Visalia style saddle

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Here's a few pictures of a Visalia style saddle I recently finished. It actually has 23" tapaderos with it but i didn't have a stand tall enough to photograph them with the saddle.

Darc

[steve mason]

Howdy Darc;

good work, nice carve job and great lines with those square skirts. I am very impressed.

[llasso]

Howdy Darc;

good work, nice carve job and great lines with those square skirts. I am very impressed.

You should be very proud of that work. Nice clean lines, wonderful carving and a great choice of color. Nice job, it makes you want to ride again.........Larry Lasso

[Blake]

Well That saddle certainly earns bragging rights.

Tell us all about it, leather, finish, time, tree, etc.

Is it a keeper or do you have to give it up to a client?

Respectfully

Blake

[mulefool]

Man, that is really nice. I'd like to hear more about it, too. Was there one in the old Visalia catalog in particular that you used as inspiration?

[D.A. Kabatoff]

Thanks for the words guys,

I've always liked the old style saddles, especially those out of California and I've always been a big admirer of Chuck Storme's work. I saw a portrait that Jay Dusard did of Chuck with a saddle in progress in the foreground and had never seen a tree like that one before so asked my treemaker if he could make something similar. It's a little difficult to tell from the photos but the widest point of the swell is extremely low down on the fork... makes it a little difficult to attach rigging because there is only about an inch worth of bar below the fork. The saddle in the photos is the second time I've built on that style of tree (the first one is my own saddle) and it was a custom job for a customer... not sure how well it shows in the photos but his last name starts with the letter "O" so I carved it on both sides of the cantle. The silver horn cap was made by Richard Tennisch of Merrit, B.C and he managed to copy the O into the center of the horncap... I'll try to get a better photo of the silver cause it's pretty nice work.

I've attached a photo from a reprint of a Visalia catalog which shows a front view of their various forks... the one labelled KK seems to be similar from the front, but I'm not sure if that's where Chuck got the idea for the fork. The tree has a #4 Dally horn with a horn cap that finished up around 4 1/4"s. The Taylor cantle finished up around 5"s and is shovel shaped.

The leather is Hermann Oak and dyed with Fiebings Pro_oil dye in a Walnut color. I usually burnish the carving when I dye a saddle, that way the recessed areas stay a little lighter while the raised areas get darker... gives it a little contrast. I probably have about 160 hours in the saddle ... I'm a bit slow compared to some guys... alot of that time is spent drawing carving patterns.

Darc

[leathernut]

i dont know nothing about saddle making just motorcycle seats,that is just hands down beautiful man,i would love to see how to on making something like this .very clean from the tooling to the stitching.what color is the dye on that.thumbs up in my book!!!!

[Beaverslayer]

Darc,

Along with everyone else, I think the saddle is just beautiful. I especially like the color and the contrast of the white thread. Keep up the great work.

Ken

[bustedlifter]

Beautiful,man, just beautiful!

[Tangent Creations]

Absolutely Gorgeous! Excellent work and very clean looking as well as a beautifully rich color.

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