Here is a warm up piece we did this morning. I’ve started the layout, now you can take it from here. Notice the flow, be sure to move forward in the right direction.
Pick Guard
Which tree style would fit my horse better?
“I need to use an Olin Young on this horse because it fits him better.” “I can’t ride a wade on this horse because his withers are too tall.” “You need to be riding a Low TM on that horse because he is too round backed for that Association.”
These are common thoughts about different styles of trees and what fits certain horses better. The truth of the matter is that the tree style doesn’t decide how a tree fits on a horse. The tree style (TM, OY, Association, Wade, Buster Welch, etc) is nothing more than the style of the front, or swells, that the tree has. Now some of these styles have a certain cantle or horn that is common to use with it, but these can be changed to the customers specs. Continue reading
Saddle Slides Back on my Horse
A common problem among people is “saddle slides back on my horse.” Many times this is with competition ropers and/or ranch cowboys who rope quite a bit in the pasture. Almost every single time I see this issue, it is more of human error than saddle fitting issues.
When I am checking on this problem for someone, I have them saddle the horse just as they would any other time. This is when I know if we actually have a serious issue or just a simple human error. Usually, the customer will put the saddle way up on the withers right on top of the shoulder blades. At this point I run my hand under the saddle and pads and find the tip of the shoulder blade which is usually right under the center of the front bar pad. THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT SPOT FOR THE SADDLE TO SET.
Now I don’t care how old you are or how long you have been a cowboy. I don’t even care if your dad, old grampy, your uncle, or John Wayne told you to set the saddle up high on the withers, I am telling you now, THIS IS NOT THE RIGHT SPOT FOR THE SADDLE TO SET. Continue reading
Third year at the George Strait Team Roping
Well it’s upon us again. Seems like we just finished the Christmas season, and here we are set up at the George Strait Team roping Classic in San Antonio, TX.
This is our third year attending this event and we are looking forward to seeing our friends and making new ones. Like every year in the past, we try to start early and have two or three custom saddles made for this show. Again this year we were only able to bring one. With our growing order list and the demand our saddles have at home, we were only able to escape Brazos county with one.
This is the first time in our three years here that the weather has been bad. It’s currently raining and cold, so the ropers will have to contend with cold fingers if they want a chance at the money, truck and trailer.
Good luck to all the contestants! And to all the spectators, set back and enjoy some of the best team roping action on the planet!
What kind of oil should I use?
I get this question a lot both at the shop and when we are out at events and trade shows. The most common time this question is asked is when a customer brings in a saddle for repair and the repair needed is so extensive due to the amount of dry rot. Here the customer will usually say, “I would of oiled it but I didn’t know what kind of oil to use.” To this I always answer, “Even the wrong oil would have helped more than what you did… which was nothing.”
I know, oiling your saddle and gear is not the most exciting thing to do on your weekends off, but neither is writing large checks for saddle repairs or worse yet visiting the ground suddenly when something finally breaks.
There are hundreds of saddle conditioners, cleaners, lubricators, creams, savs, liquids, and the like that make choosing the best product for your gear a tuff choice. Again, ALL of these will, in some way, help your leather retain its life better than nothing at all. And if you still don’t feel comfortable making a decision then there is always a shop like ours that would be happy to handle this for you.
For oil, we use Olive Oil. We buy it from a local grocery supply company by the case and use it on both new and used leather items. I have heard of many people using canola, peanut, vegetable, and other food oils and they seem to work fine. My only issue with the other oils is that it seems to me that they would attract rats worse than the olive oil. Neatsfoot oil is the old standby and is still widely used. There is nothing wrong with this but it seems to me that olive oil seems to oil more evenly than neatsfoot and the main reason that we use it in the shop.
When it comes to conditioners, I recommend Skidmore’s Leather Cream above all else. This cream is great for lubricating the fibers in the leather and restoring life to dry stiff leather. This product is made of all natural ingredients including vegetable oils and beeswax and will also water proof the leather. A little bit of this cream goes a long way so don’t over do it, multiple light coats is always better than one heavy coat. This product is also amazing on boots and hunting gear.
The one thing to remember with conditioning your saddles and tack is that putting oil and conditioners on top of dirty leather can damage the leather. In doing this over time, you create multiple layers of dirt and oil which becomes a thick film that is almost impossible to remove. I always recomend washing leather with a mild dish soap like Dawn, Ivory, or even Murphy’s Oil Soap and rinsing thoroughly. Scrub the saddle with a medium bristle brush to lift the dirt and grime out of the leather. I don’t recommend saddle soap because it is suppose to be left on the saddle to dry and then the dirt stays on the leather. If you want to lather the saddle up with saddle soap after its cleaned, then that’s okay.
Always let your saddle dry completely (could take a day or two) before oiling and conditioning. If you oil too soon, you could get a real bad case of mold. I will talk more about mold and controlling it in a later post.
I know its hard to remember to oil your saddle and tack, but here is my suggestion on a system that may not make it such a big deal. Every time you worm your horses give all your tack and saddles a good look over and wipe them down with a light coat of oil. And when it comes to doing a complete washing and oiling, I recommend this once a year. This could be every time your coggins is due or at the end of your show season. And if you don’t want to go through the trouble of doing it yourself you can always drop it off at the saddle shop and we will do it for you.
All Around Performance Horse Ranch Rodeo Challenge 2012
It’s here again! The world’s biggest ranch rodeo featuring some of the countries greatest cowboys and cowgirls competing for $50,000 and prizes from some of the greatest craftsmen and artist our western heritage has to offer. We are talking about the All Around Performance Horse Ranch Rodeo Challenge!
We have worked with All Around Performance Horse since they started this ranch rodeo and this year is no different. This year we are adding the Top Hand award to our saddle build sheet as part of our sponsorship. The Top Horse and Top Hand saddles will be the awards that these athletes will be competing for second only to the cash.
As we begin designing and building these saddles we will update with video and photos so that the competitors and fans of this event can see the great craftsmanship that goes into building a custom Don Gonzales saddle. If you are looking for more up to date information on this event and the creation of these awards along with other projects DGSaddlery is creating daily, visit our website at http://www.dgsaddlery.com/ where you can stay connected through facebook and twitter.
Also be sure to check out our friends at http://www.allaroundranchrodeo.com/ for event dates, their blog, and other great All Around Performance Horse info.
Beware of Import Saddles
These days many items are made overseas, bringing with that lower cost and bigger selections for American consumers. No matter your opinion of this issue, continued import of overseas manufactured items is here to stay and for the most part accepted by consumers. Even the saddle industry is experiencing this and when it comes to some items the quality is reasonable for the cost. When it comes to saddles, consumers should really be cautious.
For years Americans have purchased saddles that have been imported from Mexico for an inexpensive alternative to the American made counterparts. With a few exceptions, these saddles have been marked with the stigma of low quality and at times structurally unsafe. No matter the stigma, many people trying to save a buck purchase these saddles anyway and deal with frequent repairs and saddle fitting issues. With any luck they aren’t injured due to the saddles less than adequate structural integrity.
The newest addition to this “value based” saddle market is saddles imported from countries like India. In the saddle shop we have run across these on a semi frequent basis and the quality is worse than usual. Many folks are buying these saddles on the internet and eBay and although they may look decent in the photos, when they arrive it is immediately seen that they are less than functional. I have seen these saddles with no rigging dees at all, making them impossible to actually use on a horse. We have seen them with synthetic leather and trees, plastic rigging dees and a number of other issues that make these saddles dangerous to use.
The most recent experience that we have had the pleasure to work on in the repair shop was a true gem of the import saddle industry. The saddle came in for an offside front rigging dee replacement. This is a job that is very common and not very expensive to fix. When the saddle was broken down in the repair room, the repair man confronted me with an issue. He told me that the rigging couldn’t be fixed and that I should look at the tree with him. Looking at the tree bar at first I didn’t understand what the problem was. It was a fiberglass tree bar with holes in it where the original rigging screws use to be, this was nothing out of the ordinary. The saddle really didn’t appear to be a bad built saddle. It was a training saddle with rawhide mounted dees on the corners of the skirts for driving lines, rawhide trimmed horn, padded seat and good color. I asked my repair man what the issue was and he proceeded to show me the problem.
He took a screw and stuck it in one of the existing screw holes and then moved it at different angles from side to side. Yes, that’s right! The entire tree bar was a hollow fiberglass shell. It looked like a wooden bar covered with fiberglass, but in reality it was an empty fiberglass bar… no wood at all. Think of it as an empty egg! The entire saddle was like this, both bars and swells even the cantle. This was unbelievable! I have never seen anything like this before and couldn’t believe that someone had been riding this saddle and they weren’t hurt.
With further inspection we also discovered that all the rawhide holding the accessory dees on and the binding around the horn wasn’t rawhide at all. The dees were mounted with nylon webbing and masking tape was stuck over the top. The horn binding was just masking tape. Unbelievable!
At that point we called the customer and told them that we would not fix the saddle and warned them of the danger involved in using the saddle. All I can say is that I hope everyone keeps their eyes open for these types of saddles. It’s one thing to by a cheap pair of “Oakeys” or “Raye Bans”, but putting your life on the line with this inferior garbage being imported into the states from countries that have no knowledge of what these saddles go through in our country is extremely dangerous. Remember that a custom saddle has at least $1000.00 in material in it, so when you’re looking online and you find a new saddle on eBay for $300, beware.
Merry Christmas!
Driving to work this saturday morning, thinking to myself about the list of “have toos” and “if i cans” for the day, it struck me with a bit of excitement and fear. Fear, because i only have two weeks left to finish the gifts that have been ordered, and excitement because we are completing our seventh year in business. Unbelievable!
Seven years ago i was a 24 year old rookie saddle maker putting Vet school on hold to pursue an oppurtunity. My entire life up until this point had been focused on vet school and all of a sudden I had made the decision to give this oppurtunity a whirl. Thinking about it now, I should have been a bit more worried. But as with most of the things that i do, i made the decision and figured all the details would work themselves out.
I have absolutely no regrets in my decision to start DGSaddlery and have enjoyed every minute… Even the scary ones! As a group, we have been truely blessed and so grateful for the friendships that we have made. As we enter the christmas season again here in 2011 and prepare to begin our 8th year in business, we would like to thank all those customers who have supported us and who enjoy our work. Getting better every year is our main focus and we hope that this coming year will be no different. The thing that makes our products stand out is our customers’ imaginations and thanks to them, and our talented artists and craftsmen, we have had the oppurtunity to create some great products.
We hope that everyone has a wonderful christmas and we look forward to 2012 and putting your dreams in leather!