Somewhere around 15 years ago, I decided I would like to learn to make saddles. I began to acquire tools of the trade and bought a number of books on the subject, including the full three-volume set, The Stohlman Encylopedia of Saddle Making, which I have found to be a wonderful resource. I started by making a few items of cowboy gear, such as chaps and chinks, a few knife sheaths and handgun holsters, spur straps, and other useful items, which taught me several valuable skills, such as hand-stitching heavy leather and decorative stamping and carving.

I then started doing various repairs on older saddles, eventually doing a couple of complete restorations, which taught me the basics of how saddles are made and put together.  During this developmental period, I started putting together in my mind what I would want in a saddle of my own. I decided that for my uses, what I needed was a very heavy-duty, but lightweight saddle.  I considered everything from “Aussie” stock saddles to the Santa Fe style western saddle from the 1850s, to modern lightweight saddles, but finally decided that my taste was definitely centered on the late 1800s stock saddles. So, the research began.

After many years of just reading, perusing pages of photos, and looking over saddles from that period in the American west, I finally got up the courage to make the investment in tools and materials to start my own saddle. I will warn the reader here, that this investment in hard cash money, to buy the necessary tools to do this thing right, is no small thing. I am sure that in my sparsely outfitted saddle shop I have well over $2,000 invested in tools by now, most of which are tiny little hand tools, such as stamps, pliers, hammers, and cutting tools. On top of that, a side of top-quality saddle skirting leather now runs in excess of $300 and two are required to make one western style saddle. On top of that, a good saddle tree will run  $400-800, including shipping. When you can buy a good used saddle for $300, this is something you have to weigh in the balance.

Well, in 2021, a friend of mine encouraged me to build a saddle. He even fronted me enough money to buy the leather and tree, provided the saddle would be for him. So, I jumped in. After a bit of research and consultation with the friend-client, it was decided a Wade-style saddle would suit him. I decided on the  Timberline Wade tree, made by Timberline Saddle Trees, Vernal, Utah. It is their “flagship” saddle tree. After consulting with them on the phone, I sent them the custom measurements I wanted in the tree, to suit my client’s horse, and away we went. I also ordered two sides of leather, one 13/15 oz and one 11/12 oz Herman Oak skirting leather from Montana Leather, Billings, Montana.  I also ordered the saddlery hardware from them.

I was very pleased with the quality of the saddle tree. It was money well-spent.

The first item of business was to smooth the pommel to bars junction and dress the saddle horn.

Then comes the ground seat. I elected to make a leather “seat strainer”, rather than the more commonly used tin strainer, as I have read it makes a more comfortable seat. I used the heaviest leather I had on hand, which worked out very nicely.

Next was the gullet covering.

After that, I made the ground seat.  Then it was time to decide on the decorative stamping and/or carving I would do to make the saddle attractive. I had a hard time deciding on this.

Carving designs in leather is not difficult, but the artistry involved is quite complicated. Each saddler or leatherworker tends to follow certain conventions in design, but eventually creates his/her own style and that style becomes his/her “signature” and will identify his/her work ever after. That, to me, makes it a pretty weighty thing. As I have not yet quite settled on my particular style, and as messing up a detailed carving on a saddle can absolutely ruin it and waste much time, labor and cost, I decided to go with stamping designs. After a number of trials and sample stampings, I settled on the design you see below. I then made the Sam Stagg front rigging parts and the stirrup leathers, which I then followed with the back of the cantle.

The stamps used, alternating between the two, are Craftool Pro # D2166 and Craftool #D438. I used a 3/32 grooved tool (of which I do not know the technical name) to make an outline for the design, which helped keep the stamping lines smooth and symetrical.

After installing the gullet cover and the pommel cover, I oiled and stained them with Tandy’s Pro Dye in Dark Brown. The Dark Brown color darkens the leather to a dark reddish-brown, which I find very pleasing. Oiling the leather with warm neatsfoot oil (100% pure neatsfoot only, as neatsfoot compound oil has additives that can harm leather) beforehand helps the stain to absorb more evenly into the leather. Adding more coats and allowing drying/absorption time between coats will darken the color a little with each coat.

I then finished the horn and wrapped it with a latigo horn wrap. I was quite pleased with the result.

Along about this time, I also covered the cinch rings with leather. Leather-covered cinch rings were fairly common in the 1880s. The leather helped the latigo slide over the ring easily, when cinching down a saddle on the horse and keeps the unsightly rusty rings covered. Nowadays, we have stainless steel cinch rings, but in those days they were just plain steel and rust was a problem.

Next came the skirts, which I made out of 13/15 oz leather with a rounded design, reminiscent of the 1880s California style (the Texas style was squared skirts). I made the skirts a bit shorter than might be seen on vintage 1880s saddles, as I wanted to keep weight down.  I used a heavy paper throughout the building process to make patterns, which, in turn, makes the saddle build repeatable and easier the next time. I cut the skirting leather to my patterns, then wet-formed the skirts to the tree bars by tacking them in place tightly until they dried. I then glued and hand stitched the fleece to the skirts.

For me, stitching a pair of saddle skirts takes a good 8-10 hours of pretty intense concentration and labor (not to mention sore fingers!).  In the future, I fully intend to spend the $1,500-2,000 to purchase a stitching machine, which would turn that job into a very simple 15-minute job. I used a synthetic waxed thread, which was what I normally hand stitch with. The wax helps the thread slide through the leather and settle with a uniform tension, which helps the stitches to appear even and uniform. I had to remove  as much of the wax as possible by wiping the thread with leather scraps, as the wax pulls the fleece into the hole, causing tangles and knots. Stitching saddle skirts is a tedious job.

I then designed and made the front and rear jockeys, stained them, and connected the rear jockeys with a saddle braid. In this photo you also see the seat leather, which has been cased and is being molded to the saddle by means of a bench strap. The strap is part of the saddle stand and is put under tension by means of a ratcheting lever. When the seat leather dries, it will be trimmed to final size and readied for installation.

The next process was to make the seat and side jockeys. I decided, based on a video from the YouTube channel, Agar France, to stitch the side jockeys to the seat leather, making the three parts into one. Traditionally, the seat leather was installed, then the side jockeys, the purpose of which was to prevent pinching the rider’s leg between the seat and stirrup leathers.  These were installed as separate pieces. These side jockeys were often tacked to the tree bars with brass tacks to keep them firmly in place during use. Stitching them to the seat leather simplified the installation of the seat leather, making it more like a modern saddle, which incorporates both the side and front jockeys into a one-piece seat leather.

Having watched a particular video by Agar France, which no longer appears on his channel, I decided to place the front jockeys underneath the Sam Stagg front rigging, as shown above, however, once I got the saddle finished, I discovered this configuration interfered with the movement of the stirrups. It caused the inner stirrup leather to pinch between the front jockey and the cinch ring.  The solution was to move the front jockey to cover the rigging straps, which freed up the movement range of the stirrup leathers and was still in keeping with design conventions I have seen in the 1880s stock saddles. In the end, I was pleased with the result.

At this point, the next order of business was to trim the cantle and do the cantle binding. This is, in my mind, is the most difficult and critical part of the saddle making process. If it is done well, nobody notices. If it is done poorly, it stands out and becomes the most noticeable part of the saddle. I have read that the mark of an excellent saddle maker is that the stitches on the backside of the cantle are straight and even. Getting the frontside of the cantle binding stitching straight and even is difficult enough, but getting the stitching awl to penetrate more than an inch of saddle leather at exactly the right angle and exit at exactly the right place, time after time, in a straight and even line, is extremely difficult! I can testify that this takes much experience and effort to achieve. I have stitched several cantle bindings and the results show that I remain a rank amateur saddle maker.

However, I don’t let that get me down and discouraged. I have noticed that in the current generation of saddle makers, most take pains to hide the stitching on the backside of the cantle by various means. Some make a slit in the back edge of the cantle binding leather, such that the stitching on the backside comes out inside the slit, which is then glued down smooth after the stitching is done. Others cut decorative design into the backside of the binding leather and do not run their stitching into it at all, but affix it to the back of the cantle with brass button tacks.

I have never cared much for the Cheyenne Roll, which is the large roll at the top of the cantle, found on modern saddles, especially roping saddles with low cantles. I much prefer the simple cantle binding found on vintage stock saddles, which is what I elected to put on my saddle. I do, however, like the cantle binding to be thick enough to provide a decent hand-hold, making it easier to carry or move the saddle. My cantle binding is made of 12 oz leather, skived thinner on the backside to make forming and stitching easier, covering three layers of heavier leather made up of the seat leather, a spacer leather, and the cantle back leather. This seems to come out about to my taste for the cantle binding thickness.

The cantle binding leather was then cased (soaked, then allowed to sit overnight in a plastic bag) to make it soft and pliable. The edges were then edged with a #3 round edger to make them round and smooth. I used a groover to make a stitching groove along both the front and back edges to allow the stitches to rest below the level of the surface of the leather, to protect the stitches from wear. The groove also provided a guide to help me get the stitching awl to exit in the right place on the backside of the cantle.  I also used an overstitch wheel in the groove on the front edge to mark where the awl would penetrate for each stitch. After preparing the cantle binding leather, I stretched it tight over the cantle, forming it into place using a bone smoother.  I then tacked it into place with shoe tacks. Each tack penetrates through a mark made by the overstitch wheel, so that the hole will eventually become an awl hole and thus be hidden by a stitch.

Once the cantle binding is dry, it retains its form. I then applied Barge contact cement to the cantle top and the cantle binding. Once the cement had dried to where it was no longer tacky, the binding was carefully put into place. Note here that once the two surfaces to which contact cement has been applied make contact, they are pretty much stuck. I used a piece of paper between the pieces and slowly removed it as I got things properly placed.

Once the cantle binding is properly placed on the cantle, the stitching can commence!

Several cantle bindings ago, I bought the best awl and awl blades offered by Tandy Leather. The haft ran nearly $30 and each blade ran about $16. I broke three of those blades within the first several inches of cantle stitching. I examined the blades and discovered that while the blades were very sharp and penetrated the leather easily, they were designed with a natural breaking point right above the point at which they enter the  haft. A very poor design for stitching cantle bindings! I returned to my local Tandy Leather store and discussed the problem with them. They happily refunded my money for the haft and the blades. I then bought their less expensive awl haft – $12.99 – and a variety of awl blades in the $3-4 price range. I have found that I can sharpen these less expensive blades on a very fine water stone and strop them on a leather strop with polishing compound and they penetrate leather more smoothly than the expensive blades. Since that time, I have broken exactly one awl blade. These blades are soft enough that I can put pressure on them to make them penetrate thick cantle leather and exit where I want them to without snapping off the blade in the leather.  Yet they are hard enough to retain their sharpness for a reasonable amount of stitching.

So, to continue…

My cantle binding stitching came out pretty well on the front. The backside, however, is a different story. I have seen worse, but not often. I am not proud of the way the backside stitching came out, but it is what it is, as they say. I still have much to learn (In my defense, the photos make the stitching appear even more rough and uneven than it really is. Some of what you see in the photos is the wax residue from the thread.). On the other hand, if I don’t tell anybody, nobody will look for it and it will go largely unnoticed. Sigh…

With the cantle binding in place, it was time to oil and stain the entire assembly and mount the saddle skirts permanently. To mount the skirts, the traditional method entails installing saddle strings in the leather of the saddle skirts before the fleece is attached, then drilling corresponding holes all the way through all the saddle leather and the tree bars, then fishing the strings through those holes to bind the skirts to the tree bars, then finishing off the installation with a few well-placed nails. I elected to go with a more modern approach.

I installed a series of short lug straps in the saddle skirts prior to attaching the fleece, arranged around the perimeter of where the ends of the saddle bars would lie. These lugs are then pulled up tight around the ends of the saddle bars and nailed or screwed in place. This holds the skirts to the tree bars nicely and allows no movement. This also leaves the saddle strings independent of the skirts, making replacement of damaged or missing saddle strings a simple matter, rather than requiring the complete disassembly of the saddle.

The attachment of the skirts was finished with a number of well-placed nails around the topside of the skirts, including the gullet area.

I had already determined the locations of all the attachment points for all the various pieces of saddle leather to the saddle tree during the pattern-making process. These are the points where the parts are nailed/screwed to the tree.  I pierced each of these attachment points with an awl, so that I could relocate the parts in exactly the same place as the building process progressed.

It was now time for final assembly.

I decided at the beginning of this project, to make my own saddle strings, as the price of a pair of saddle strings at the local tack store has gotten out of hand. I bought a side of 8oz latigo leather and cut from it my 1/2″ saddle strings. I then used a  #2 round edger on the backside (flesh side) edges and pulled them through a tool I made to give the strings a nicely finished shape.

I also made my leather conchos.  I bought concho cutters for 1-3/4″ and 1-1/2″ leather conchos at a cost of around $85-135 each. I figured making conchos was an excellent way to use the mountain of scrap leather I was generating. After cutting a sufficient number of conchos (16 of each size) I oiled and stained them. I then used a 1/2″ slot punch to cut the holes for the saddle strings to pass through. I also cut the 1/2″ slots into the saddle jockeys in the appropriate places.

I attached the saddle strings to the saddle by lacing a string through the appropriate jockey from back to front, then placing a screw in the center of the mounting point in the jockey, where I had previously pierced it with an awl (as shown above). This screw also pierced the center of the saddle string. The jockey was then screwed in place, being careful not to over tighten the screw and make it pull through the leather.  This firmly attached the saddle string in place behind the jockey, using the jockey leather as backing.  The saddle string was then threaded through a 1-3/4″ concho, which was slid into place tight against the jockey. This was then fixed in place with two 1-1/2″ ring-shank nails, one on either side of the now hidden screw. Finally, a brass 1-1/2″ concho (I chose to go with brass conchos to dress up the saddle a little) was slid into place over the leather concho, which covered the two nails, then the assembly was finished off with a bleed-knot in the saddle string.

This was the first time I have used this method for attaching saddle strings and I am quite pleased with it.  My saddle strings get used extensively for tying gear to my saddle and my grandkids use them as climbing aids for getting up into the saddle, so they need to be firmly attached and strong. I think these will handle it. Also, as I stated before, if a saddle string needs to be replaced, it is a simple matter of pulling a couple nails and removing a screw, rather than disassembling the entire saddle.

Now, with the saddle assembled, I finished the rigging by making the strap (probably has a name, but I don’t know it) between the front cinch ring and the rear cinch ring. That was the final piece to complete the saddle. I was finished…I thought.

As I mentioned near the beginning of this very long post, after assembling the saddle, I found the movement of the stirrups were impeded by the front jockey, which pinched the stirrup leather against the front cinch ring. After pronouncing several magic words in the general direction of the saddle, I found that if I rearranged the front jockeys to cover the Sam Stagg rigging, rather than go behind it, the problem was solved and the look was still in keeping with the overall 1880s motif of the saddle design. Thank heavens for those magic words!

Before:

After:

So, I pronounced this saddle finished!

I am  rather pleased with the outcome.  I like the overall design. I feel like it flows rather well and keeps well with the 1880s feel that I wanted. It is made on a modern wade tree, which is a marked improvement over the trees that were available in the 1880s and the leather is generally of a higher quality, due to the modern methods of vegetable tanning.

You will undoubtedly notice the color variation between the saddle and the stirrups. The stirrup leathers came from a different side of leather from most of the rest of the saddle and it accepted the stain a little differently. I considered darkening the stirrup leathers to more closely match the saddle, but the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I chose to leave it as-is.

Here is a gallery of photos from the build. Click on a photo to see a larger version.

A few final notes about the saddle:

My horses, and the horse the saddle was initially designed for,  are gaited. Gaited horses tend to reach out farther forward and farther rearward with their front legs than the standard Quarter Horse in the walking and gaiting stride, which causes problems with saddles with forward rigging, such as a full-rigged roping or ranch saddle. The forward position of the cinch causes rub sores behind the horse’s elbows. I have found that a 3/4 rigging, by and large, alleviates this problem. I intended to set the rigging of my saddle at the 3/4 position, but had trouble determining exactly how to position it.

I positioned the cinch ring where I wanted it to be, then locked it down with my bench strap contraption to place tension on the rigging leather. The straps coming around the back of the saddle horn then had to be pulled into position to determine where to attach them to the front rigging straps, to hold the cinch rings in the correct position. However, I could not stretch those smaller 1″ straps and had to guess at their proper attachment point. That done, I cut the 1″ strap ends and place rivets to affix them to the front straps. As it turned out, I didn’t get it exactly right and the rigging ended up at about the 7/8 position, rather than 3/4. Still, it fits the horse it will be used on (a strongly built Rocky Mountain Gaited Horse) quiet well.

I generally do not use a rear cinch. Rear cinches came into vogue during the mid-to-late 19th century, when cowboys found that when they latched onto a steer and dallied to their saddle horn, sometimes the back of the saddle came up, often ejecting the cowboy into the dirt with an angry steer staring at him. A rear cinch was devised, moving the front cinch farther forward to what is now called the “full” position. The rear cinch was generally not kept tight, but just snug enough to keep the saddle from pulling up in the back during roping and cutting. A tight rear cinch can cause a horse to buck if it is not made accustomed to it. For my use cases, which are trail riding and horse pack trips, in which no high-performance moves, such as cutting and roping, are ever involved (at least not by choice), the rear cinch is simply dead weight. It has no function at all. I have heard it said that the rear cinch keeps the back of the saddle down when you are going down hill, but the truth of the matter is that if your saddle pulls up in the back while going downhill, it doesn’t fit your horse properly! In fact, my Missouri Fox Trotter has such nicely formed withers and shoulders, that my saddle rarely moves regardless of whether we are climbing, descending, or on level ground. So, why, then does this saddle, which I designed, have provisions for a rear cinch?

Simple. Design. It looked better with the rear cinch ring.

I added several accessory type things to this saddle to suit my own needs. I added 1″ D-rings under the front jockeys as attachment points for a breast strap. I also added 1″ D-rings under the rear jockeys, just aft of the rear cinch rings, as attachment points from which to hang a rifle scabbard or other gear. I added a 2″ brass ring on each side on the front concho, held in place by the saddle string, which I use to carry an axe when I am on backcountry pack trips. The handle of the axe slips nicely through the ring, hanging the axe on the pommel by the head. Very convenient for clearing trails in wilderness areas.

Some of you will wonder why this saddle took me three years to complete. Well, it’s like this…I had a lot of money wrapped up in this saddle – around $1,000 in materials alone – and I desperately wanted not to screw it up. I hated the thought of wasting valuable leather and having to make a new part, due to an error stemming from my inexperience. So, when I would run up against something I wasn’t sure how to do, I would simply set it aside and mull it over…sometimes for months at a time…until I came up with a solution I thought would work or learned something that cleared the process up for me. Then it was a matter of just girding up my loins, so to speak, and getting it done. The process took awhile, but the experience has been invaluable.

And now for the final word.

After all that time, effort, and money, my saddle did not fit my horse! Again, it was initially designed and measurements taken, with a large-boned Tennessee Walking Horse in mind. The saddle ended up being too small in seat length for the rider and then the horse died! So, I continued with the build thinking it might fit my horse. It did not.

So, I took the saddle out to let another friend-client take a look at it, to see if he were interested in it before I put it on the market for sale. He liked it and immediately bought it as a gift to his son for his 16th birthday. That pleased me immensely.

So, am I now a professional saddle maker?

Not by a loooong shot, but I intend to make other saddles and a few of them might get sold. Who knows? One thing I know is that the next saddle won’t take me three years to complete!

Happy trails!

TTH