Saddle Modification

[Rolandranch]

Hello all!

Here's a roper saddle a friend asked me to replace the seat and fenders with a rough-out seat and fenders. It's a Vaquero stock saddle made by D. L. Moe.

My friend said he didn't like how the padded seat was so high and said a deeper rough-out seat would be worth more to him than a tooled padded seat. 

I removed the seat and worked on the ground seat a little (there were some bumps under the pad).

I also cleaned the tooled areas and put a new finish on it.

It was a shame to replace all the beautiful tooling, but at the same time, I'd personally much rather work in the deeper rough-out seat than in that padded seat. 

Here's before: 

Here's after:

Critique always welcome. 

Thanks! 

Ryan

[Squilchuck]

Nice work! Was it tough getting the Cheyenne roll cover off in good condition? Did you flatten the old seat to make a cutting template or start from scratch? --John  

[Smartee]

Beautiful before and after!  You did an awesome job!

[Rolandranch]

2 hours ago, Squilchuck said:

Nice work! Was it tough getting the Cheyenne roll cover off in good condition? Did you flatten the old seat to make a cutting template or start from scratch? --John  

Not really. I just used a sharp trimming knife to carefully cut the stitches between the binding and the seat. Then I used a flathead screwdriver to separate the old glue between the binding and seat and from there I could just work the binding off without much trouble.

I did flatten the old seat and used it as a template. In the future I will be more careful when cutting ears near the cantle because each one was about 1/8 of an inch too high on both sides. I think this was because the new leather was thicker than the original seat.

@Smartee Thank you!

Ryan

[chuck123wapati]

lol no more saddle sores shaped like pretty flowers! Great job there that clean up job is fantastic.

[Rolandranch]

Just now, chuck123wapati said:

lol no more saddle sores shaped like pretty flowers! Great job there that clean up job is fantastic.

Haha! Thanks! 

[Ken Nelson]

Nice Job. 

[oltoot]

Reminds me of a story: when I was learning the trade (60's in Texas) my teacher told me that if the order was for a padded seat, to first do the seat (ground seat) as if it were not to be padded, then pad that. IOW let there be no complaints if pad was cut or got torn out and a lumpy or otherwise not so good seat revealed.

[Ken Nelson]

My mentor told me the same thing and I have followed his teaching for  a long time.