Light Weight Pleasure Saddle

[rktaylor]

I am planning to make a saddle for my wife. It will just be used for trail riding. I have a BWBR tree ordered from Bowden. The two primary constraints are:

1. It must be comfortable (I'll take my chances here).

2. It must be light. Her current saddle weighs just over 22 lbs. That's because there's not much to it. My goal is to stay around 25 lbs if possible.

Questions:

What is the lightest leather that you would recommend? I have some HO 13-15 oz that could be used for some pieces (ground seat, swell cover, ??), but thought I should have something lighter for the fenders, stirrup leathers, seat, etc.

I was planning on a 3/4 in-skirt rigging, but could do a single O-rigging. Any thoughts on which is the best option to keep weight down? Which option would be easiest for a novice saddle maker like me?

Thanks for any advice.

Randy

Edited July 29, 2014 by rktaylor

[oltoot]

Unfortunately you wont have the luxury of picking over a lot of hides to get select pieces from so you will end up using things a little heavier than 'ideal'. So select for firmness, not weight for fenders, stirrup leathers. AND if you are lucky, those pieces can do fine at 13oz. Skirt rig would be the best pick for you. Consider this: Front and back riggings separate pieces with back rigging designed to replace separate jockey with a visible, complete bar pocket. Here is a case where skirt plugging were really indicated and skirt proper could be pretty light, say 10oz. Leave a space that is just skirt between back of front and front of back rigging and will also turn into a close contact "groove". Now some may jump on this with a venom that should be reserved for defending against invading aliens saying, even shouting that this will wear and need repair sooner. Now this criticism will be true to this degree. I predict that with your projected use of this rig, it will show wear in ~ 25 instead of 35 years. What is a happy wife worth and mores the point when its us that gets to make the smiles? BTW, rememember to use plugs to create long, smooth surfaces and puuleeze dont 'dome' the rivits. AND this final note though it may be too late: why not use a better tree with a Little Wonder front end and cutting horse bars for this very special project. Oh yeah and brush up on your carving.

[Big Sioux Saddlery]

Lots of good advice from oltoot, especially "What's a happy wife worth?" Lmao! Seriously though, I would also go with the inskirt. I would choose a BWBR over a Little Wonder, however, simply because I don't like the looks of a LW. Not a fan of Bowden trees, but again that's personal preference. On leather weight, I know some guys using 10 oz strap for cutting saddles. Now that's pretty light, so you'd have to make sure you got pretty firm leather. Half leathers in 2-1/2" width, or even 2", will also reduce weight. Smaller skirts, and like oltoot said, the rigging pieces serving as the jockeys will also trim the weight. Harder to fit, though. I'll be interested to see what you come up with.

[GrampaJoel]

You might consider a Mc Cellan style saddle for a light weight. I had one that was covered in a , I'd say maybe six ounce leather. It had equestrian style stirrup leathers and a smallish fender. The total weight was about 14 lbs.

I rode this saddle daily working up an endurance racing prospect. It was comfortable to ride at say three or four hours at a time. Without getting off.

Not a great saddle for packing on a trail horse, and it certainly didn't look western, but here it is thirty years later, and I still remember that saddle with fondness.

Joel

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

All the comments made by the others are spot on. Last thing to remember, "Happy wife, Happy life!"

Bob

[rktaylor]

Thanks for all the input. Truth be told, my wife would probably prefer new kitchen chairs over a saddle. But I am not making chairs. Like most of them, she tolerates a lot and smiles through most of it.

I was leaning toward an in-skirt rigging, so you have convinced me to go that way. I will post some skirt/rigging patterns when I start working on it to make sure I understand what you are saying related to riggings. I like the idea of leaving a space on the skirt between the front and rear rigging. I bet, based on projected usage it will last longer than 25 years.

I get what you are saying on the Bowden tree. My first saddle was on a Batie tree, so I am looking for comparisons. I also have a Quality tree ordered for a saddle I am building for me (you see where my priorities are). I had a friend who was going to order Timberline, so I would have a good sample to look at. He hasn't got off high center yet so I won't get to touch one of those for awhile. I wanted the barrel tree, because I live in a college town with lots of cowgirls. I figure if I ever want to sell saddles, I need to tap into their dad's money. haha

I was thinking about buying a side of 10-11 ounce HO, but am going to wait until I know what else I need to save on shipping. Since Oltoot told me to order 3 sides of heavy skirting for my saddle, I have some left that could be used for some of this saddle. I think 2 1/2 inch stirrup leathers and was considering half leathers. I don't know about going down to 2 inches. It's hard to build something light when you have a tendency to overbuild everything.

There will be a lot of tooling practice for this saddle because I have a floral pattern in mind. Maybe I should start this weekend.

Thanks again.

Randy

[Goldshot Ron]

Randy,

I once took a saddle class from Al Gould (saddle maker in Clovis, CA) and we were discussing reducing weight in saddles. He said that we are reducing weight by ounces of materials to reduce pounds when finished. Most of the light weight saddles that I have repaired had cheap light weight trees, narrow stirrup leathers, cheaply padded seats, and narrow forks. It's hard to build our type of saddle and live with these cheap components; and, if you figure out how, please share.

Trees, since I'm still learning the trade and don't want to waste money, I basically use trees from Bowden and Timberline. They don't use staples to hold down the rawhide, the rawhide is nicely applied, and most of the time the trees are square. And, I recommend LaPorte and Chicago Stock Yard trees for composite trees. They help to reduce weight since the ground seat is already part of the tree, and doesn't feel too bad sitting on it bare (saddle that is). That's my two cents on trees.

Two inch wide stirrup leathers also reduce weight. When I reduce width in leathers, I usually use harness leather instead of skirting. It's firmer and tanned with more oil to holdup better. But, it's not worth buying a side for only two leathers. Check out this site for past posts on inskirt rigs, I believe there are quite a few posts with photos.

Good luck, oh yeah, if you find the secret for keeping the Mrs. happy, I'd like info on that also.

Ron

[BOB BRENNER]

I use 11/13 oz in my trail saddles. What the others have said is good advice. Building a light weight saddle requires a different set of construction techniques and a different thought process than a conventional saddle. The only way you can reduce the weight is reduce the amount of materials used, i.e. 2 ½" stirrup leathers, smaller fenders, smaller round skirts, etc. It’s 5 oz here, ½ lb there, 9 oz over there, and so on. Also, you need to use a tree with a built-in seat strainer or ground seat. I have been refining my light weight trail “traditional”saddles for over twenty years and so far the best I can do is about 28 pounds fully rigged. I also, make another trail saddle with a Ralide tree “the saddle Gods are not happy” that comes in at around 24 to 25 pounds. Here are some examples. Currently about 75% of my business is trail saddles.

Respectfully,

Bob Brenner

Edited July 30, 2014 by BOB BRENNER

[oltoot]

BWBR would be OK and better than Bowman IMHO. My reason for Little Wonder is that the undercut is straight from higher extreme point rather than rounded so seat can 'infringe' on the area of swell-bar contact instead of being forced behind. Looked at from another way, BWBR would offer a little bit more surface area to brace against if that were to be desired (which it would be for lots of uses) but not for 'sweetheart appreciation' which is what I supposed we were commenting on. In the interest of fairness I must reveal that I have a tree pattern called "Sweetwater" with Quality which is a thicker LW, with a squared out gullet so here in Wyoming you can get your gloved hand inside the larger hand hole that results. My business runs in cycles and for awhile, Sweetwaters will comprise +/- 60% of orders then will come a Wade wave which seems to be what we are riding now. I have also used BWBR and BW Roper fronts when the trend is for a 'Modified Association" I have been with Sonny at Quality for some +/- 40 years. I appreciate the passion that he gets in to work with, always looking for the correct mix of function and value. BTW, he takes special pride in and I take special note of the sewing of the rawhide covers. I feel like a criminal of sorts covering his trees up with leather, they're so pretty as they come.