best way to store trees so they don't warp

[Rod and Denise Nikkel]

On another thread Go2Tex asked, "what's the best way to store trees so they don't warp before they become saddles?" The quick answer is "on a flat surface that isn't a concrete floor".

The long answer is a bit, well, longer. If we know why trees warp, then we know more about what to do to stop it from happening. First, we need to be clear that we are talking here about wooden trees with rawhide coverings. That is the only kind of tree we build, and so is the only kind that we feel comfortable talking about. Second, let's assume that the trees are built square to start with.

Something you need to remember is that both wood and rawhide are natural materials, and as such, they move, (especially wood) and they will continue to move throughout the life of the saddle. I dropped a tree off at a saddle maker's one day. When I got there, I set it on his stamping stone, which happened to be in the sun, and it was dead square. We got talking, and a few minutes later I put my hand on the tree and it rocked! Not a lot, but it was off. He knew it had been square 10 minutes before, so we looked at each other, took it off the stone and set it somewhere else out of the sun, and kept talking. When we checked it a few minutes later, it was dead square again. These things will move. That is just a given.

It is heat and especially humidity or a combination of the two that cause the most movement. Trees will equilibrate and adjust to changes in these, but it takes time. For the best results, keep the trees away from drastic changes in both of these. Keep them off the floor. Keep them out of the sun, away from the direct blast of air from the furnace in winter. Don't let them sit without airflow around them in damp conditions, and if you live in the desert (or desert like dryness such as Alberta in the winter) try to get some moisture into the air. The lumber people say that even for "furniture dry" wood like we buy (moisture less than 7%), it is best to have the humidity about 50% at least. I don't know an upper limit because that is never a problem here.

It is when you get a new tree, recently rawhided and shipped from somewhere else where humidity is probably different from your place, that the risk of warping is highest. Even though the rawhide is dry when it is shipped, the tree, and especially the wood, still needs time to equilibrate to all the changes. Ideally, for that first couple of weeks, store it on a true, flat surface with some weight on it to help keep it straight while it adjusts to its new environment. Practically, storing them on a flat surface for that time period should be enough.

Some things that are not advisable are storing them unevenly, with one corner sitting higher than the others. You may cause twisting by doing this as they may adjust to fit what they are sitting on. And it is also not good to store them with the front end down, especially on the floor. But practically, people store them hung up on a wall, sitting on a rack, stacked up -all sorts of ways.

If you do have a tree that is out a bit, something you can do to straighten it out is to put a weight on the tree when it is sitting on a truly flat surface. Put a shim under one of the corners that always touch, which makes the gap between the table and the other corner bigger, to add more incentive for it to straighten out. Then leave it for a week or more. They often improve.

While having a tree dead square is the ideal, we feel that because a horse moves so much under the saddle, in practice warping won't generally cause soring unless it is really severe or something else is wrong as well. (It would be nice to have research to see how true this is.) The maximum amount of "twisting" we would accept in a tree we are shipping out (though I don't think we have actually ever had this much) is 1/8", measured from the flat surface to the underside of the corner that lifts up at its maximum point. This amount means that, on a horse, there is 1/16" difference on each side. We don't know many horses that are that symmetrical. And practically, these things are being put into saddles that will be used on hot and sweaty horses, then thrown into the back of the truck when it rains or into the front compartment of the horse trailer at 105 degrees, before being slung over a pole in a barn to sit till the next use. How many of the trees in all the saddles currently in use are really still square?

So our questions to the saddle makers "in the trenches", so to speak, are: How do you store your trees? Do you have problems with them twisting on you? Since it is you guys who see old saddles in for repairs, how often do you see trees that are warped? How badly do you feel a tree has to be warped before you see problems in fit that you attribute to that cause?

Edited January 21, 2009 by Denise