Covering an A fork or weatherly swell

[TrooperChuck]

Timbo, thanks for posting this subject. And Hidemechanic, thanks for posting your thoughts and pics. I'm about to start a Santa Fe-type saddle, so this subject was really interesting.

[Go2Tex]

Regards keeping the horn small, try splitting your leather pieces down a bit. The middle, or filler piece, doesn't need to be thick at all. I temper it really well, so it's nice and hard. Then, when you are pressing the edges together with the pliers, try to get the crease line as close to the horn as possible and stitch as close as possible too. You can pound with a hammer on the area of the crease to make it thinner also. After you do your initial fitting of the bottom piece, establishing the location of the fold and stitch line, take it off and pound it down on the flesh side with a hammer. After stitching, cut the excess off as close as you can to the stitches without compromising it and that's about the best you can do about the size, that I've found.

As to the fork cover horn hole on a big horn, the only way to do it without a split that I've seen is to cover the horn after coving the fork. If there is a way, I'd sure like to see how it's done.

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Hi Tim,

my post may be a little late to help you but it isn't that difficult to cover a fork without splitting the back of it. A big part of the process has to do with the proportion of the horn neck thickness compared with the cap diameter. The bigger the cap, the thicker the neck needs to be. The reason for this is simple, if you need to cut a 1 1/2" hole in the fork cover to get it over the cap, your neck needs to have some thickness to it to fill the hole. I have posted a few photos of a slick fork (sorry the photos aren't better) with a metal horn. You can see from the tree that the cap is fairly large compared to the thin neck. When I covered the horn, I made a point of using fairly heavy leather for the wings of the neck so the neck would finish up thick. It definitly takes some pulling to get that small hole over the finished cap. I usually fit my fork cover before wrapping the horn so that it is ready to install the first time I pull it over the wrapped horn. It's a bit easier if the leather is fairly wet and a bit of saddle soap on the bottom side of the fork cover around the hole and some on the top of the horn cap and around the edges helps as well.

The last photo is a good example of needing the right proportions of neck thickness to cap diameter. That cap was 5"s in diameter before being covered so when I ordered the tree, I asked my treemaker to make the neck thicker than he normally makes them.

Hope that helps a little.

Darc

[Go2Tex]

Wow Darc, I didn't think it could be done without stretching that hole so out of shape it would never look right, but you done it on that one, apparently. Learn something every day on this forum......

I notice you skive the cover down pretty good around the hole too. I suspect that helps some. I don't think I could do it that way, though. When fitting the cover, I end up putting it on and taking it off too many times to have to fight getting it over the horn each time. But, I really like your idea of fitting the cover before you cover the horn for that nice tight fit.

[Timbo]

Thanks, Darc. That helps immensely!!

Tim

[Hidemechanic]

D.A.K.

That's a good explaination. Some things we do and never think about articulating the details of the process.

Nice work too btw.

Who made the tree?

GH

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Tim,

A final word. Basically all the info in other posts is good. If you feel that you need a more detailed description of how to do it, with or without a slit and lacing, the best explanation I have seen, is in the Encyclopedia of Saddle Making by Al Stohlman. Very detailed, and if you take your time and follow all the information, you will end up with a professional looking finish.

Bondo Bob

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Hi GH,

that tree came from Glenn Christman of Pincher Creek, AB. I like the shop accesory you have on the table in the background of picture three... cute!

Go2tex,

I usually do about a 3/4" skive around the edge of the horncap and depending on the type of horn, I'll leave more or less thickness. For any horn that I'm doing a cap and wrap I leave the leather around 3-4 oz at the very edge so that my wrap doesn't sink into the crease left by a thicker edge. On a metal horn like the one in the picture, I usually leave the edge around 6-8 oz.

Something that may be of use to you if you find that you are putting on and taking off your fork covers alot is to make a couple patterns. Make a pattern of a handhole so that you can trace it on the ground work and cut the same size hole all the time... do that and your pattern of a fork cover should always fit the same through the handhole. If you are covering wade forks that are always the same, fit a fork cover and save it for future trial fits. Make a paper pattern of that cover so that any Wade you need to do in the future, all you have to do is trial fit the previously fit pattern and if it fits, use your paper pattern to cut a new cover for the fork. You then only need to do all your skiving and install it once; should save you time and some leather. I do this with a few of my patterns for common fork covers, common cantle sizes, and also for gullet shields... probably got enough patterns lying around to make a saddle or two. Incidentally, I don't always do a trial fit if I know the fork or gullet or cantle is exactly the same as the last one.

Darc