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Thoughts on Precision Saddle trees

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Has anyone worked on a precision saddle tree? Wondering what they are like and what you think of their Kevlar and durahide coating?  I have sent a couple emails to them and have received no word back. Their catalogue seems to work off gullet width and height and cantle height and width. Asked them to help me with the fit on a wide flat backed horse. Just needed to know their tree recommendations and have gotten no answer. I’m from Canada and their website comments page wouldn’t let me comment because although I could change countries there was no province I could select nor postal code and it errors out  so I emailed the manager.  Haven’t had any reply. So I’m not getting a very good impression of them from the start.

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I would guess no reply would indicate their concern for customer service.  Their tree quality is probably no so good either.  if  a company can't/wont' answer product inquiry questions, I would look else where.

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Thanks, that makes sense

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It continues to suprise me now days the companies or really people in general that actually don't use or partake in the web/internet.  I had early on thought wrong in thinking it was an older crowd that did not use this medium. As i said i was wrong I find more young as in 60 and younger and primarily in the 40-60 range that dont use it. Rather somehow ask others to check this or that for them. Yet drive all over town and or use this method for a week in their hunt for items of interest. Its silly

Back to the issue, I would make a phone call to the company of interest.  I do think that email you sent was a smart move. Sometimes even the emails are not kept up with as much as they would like to. 

 

Good day

Floyd

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No idea about saddles. 

But if a company offers email as a contact, and then does not monitor that email account. I think it speaks to the way you can expect to be treated  as a customer in general. Just my 2 pennies worth.  

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I have purchased several trees from them, at least two as replacement trees.  I have never emailed them, so I can't comment on that part, but I don't remember their customer service as being terrible or great, one way or the other.  My opinion on their trees:  what do you want to build?  If you want to build a lower end saddle, use the production trees.  If you want to build higher end stuff, use the better tree makers and learn from a top maker.  Of the trees I got from them, the durahide covered ones I wouldn't have much faith in.  Circle Y is (or was anyway) using them, so that's why I ordered the replacement from them.  A horse had gone over in the trailer on top of the saddle, and busted the tree to pieces.  Lots of variables on a horse going over backwards on a saddle: did the horse weigh 800 lbs or 1300 lbs, and how hard did he land on it.  It's a lot to ask of any saddle, so I'm not holding that against them.  But with the number of hours that go into a handmade saddle, I wouldn't skimp on the tree.  That's not saying you have to buy the most expensive handmade tree, but I wouldn't buy a durahide covered one.  I did build on a Kevlar covered one.  Honestly, I did like the tree, besides the inherent issues of using a material such as Kevlar to cover a tree.  In other words, having to pre drill-every single hole for any nail you want to put in.  The strainer was fiberglass and already installed, covered with Kevlar. While I did add some leather to the ground seat, I was surprised at how well I liked the finished seat in that saddle, especially for an arena saddle. 

If you have a specific horse you want to fit, I would work with a tree maker that uses the Dennis Lane cards.  Buy or borrow a set of cards and use them to determine what your horse is going to need.  Short of that, if you yourself don't have the experience to know what tree will work for your horse, I wouldn't expect a production tree company thousands of miles from you, in a different country, to be able to determine what you need either.  I'm not trying to be a smarta**, just being straight up.  As I'm sure you already know, every company and every tree maker measures things just a little different, and their bar patterns differ from someone else's, so it's a matter of finding out how one companies trees will fit a given back type.  That takes a lot of trial and error, and $$.  For the difference in the cost of the tree, I would go with someone who handmakes their trees and uses the Dennis Lane system, if you are trying to fit a particular horse.  Otherwise, if you just want to build "A saddle" for practice or resale, one of the production trees might be fine.

Edited by Big Sioux Saddlery

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Email delivery is not a guaranteed internet service.  We assume that they always get to the supposed recipient, but that is not factual.  If more that one person accesses an email account, one person may have read the email and not flagged it for the other to followup on.  And then you throw in vacations or days off and it gets worse.  Some emails are delayed by servers.  I have received the occasional email weeks after it was sent.  I had wound up stuck in some ISP's server for whatever reason.  Others just plain disappear. 

I would forward the email you sent to the same person and state you haven't had a reply, please respond.  Sometimes it helps remind them it has been waiting for a while, or fell off the bottom of their to-do list.

Tom

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11 hours ago, Northmount said:

Email delivery is not a guaranteed internet service.  We assume that they always get to the supposed recipient, but that is not factual.  If more that one person accesses an email account, one person may have read the email and not flagged it for the other to followup on.  And then you throw in vacations or days off and it gets worse.  Some emails are delayed by servers.  I have received the occasional email weeks after it was sent.  I had wound up stuck in some ISP's server for whatever reason.  Others just plain disappear. 

I would forward the email you sent to the same person and state you haven't had a reply, please respond.  Sometimes it helps remind them it has been waiting for a while, or fell off the bottom of their to-do list.

Tom

Great point, and the same goes for phone texts.  Texting is an absolutely terrible way to do business, and yet a large percentage of my customers would rather text than call.  I recently had issues with my phone and switched from a Droid to a loaner iPnone, and then back to a Droid.  Any texts sent now from an iPhone that texted me while I had an iPhone, are not received by the Droid. The iPhone users have to change a setting in order to correct this.  I am amazed at the number of people who have shown up or called saying they had been texting me for days and never got an answer.  Disturbing, in more than one way!

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Big Sioux, do you know who makes trees from Dennis Lane measurements? I have three trees by Bowden made from DL measurements. For the last one I contacted DL about other tree makers in the US - I didn't see such a list on their website.  Never got a reply, so went with Bowden again.  Decent trees that fit well and priced much lower than what a high-end (like Nikkel) would cost. --John

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2 minutes ago, Squilchuck said:

Big Sioux, do you know who makes trees from Dennis Lane measurements? I have three trees by Bowden made from DL measurements. For the last one I contacted DL about other tree makers in the US - I didn't see such a list on their website.  Never got a reply, so went with Bowden again.  Decent trees that fit well and priced much lower than what a high-end (like Nikkel) would cost. --John

John, I will PM you, because there is going to be a negative comment about a specific treemaker who uses the DL cards included in my response.

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