Skirt plugs

[blue62]

One of the fustrating things of relining skirts is when you cut the single row of stitches that hold the woolskins and plugs to the skirts and find the glue that was supposed to hold the plugs in place has broken down over the years, and now the plugs are laying on your bench, it takes some extra time to reglue them and properly get them back in place.

So,

When I build my skirts I use two rows of stitching, the inner row holds the plugs in place, and the outer row holds the woolskins.

Just thought I'd share something that may make someone's job easier in the future.

[EdOdgers]

I agree completely.  I've noted that a lot of makers omit this, particularly on carved or stamped saddles.  On working saddles I still do the double row of stitching 3/16" to 1/4" apart.  What I'm now doing on the saddles with stamped or carved skirts is to put that extra row of stitching to hold the plug up under the edge of the jockey so that it is hidden.  Since I often scribe the perimeter of the  jockeys about 1 3/4" in from the skirt's edge, this usually puts the stitch row for the plug about 2 1/4" from the skirt edge.  The single stitch line for the sheepskin makes for a cleaner look on fancier saddles and allows for more room on the narrow skirt margin for tooling.  On skirt rigged saddles, my rig panel covers the bars behind the cantle and the same stitch line that attaches the rig panel to the skirt also goes through the plug.