Wade, full flower

[mudman]

That's sweet!! Excellent job.

[bruce johnson]

Hilly,

What you saw your friend cinching up was using a latigo tie on a ring cinch. It makes a little larger (2-3 layers of latigo) lump at the rigging ring. It is kind of old-fashioned but a lot still do it. Most cinches have a tongue buckle and the buckle is the fastener. The excess tail length is just looped through the slot on the carrier and hangs there.

The bumps on either side of the horn are called bucking rolls. They are fastened to the forks of slick fork saddles (without swells) to add some width and prevent you from slding forward. Most are stuffed with some sort of padding - hair, synthetic fiber. clipped wool, or dense foam. They are softer than hitting the hard swells of a swell fork saddle. Some guys will make them from chap or veg tan leather. Some use exotics, some match the seat, some are tooled, some have fancy stitch patterns. Some have different profiles, higher, rounder, tear-dropped. They kind of take on a life of their own.

[BrianHochstrat]

Thanks for all the positive replies. The hole in the catcher for the string is actually one of the owners idiosincricies, if I did not punch a nice clean hole he would widdle a hole in it with his pocket knife once he recieved it. Yes there is a light amount of highlighter just enough to make the carving liven up, but not so much it looks like fake leather. Brian

[Cowboy Crafts Online]

Brian,

Great looking saddle. When are you coming to MO to teach your engraving class? I wish I had some vacation time and I would drive over to that side of the state and learn some things.

Ashley

[Hilly]

Hilly,

What you saw your friend cinching up was using a latigo tie on a ring cinch. It makes a little larger (2-3 layers of latigo) lump at the rigging ring. It is kind of old-fashioned but a lot still do it. Most cinches have a tongue buckle and the buckle is the fastener. The excess tail length is just looped through the slot on the carrier and hangs there.

The bumps on either side of the horn are called bucking rolls. They are fastened to the forks of slick fork saddles (without swells) to add some width and prevent you from slding forward. Most are stuffed with some sort of padding - hair, synthetic fiber. clipped wool, or dense foam. They are softer than hitting the hard swells of a swell fork saddle. Some guys will make them from chap or veg tan leather. Some use exotics, some match the seat, some are tooled, some have fancy stitch patterns. Some have different profiles, higher, rounder, tear-dropped. They kind of take on a life of their own.

Thanks for the explanation, Bruce. Now can you tell me what the strings are used for? Just to lash stuff to the saddle? Gosh, feel like a 3 year old with all these questions...

Hilly

[BrianHochstrat]

Brian,

Great looking saddle. When are you coming to MO to teach your engraving class? I wish I had some vacation time and I would drive over to that side of the state and learn some things.

Ashley

I will be down in Missouri May 4-8. The class is going to be pretty cool, we limit the class to 5 students, so there will be plenty of one on one tutoring. And Ray Cover has a really nice classroom. I am looking forward to it. You should try to make it over. -Brian

[bruce johnson]

Thanks for the explanation, Bruce. Now can you tell me what the strings are used for? Just to lash stuff to the saddle? Gosh, feel like a 3 year old with all these questions...

Hilly

Hilly,

No need to apologize, natural questions and good discussion points. The strings are to tie things on with.

To further cloud the issue, they also can be drilled through the saddle tree and looped through the skirts to help hold the skirts up tight to the tree and the parts they go through on top of the tree cinched down into place. It is more secure to have the strings looped through the tree, than through just the leather on top. An even less secure way is to loop them through the leather conchos and nail or screw them onto top leathers. To drill a tree or not for strings on saddles will divide saddlemakers into two camps.

[Go2Tex]

Very nice job! I really like the clean, sharp break on the cheyenne roll. Lays back just right.... just the way I like but I must admit I have a hard time achieving that affect with any consistency. I've tried various methods but I either end up needing a very long stitching awl due to the steep angle or I end up pulling the roll up in order to get the binding up tight under the back side, thus losing the angle I was after. I do skive the heck out of the binder too, trying to make it fold tight in the back.

I've tried using dry rawhide as a filler nailed to the top edge of the cantle and that works real well but it needs to be real flat and most the time rawhide has a tendency to buckle and not lay flat. If I put it on wet, then it draws up out of shape. I've tried leather fillers carved down to a sharp edge but then they are weak and floppy and/or just add to the thickness of the binding. A thin firm piece of leather, the width of the intended roll, pulled down tight against the back cantle piece and tacked at either side at the base of the cantle seems to hold the roll at the correct angle and adds firmness but then I'm left with the problem of having a that long angle to stitch.

So, long story short.... am I on the right track with any of this or do you have a better, easier way to do it?

[BrianHochstrat]

Very nice job! I really like the clean, sharp break on the cheyenne roll. Lays back just right.... just the way I like but I must admit I have a hard time achieving that affect with any consistency. I've tried various methods but I either end up needing a very long stitching awl due to the steep angle or I end up pulling the roll up in order to get the binding up tight under the back side, thus losing the angle I was after. I do skive the heck out of the binder too, trying to make it fold tight in the back.

I've tried using dry rawhide as a filler nailed to the top edge of the cantle and that works real well but it needs to be real flat and most the time rawhide has a tendency to buckle and not lay flat. If I put it on wet, then it draws up out of shape. I've tried leather fillers carved down to a sharp edge but then they are weak and floppy and/or just add to the thickness of the binding. A thin firm piece of leather, the width of the intended roll, pulled down tight against the back cantle piece and tacked at either side at the base of the cantle seems to hold the roll at the correct angle and adds firmness but then I'm left with the problem of having a that long angle to stitch.

So, long story short.... am I on the right track with any of this or do you have a better, easier way to do it?

I don't do any thing special to get that crisp fold other than work it square-ish with my hammer and rub stick, after the seat is glued in place and folded over, work that edge when the leather is about the same temper as when you tool it and it will hold its shape better. And yes the cantle binder is stitched at a pretty good angle, it can be difficult to keep your stitching nice when the thread is pulling some from the side so I run a creaser line along my holes to help that thread lay in the right spot. Brian

[Go2Tex]

I don't do any thing special to get that crisp fold other than work it square-ish with my hammer and rub stick, after the seat is glued in place and folded over, work that edge when the leather is about the same temper as when you tool it and it will hold its shape better. And yes the cantle binder is stitched at a pretty good angle, it can be difficult to keep your stitching nice when the thread is pulling some from the side so I run a creaser line along my holes to help that thread lay in the right spot. Brian

Do you use a filler that fills in the dish and folds over or just nails to the edge?