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.
Leathercraft Tips
What seat size should you ride?
The most common question we get among customers in our shop is about what seat size they should ride. In our experience most people are confused about this issue and many times they are riding too big a seat.
The most common size ridden is a 15 1/2″. This, in my opinion, is do to the used saddle market being flooded with trophy saddles and making them readily available with minimal investment. When clubs and organizations purchase saddles to give away as awards at their events, 15 1/2″ seats are a normal size to go with because they will work for most people. This does not mean that most people should ride this size, it simply means it will work. Continue reading
Inskirt rear rigging
This a team roping saddle that we are building in the shop this month. We have never done one like this before. I really think that this type of rigging is great to cut down on overall saddle weight and give a clean functional look.
I personally still prefer for the front rigging to be a normal full rigging for strength.
Give us your opinion of what you think of inskirt style riggings. We will post photos of this saddle when it’s done.
Help with hard leather when tooling.
If you tool leather for any length of time, you will find some pieces that seem to feel like your trying to carve into a piece of concrete. Nobody’s leather is perfect and every piece you pick up is different than the last…. Welcome to working with leather!
I have found that adding a little Murphy’s Oil Soap to your case water will help to lubricate the fibers and allow your swivel knife to glide through even tough leather a lot easier. As always, be sure your knife is sharp and strop it frequently.
Sometimes it’s the hard leather that produces the more elegant results, so try and relax and do your best… If leather tooling was easy everyone would be doing it.
Painting belts
All our belts are painted by hand with a paintbrush.
Saddle construction
We are now ready to block seat and skirts in on this project. The cantle plugs have been nailed in and trimmed a bit, but are still not trimmed to the finished Cheyenne roll width. The customer decides on this width and it is not trimmed until the seat is glued in.
Saddle construction
Cantle back is on now we will put the cantle plugs on for the Cheyenne roll. All this is done while the cantle back is wet so that we can get the proper shape to the roll.
Saddle construction
The front is on now and next comes the cantle back which has already been tooled.
