Saddle treemakers-sub topic

[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.