Thoughts on fiberglass trees.

[Yonatan]

Sorry, I mixed contexts and neglected to mention that the thread where Darc posted those photos was "Rider Position on Horse", or a subject titled something pretty close to it.

Jennifer, please go check out those pics. The specific saddle of Darc's I mentioned is second up from the bottom, if I'm not mistaken. You can be sure that the quality craftsmanship visible on the surface of the saddle runs through and through, all the way down to the maker's choice of tree, and treemaker.

[jennifer]

Yonatan, Darc and so many others, I have been reading every post on saddle fit and construction and the saddle industry and thank you all for the great learning experience.

I may never make a saddle, but my horses will never have a poorly fitting saddle that wasn't made well placed on their backs.

I still havn't quite figured out the best seat for me, but I enjoy the discussions and am learning some of the things to look for. With two young horses I have been more concerned with not screwing them up and staying on board than thinking about what feels comfortable to me. (Green on green is a good combination to get black on blue.)

Thanks Again,

Jennifer

Sorry, I mixed contexts and neglected to mention that the thread where Darc posted those photos was "Rider Position on Horse", or a subject titled something pretty close to it.

Jennifer, please go check out those pics. The specific saddle of Darc's I mentioned is second up from the bottom, if I'm not mistaken. You can be sure that the quality craftsmanship visible on the surface of the saddle runs through and through, all the way down to the maker's choice of tree, and treemaker.

[TroyWest]

I actually spent over an hour a month ago typing a response on this post, and when I clicked on preview post, it all disappeared. I never did it again. I would like to share a few thoughts on the subject.

I've been building saddles for 31 yrs., my own trees for the past 9 yrs. The guys down here in Tx. who are the hardest on trees are calf ropers and trippers. I'd like to touch on a subject Jon mentioned earlier. Wilford Lewis, who passed away 1 1/2 to 2 yrs ago, was an excellent saddlemaker. He built saddles for many World Champions and celebrities as well. He had the same problems we all have getting his trees the way he wanted 'em and with good quality. He also had a lot of broken trees. He started building his own trees in the late seventies, early eighties. Jon Hillman, saddlemaker from Big Spring, Tx. told me he never saw prettier rawhide work on anybodies trees than Wilford Lewis.They were beautiful. Wilford Lewis told me he was getting 1 out 3 trees broken in the 80's. He was frustrated and decided to try covering one with fiberglass.He told me he couldn't remember if he used 1 or 2 layers of cloth but he thought it was 2, on his 1st one. About that time Phil Lyne called him and said he had broken 8 or 9 trees and needed something that would hold up. Wilford told him about the tree he had just built and Phil liked it and said build him a roughout. Wilford did and Phil went on to win the World title in tripping in '91 on this saddle.

Wilford told me this story quite a few years ago. I never doubted it as he wasn't a windy or dishonest guy at all. In fact he seemed to be of excellent character but I just like to verify facts when I can, so after Wilford passed away I called Phil Lyne. He lives in Cotulla, Tx. and still ropes of course. I related to him the story Wilford had told me and asked if the facts were right. He said yes except for one thing. I said "what?" He said, "he had actually broken 14 trees." I said "over what time period?" He said "3 or 4 yrs."

I said "what were you doing?'

He said "tripping steers."

He said "we were roping really big cattle back then. The steers weighed 800 lbs. They are roping lighter cattle now"

I said " What kind of saddles were they?"

He said " A lot of them were trophy saddles he'd won, but some were nice custom saddles he would of thought would hold up."

I said " you still got Wilfords saddle?"

He said " yea, It's in good shape"

After that Wilford built everything on glass trees. Thats probably why his son Ray has a tree co. that builds fiberglass covered trees.

In the last issue of Spin To Win magazine they asked Trevor Brazille what saddle he was riding. It was a Wilford Lewis. I also know Trevor recently had 2 saddles built by Jon Hillman. Jon uses nothing but glass trees of his own construction.

I talk frequently with Howard Coucil. If you don't know him he usually has half the calf ropers at the NFR on his saddles. His saddles are rawhide covered, glass reinforced. He told me he has been using glass for 50 yrs. He believes it's a proven product. He has taken saddles apart and completely covered 'em with glass.

The trees that had been breaking, when covered with rawhide, stopped breaking when covered with glass. Thats probably why glass trees are pretty well accepted down here. You can even take a broken rawhide tree, remove the rawhide, glass it back together and keep riding the same tree, and the leather goes back on perfectly. I've seen that done on a roper broken in the 70's and still being ridden today.

Now let me say this. Just because a tree is covered with fiberglass does not mean its a good tree. There's a lot of crap out there.

Conversely, just because a tree is covered with rawhide does not mean its a good tree either. There's a lot of crap out there.

But we cant throw out the baby with the bath water.

Good trees are built by craftsman who care about real quality, construction and fit. If you are having great success using nothing but rawhide trees, why would you want to change? I would say you wouldn't.

It's change thats hard on us, the fear of the unknown, acceptability, etc. At the same time, I know of no better field test than a roper tripping steers. Driving trucks and trailors over trees is not real working conditions...for most of us, yet it seems to be a common test everywhere.

Experimenting with fiberglass came about from a need to stop trees from breaking. It worked. If the bars had been made of different wood would they have held up better? Maybe. We dont have a lot of poplar in Tx. that I'm aware of. It is available and now we have the internet to help us find and learn things that just a few years ago were out of reach for most of us.

There are many different ways to apply fiberglass, different weights of cloth,how many layers of cloth, etc. Many factors, getting proper resin to cloth ratios. Some of the trees I've seen had way too much resin . You cant look at a tree and tell how many layers of cloth are on it.

I have to stop this post cause I'm tired of typing.

Let me just say that any custom treemaker who does great woodwork and makes a hi quality tree and covers it with rawhide, they will have a great product.

By the same token if he takes that same tree in the wood and paints it with resin and hand lays that cloth, it too will be an incredibly strong, waterproof, tree. I hope to share more thoughts later.

Troy

[AdamTill]

I wouldn't expect a poorly engineered glass encased tree to withstand high stress levels any longer than a poorly engineered rawhide covered tree. I just love to tinker, and in my tinkering away I discovered the huge world of composites and the vast array of applications for which they are used. Styrene emissions from polyester and vinyl ester resins are indeed unpleasant and harmful to inhale but I don't use either of these two resin systems. Epoxy is the way to go for a number of reasons, lack of nasty vapors is one of them. They are of a different chemical makeup than the previous two mentioned and do not contain styrene. Maybe Adam Till would comment. I know his knowledge and expertise far exceeds what little knowledge I posess on this subject.

Jon

Hi folks,

Regarding the health concerns with epoxy, it's a good idea to be careful, but the problems aren't something that will be instantly toxic (ie, a fair amount of bioaccumulation is required). For example, hobbyists's using a little bit every few weeks may be able to take no precautions what-so-ever and get away with that, but yet I've learned that a lot of folks who set out to build a 'glass 40' sailboat won't be able to finish the 3-4 yr project due to massive allergic reactions from exposure towards the end (even with a full-body positive pressure painting-type outfit).

When I work with resins I wear long sleeves, disposable gloves, and a chem-vapour safe respirator with replaceable cartridges. I'm actually more leery of spray paint then I am of epoxy, but I certainly respect it just the same.

Hope that helps,

Adam

[raftert]

It seems that the discussion on rawhide or glass covering a wood tree and wich one is the stongest. I think that there has been no discussion on the wood that the tree is made of. It would seem that if you made the tree of softwood rather than a hardwood( oak, maple, hickory, ect...) no matter what you covered it with it would not be as high quality. If a tree was made of oak and double covered with bullhide that it would virtually indestructable, but a tree made of a softwood like a popular and double covered bullhide it would not be as strong because the actual stucture of the tree would be inferior to the oak.

Tim

[jonwatsabaugh]

Tim,

Actually poplar is considered a hard wood. Lots of different types of wood have been used in tree making over generations, and poplar seems to posess all the characteristics benefitial to tree construction, longevity, and saddlemaking. It's easy to obtain good straight grain clear lumber, It has outstanding nail and srew holding properties, it machines very well, has a high degree of dimentional stability when moisture content is at a minimum, is relatively light weight for a hard wood, and doesn't split easily. Most hard woods posess many of these characteristics, but the weight consideration and namely the ability to drive nails and srews is paramount.

Jon

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Tim,

You bring up a good point. The quality of the wood used in trees is very important. Wood with huge knots and other defects in it is much weaker than wood that is clear. The thickness of the wood needs to be balanced with its properties in regards to strength. Laminating, especially when you have the grain running in different directions, also makes a major difference in strength compared to using a single, thicker piece of wood.

Here is something we had posted BC (before crash) that may help explain why most custom makers use a combination of woods in their trees.

As to the different wood used to make trees, there are three factors I can think of now that affects our choice of wood. The first is a very practical one – availability, especially in the size you need. It may be the best wood for bars, but if you can't get it, you don't use it. The second factor would be properties of the wood. Strength is a hard thing to determine, because there are so many facets to it. Is a wood stronger because it takes more PSI to make it snap (like a hardwood such as maple) or because it can bend more before breaking (like fir)? Some woods break easily across the grain, but don't split lengthwise. Others are the opposite. Some may take more pressure before they break, but are more apt to split when tacks are hammered in. Screw holding ability also comes into play. The number of defects in the wood and the ease of cutting around them is a factor. And workability is a big one. The harder the wood, the harder it is to cut and shape. Some of the "old masters" could make a drawknife sing, but they used mainly pine in their trees. With the advent of carving discs, etc. the use of harder woods is now an option that they didn't have available to them. And let's face it, cost comes into play a bit too. If we are happy with either of two options, the lower priced one will be purchased.

We like yellow poplar for the bars. It is available in a 2" thickness, and we have a supplier that lets us pick through a couple of lifts if need be to get the boards we want. While it is heavier than pine, it is about the same weight as fir (which we can't get), but it is substantially stronger. It is very difficult to break, and then it splits lengthwise, never across the grain. The charts say this is so, and in our own "torture tests" we have proved it to be true. We use several layers of 1" hardwood in the center of our forks, and price determines that this is usually maple. We also like birch, and have used ash. We tried oak, but it can split too easily for our liking. The cantle and the rest of the fork are made of aspen poplar. We can get kiln dried wood closer to home than the other woods. There are fewer knots and less gumminess than with pine. And the price is OK too. So those are our choices for now.

Definition wise, hardwoods come from deciduous trees while softwoods come from coniferous trees. Some softwoods are as strong in the testing as some hardwoods, and they all have different properties which need to be taken into account when you are choosing wood for a tree. Jon has pointed out the benefits of yellow poplar, which is one of the most common woods used by custom makers for their bars. It is important to note that "poplar" can be many different types of wood. The yellow poplar is an eastern hardwood also known as tulip wood, and is in a totally different classification from the common western poplar trees which include aspen poplar (or white poplar, or trembling aspen or quaking aspen), balsam (or black) poplar, and cottonwood. These are all softer woods than yellow poplar, but have similar or higher breaking strength than the pines most commonly used in factory trees today. Yet they are easy to nail into without splitting, which makes them ideal for cantles where you are nailing the seat in rawhide covered trees. We made a cantle out of yellow poplar – once. It split from the nails when Rod was rawhiding it. (Replacing a cantle on a tree that far along in the proces is not fun since we not only use screws but a very strong wood glue as well to attach the sections together.) The same would easily happen to maple or birch or oak nailing into wood as thin as a cantle gets towards the edge. And oak, despite its hardness, splits easily along its grain. We tried it one time as the hardwood in our forks and decided we were not happy with it for that reason. The weight factor would also come into play big time if an entire tree were made of a hardwood like maple or oak. So, like everything else involved in building trees, you are doing a balancing act in your choice of wood. But the quality of the wood you choose to use should never be compromised.

[raftert]

Jon, Rod, and Denise,

I did not know that much about poplar trees, the only poplar trees I have been around is cottenwood. The reason I brought this up I have recently repaired a name brand production saddle that the cantle was broken away from the bars. I told the customer that a fix on the tree would in know way be able to say that the tree would able to hold up to the roping that they were doing.The customer ended up trading me the saddle for on of my saddles. The tree on the boken saddle I fixed by pre drilling into the cantle and gluing with gorilla glue. The wood smelled like yellow pine. I screwed two three inch wood screws on each bar. I sold the saddle with expressed knowledge that the tree was repaired and would not hold up to any roping.

The rawhide on the tree looked compenant but either the the wood was inferior or it was not well made.

That is what started me thinking about the wood under the covering either rawhide or fiberglass.

Thank all of you for the education on the diffrent woods on the trees.

Tim

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

Tim,

Your repair may very well have been stronger than the original construction of the tree. A lot of trees are not well made. They are often stapled together, with the better ones being nailed. We have only seen one company that uses screws to hold the parts together and we have yet to see any production trees glued together, though we sure haven't seen everything that has been made either. Soft wood like pine is commonly used in trees and loosening of the fork or the cantle from the bars is a common problem due to the construction methods. Not trying to run down anyone, but just telling the truth about most cases. Yet the majority still don't break...