Most of the saddles that we build in the shop are what we call “hard seats.” This means that there is not a padded seat in a saddle where the rider sits in the saddle.

Padded seats are common in rope saddles, trail saddles, and barrel saddles. But the clients that we build for, even our ropers, prefer a Hard Seat saddle. These saddles’ main advantage is that there is no padding to break down over time changing the way the saddle sets. A hard seat saddle will ride the same for its lifetime.

With that being said, this does not mean that our clients don’t appreciate fancy additions to their saddles. One of our most popular additions that can be made to one of our custom saddles is an Inlaid Seat.

Our inlaid seats do not contain any padding so the client still gets the benefit of the hard seat while adding some chrome to their saddle. We can do padded seats with many colors of chap leather, exotic leathers, as well as tooling them for a unique personalized look.

This video shows the process we go through installing an inlaid seat on a custom saddle we are building. This particular seat will be tooled with the client’s brand and floral tooling.