HIGH NOON SHOW, PHOENIX, ARIZONA, A FEW YEARS AGO … The dealer had a saddle for sale that may have been 80 years old. It was a cowboy rig, plain, unmarked, and well worn. The one thing I remember most about this nondescript saddle was the stitching. It was sewn with linen thread at ten […]
Hot Wax
Back in 2009, Pedro Pedrini and I spent some time with veteran saddler/leatherworker Jean Luc Parisot in France. One of the most interesting things I learned from him was the traditional method of edge finishing using beeswax and an edge iron. Jean Luc softened a cake of wax with a small propane burner, and then […]
The Whole Cloth Method
We hosted a floral design/carving class on April 15 & 16 this spring. It was a jamb-packed two days with a larger class than usual…this one more than filled up as soon as I announced it. We started out the first day showing how to ‘gesture draw’. This is a technique I learned from our […]
Kangaroo
While still in saddle school in the early eighties, I began studying what was going on out there in the real world of custom saddles. One of the little things I picked up on was the way Capriola’s (Elko, NV) was lacing their back jockeys together. It looked so clean, so refined…and it was different […]
Saddle Trees
I’ve used Warren Wright’s trees since 1992. I happened to be in the right place at the right time when Dale and Karron Harwood were looking for saddlemakers they knew who would do justice to Warren’s trees. Harwoods made an arrangement with Warren to import his trees from New Zealand for distribution to hand-picked saddlers […]
Working Without a Net
It was exactly thirty years ago in “The Little Red Barn” on Main Street , Bozeman, Montana. I was working for Rocky Mountain Saddle Company owned by Frank Ford doing mostly repair work. It was a sticky Montana summer spent hunched over used saddles in the back of a renovated barn. In the front was […]
Paperwork
The great spur maker John Ennis once remarked that one difference between a visual artist and a craftsman is that the work begins after the drawing is finished. Unless you’re endowed with the phenomenal skill of say, Sam Maloof, working designs out on paper is a good idea. Many leather craftsmen work out their floral […]
The Machine
I first learned how to sew on a harness stitcher in the summer of 1979 in Twin Falls, Idaho. The shop I worked for was a high quality holster production outfit owned by Chet Hillman. Chet had a contract to make the Thompson Center Contender holsters back in the day when silhouette shooting was popular. […]
The Work of Our Hands
I’m violating some of my ‘rules’ with regard to decoration on this year’s TCAA saddle. The color on the flowers is something I’ve done before, but have never been very fond of the idea. I reduced the color so that after oiling and antiquing, it should be subtle. I’ve done some experimenting on some scrap […]
Hand sewing
These days I look for opportunities to sew things by hand. Here’s a few nuggets I learned from Jean Luc Parisot in France four years ago…1. Fold your buckle ends around so that the grain side is against the hardware. This provides for a bit of added durability. 2. Hand sewing allows you to get […]