., but doesn’t seem to give additional strength to whatever it is covering. To really compare, someone would need to do what Hidemechanic said and check out comparable trees with both coverings. The problem is that both wood and rawhide are natural materials which vary in strength from hide to hide and from board to board, so it couldn’t just be a “one of each kind” type of trial. There would need to be a “statistically significant” number of trees in the study, and I highly doubt such a trial will ever be done in an unbiased manner. But it would be interesting to see the results.

Moisture wise - Line-X should be waterproof, except where there are holes, screws and nails going through it. On the other hand, since we know by experience that it takes over a week sitting in water, even with the varnish scuffed to the max, to get a decent hide softened enough to peel back from the wood, the concern about water damaging rawhide is over-rated. As to something rotting inside either coating, a tree should be made from wood that has 10% or less moisture, so unless water gets in from the outside, rot should never be a problem. But if water does get in, the wood would have a better chance of drying without rotting in a rawhide covered tree.

So there are some advantage – speed and cost - to a synthetic over rawhide. But how is it to work with? Glue holding ability? Nail holding ability? Strength is still the biggest question mark.. History tells us what good rawhide will withstand. What about the synthetics? And will we ourselves ever switch to it? Over our comatose bodies. I would have said dead, but “never say never”. OK, Rod says to say dead…

Sorry Doug, but the rawhide on our trees comes from bulls from good old CANADA!

Johanna, According to They Saddled the West, the first Spanish style trees coming east from Mexico in the 1700's were rawhide covered wood. Earlier than that I don't know, but would be curious if anyone else does.

Edited January 26, 2008 by Rod and Denise Nikkel

[jwwright]

Interesting thoughts and experiences from everyone. I always appreciate folks like Rod and Denise who are high quality tree makers, taking time to post their thoughts.

I will be finishing up a saddle this weekend that I built on a tree from Ray Lewis, Hereford Texas. These trees are very popular with ranch cowboys and the saddle makers who build for them here in the southern plains states. This tree is wood, fiberglassed. This was my first experience working with a fiberglassed tree. I will say that the tree in the wood alone is a nice tree, whether it had been glassed or rawhided. I didn't find anything really much different working on this glassed tree, except driving a nail or putting in a screw in a tight place, such as the skirt in the corner of the hand hole. In those tight places it is best to pre drill a hole. The strainer is also glassed in, which I didn't find a draw back to. The strainer had a good basic shape to it to begin with. Any way this has been my experience. These trees are priced around $300 delivered........ above say what a Bowden or Timberline is...........but a little below what a tree from Sonny Felcons is.

[Doug Mclean]

In trying to make a point I wasn't careful about my choice of words. I don't care if you replace U.S.A with Canada in my comment. The idea is still the same.

My apoligies to the members north of the border no offense intended.

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Doug,

No offense taken at all. I should have put a smilie behind that sentance. Those of us who don't live within the borders of the US of A always kind of smile and poke a little bit of fun when those from the US seem to forget there is someone else out there. Just wanted to remind ya'll that we exist.

One of our prime ministers once stated that being next to the US is like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how good natured the elephant is, you still feel every move...

Edited January 26, 2008 by Rod and Denise Nikkel

[okiwen]

I concur. I'll stick with rawhide.

Regards Buff

As far as using rawhide from the 'Ol U.S. of A., That is very good and patriotic, but there are still only a few great tree makers left and the backlog is getting pretty long. If there were more good tree craftsmen and quality rawhide for them to use then I bet there would not be such a push to the synthetic. There is a bottleneck at the tree level.

I have been trying to learn all I can about ordering and sizing trees and I can't wait the nine months to see if I was right or wrong. That makes for a learning curve that is quite long.

I also don't see me getting of some of these tree makers list for quite a while. Not while there are people that turn out great saddles as fast as one or more a week are around. I hate to learn on less than the best I can find, but there is obviously a reason there are nine months to a year wait on good trees.

Frustrated in the learning,

Kevin

Some replies to this post have been moved to the "Why aren't there more tree-makers?" thread to help with continutity.

Edited January 29, 2008 by Denise

[Duke]

one would think that the tensile strength of rawhide would win over the line-x. line-x is simply a coating, whereas the rawhide,when wrapped around the tree when wet, will actually shrink and when dry, maintain its shape for years to come.the line-x is simply a rubberized coating that is made to take the shape of whatever it is sprayed onto. there is no strength there.granted, it turns hard, but is still rubbery.take a strip of rawhide, wet it and shape it into a triangle, and let it dry. then take line-x and form it into a triangle. let both dry and then see which one you can shape by hand. my bet is that the rubberized coating will be alot more pliabe than the rawhide. this is my train of thought on this, and in no shape or for is contrued as the only true answer. thanks for the time.

[bcurrier]

It's polyurethane, and tougher than hell. It is more flexible than rawhide, but if you take a piece with 2 pairs of pliers and try to tear it, I think you'll be surprised at just how tough it is.

Bill

[JRedding]

I've watched this post a long time to see where it ended up and it's definately been interesting, the pros and cons of each are many. I'm a rawhide fan, I've always used rawhide covered trees and always will. I just can't see where line-x or any similiar material would add strength to a tree but maybe it does , leaving the science of chemical property out of it my thought is if you took a twelve by twelve sample of each , found the most destructive person you know and said tear it up by any means possible, go in the tool shed use what you can find, use fire if you want to, it will be a job to make that rawhide dissapear, it's just tough, the line-x could probably be made dissapear with a pair of toenail clippers, or a cigarette lighter. On the other side, what about all those really old trees you occasionaly see that were covered in rawhide but it was goat or something, that stuff was thin as paper, and couldn't have done much for the strength of a tree, some of the trees I've seen with that had to be a hundred years old, so maybe for some applications, depending on how it's being used line-x could be a good alternative. The one point I've watched for but it hasn't appeared yet is what about the saddlemaker selling the idea to his customers? rawhide covered trees are the standard , everyone knows how well it works no questions asked, when you're selling saddles anywhere above the mid-price range a quallity rawhide covered tree is expected, it wouldn't matter if line-x was ten times better some customers are not going to accept it, for me the only reason my customers would accept it is if I talked them into it , and gaurenteed it myself, and no one is clear if it's even equal let alone better, so my point is why would a sadddlemaker who normally uses rawhide trees , break tradition, make his customers raise their eyebrows, enroll himself to be a salesman for a product that is never going to send him a royalty check, lay his reputation on the line and hoping they all don't start showing back up on your doorstep in the next few years. Whether it's better or not there is some problems convincing saddle buying customers that it's an improvement, my question is as a saddlemaker making a living, not including the hobbyist saddlemaker who doesn't rely on saddle sales to live, do you have the spare time to stop and sale the idea? and could you afford to lose any sales because some customers just don't buy it? Is the idea, or the improvement if it even is one worth what it's going to cost a saddle shop in time and money to use it?

[David Genadek]

I remember when the whole truck bed liner thing began. One might think that someone did a bunch of research and found it was the product to use however as I recall it really came about because a man with no tree building experience purchased a tree company. Having trouble getting the rawhideing done he came up with the truck bed liner spray. Everyone has touble getting the rawhiding done, so the guy went around to the other tree makers and got them to send trees to him to cover. Everyone liked the idea of not having the head ache of the employees to do the rawhiding. There was no stress testing done back then and to date I have not heard of any. I tried them and found that the stuff peeled off. Could be that it is better now but why don't we insist on factual data? They are also heavier than rawhide.

For most of the market it probable won't matter because most middle aged women are not going to put much stress on a saddle. What bothers me is the that custom makers always kept the manufacturers honest by setting the standards of quality in the industry. It used to be that the manufacturers tried to copy the custom makers. I sure hope that trend is not reversing.

David Genadek

[bruce johnson]

Just when we think we know the players, someone else jumps in the pool. Now it was pointed out to me that there is a tree for sale on ebay from a guy in Cornelia, Georgia (My son and I used to watch pro wrestling from there). According to the description, this tree was made this month and covered this week. It was first covered with bedliner (tuffliner) and then rawhided. Couple things I see here, doesn't it take at least a week for rawhide to dry? The other thing is I can now add another category to my definition of "paranoid" - 1. a guy who wears a belt and suspenders at the same time & 2. a guy who bedliners and rawhides his tree. In all seriousness, the bedliner probably is no different than primering or varnishing a tree prior to rawhiding it.

[ArtS]

I also saw that on ebay. It must be a pretty thin layer. How can you be sure that it really has the liner under the rawhide. Why is his rawhide a dark brown? I can't remember ever seeing a tree covered in dark rawhide like that. Not that I've seen a lot of trees.

Another question I have is how can a novice (like myself) know if a tree maker is good or not? What should we look for?

ArtS

[ArtS]

I emailed that guy in GA and he just emailed me back with an answer. He orders the trees and all he does is cover them in rawhide. That explains the rawhide over Line-X.

ArtS

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Art,

When rawhide is dry you can often see right through it, especially after it is varnished, even on thick hides. So the colour you are seeing is the dark Line-X. And since it dried in such a short time, it must be a pretty thin hide. If he ordered a tree, rawhided it, and will sell it for less than $100.00, where is he getting these trees from and what is under the Line-X?

[Hidemechanic]

ArtS, sounds like another go topic.GH

[kseidel]

I've been watching this topic and waiting for someone to introduce fiberglass covering as comparison. We all had the same skeptical attitude about fiberglass several years ago when it first became popular and now it is a standard acceptable covering in the saddle business. Some are even rivaling the handmade trees for price. How does the bed liner material compare with fiberglass? Many treemakers use fiberglass in conjunction with rawhide.... Keith

[barra]

I have a question regarding fibreglass covered trees. Once a tree is covered in Fibreglass, How do you tack/nail to the tree.

Barra

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Curious to see what others say about fiberglass. It has been around for years, but is it a “standard acceptable covering”? Using both fiberglass and rawhide, in our opinion, falls into Bruce’s paranoia category unless you are unsure of the quality of the a fiberglass, b rawhide c wood or d construction that you are using.

[David Genadek]

I work with a yacht designer on my 3d models for my trees so he is extremely up on composite materials. We are playing with the idea of doing some fiberglass or carbon fiber trees. I am convinced that if we use the proper resin with the proper fabric it will be as good perhaps better than the rawhide. I'm not sure if there will be any cost advantage or wieght advantage at this point.

Much of what is being done in the market is not done properly so it is hard to say. It used to be that you would cover a tree in canvas to make a cheap tree I suppose that gave way to fiberglass.

A few years ago I did a project with the University of Winona which has one of the top composite material programs in the US. We took two groups of students and they had to design a saddle tree for ther senior project. From that I learned a lot about composite materials. You could build a balsa wood tree with carbon fiber that would be ungodly strong. It would probable cost more than a traditional tree to produce though.

David Genadek

[kseidel]

Being a "traditionalist" saddlemaker, I have little experience with fiberglass trees. It is difficult to nail and screw into without doing damage to the fiberglass. It seems to crack and star much like a rock hitting a windshield. It is fairly heavy, nearly as heavy as rawhide. Some trees have a wrap of fiberglass around the bars over the rawhide, which would help protect the rawhide lace from wearing under the stirrup leathers. May also add some strength to a thin or narrow bar. Have also seen rawhide trees wrapped with fiberglass around the swell thru the gullet and horn area... also to add strength for thin swells under the horn. I don"t know how much strength this adds. Boat hulls are made from layered fiberglass over very little structure, leaving only the fiberglass to take the stresses of the water. Fiberglass trees are usually much less expensive than rawhide trees, many of which the ground seat is included.

Carbon fiber trees, injection molded trees, laminated rubber bars, all are attempts to improve on rawhide covered wood trees. Making trees from materials other than wood and rawhide would remove the variable of possible inconsistent or inferior materials. Also reduce the amount of human error.

Another part of the equation not yet discussed is the ideals we all have about what fits best and what does not work for us and our customers. Every treemaker and every saddlemaker has their own philosophy of proper shape and fit for both horse and rider.

We do not have a good "apprenticeship" practice in our industry, and many beginning saddlemakers as well as tree makers lack the experience necessary to address problems and avoid serious errors. Our customers become test subjects for our experiments; most of which would be unnecessary with proper training and experience woring under a master. Coupled with the need to be competitive, it is difficult for an inexperienced person to be successful in this business. Keith

[jonwatsabaugh]

Well I guess it's time for me to throw my hat in the ring and add my two cents worth. My name is Jon Watsabaugh from Des Moines, Iowa. I've been building saddles now for about 11 years, full time about 7. Four years ago I learned the basics of building handmade trees. From that basic introduction I was able to go forward with the R & D and develop the knowledge and skill necessary to build a premium tree. When I first started building saddles, I knew I wanted to someday build trees also. This aspect of our craft was as fascinating if not more so than saddle building to me. Over the past year I've decided to make the transition from building primarily saddles to saddle trees. I'm in the process of adding more woodworking equipment for production purposes and won't be in full production till about April. Now,I say all of that to say what follows.

Over the past four years I've sewn a lot of rawhide, have even enjoyed learning this skill, but always knew there were other materials (man made) that were stronger and more durable. I fought the urge to even investigate. Why? Tradition. Tradition runs strong and true in this culture and it should. Rawhide will always keep it's place in our craft and I will never criticize any of the handmade makers or debate it's merit. I, on the other hand, have chosen a different path. Any structure is only as good as it's weakest link. In the aerospace industry, careful science is applied to each structural component. Composites (fiberglass, carbon fiber, arimids) are extensively used in key areas where structural integrity is vitally important. There are literally hundreds of cloth types and matrixes available, as well as a miriad of processes to use them. You have to be willing to go beyond the "hardware store" products and find and experiment with materials and application techniques to yield superior performance, all the time keeping your saddle maker in mind. These products can be made very thin and extraordinarily strong and durable. Using the right matrix (resins) will facilitate driving nails easily and will not "star" or crack the composite. Even if it does, structural integrity will not be compromised because of the design nature of the weave in the cloth. After much experimentation, I have decided fiberglass is for me.

Now, briefly on the subject of pick-up bed liner. This stuff is a polyurea product. This industry is huge and I mean huge. It goes way way beyond pick-up bed liners and these products are really interesting. As with composites the formulations are nearly endless. As a key structural component though, I think it falls short. However as a final covering I know it ads many benefits. Incredible shock absorption characteristics are added as well as having a self-healing affect when nails are pulled making it water proof. The visual affect however is a big drawback to the traditionalist. I have found a company willing to formulate a polyurea for me sans pigmentation. The final look is somewhat translucent with an amber tint. Looks pretty good! So my choice for a topical finish is polyurea. The plural component system and impingement gun are a pretty hefty investment at $11,000, but I think the value added to my product is worth it.

The finished tree becomes one unitized construction. No voids between product layers, each product used compliments the other, and finally a very nice finish void of humps and bumps making your saddle building a more joyful task.

In conjuction with my production, it's always been a dream of mine to teach my skills to others. Maybe Saddle Tree University? More on that later.

In conclusion, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the creators and moderators of this sight. Also hats off to people like Rod and Denise, Steve Mason, Kieth Seidel,Jim Redding and the like for their willingness to share their knowledge and skill and take the time to do so!

Jon