I finished the repairs on another old saddle last week. Thought I’d make a short post about it.

This is an old saddle I bought just prior to my big horse pack trip in 2015. I was looking for a good saddle for the trip and happened to find an ad in KSL Classifieds for a couple saddles in Price, Utah. After a little dickering I picked up two saddles and some extras for $380. I wrote a post about the purchase, which you can read here.

The better saddle of the two is the one I have been riding ever since, but the other was in pretty poor shape. It was an old ranch saddle, probably made around the 1940-60 time frame.  It had a good rawhide-covered wood tree and was a well made saddle, although not what I would consider top-grade. It was a good, solid work saddle in need of repair.

The seller apologized for it’s condition, confessing he had lent it to his son, who left it in his garage and let his dog chew on it.  He had done some repairs to the saddle himself, however, so the fleece was fairly new, but the saddle strings were mismatched and several conchos and other attachments hadn’t been stained or oiled. In other words, it needed a lot of work.

(Click on the photos to see the gallery full-size)

It sat in my workshop, stacked on top of the bones of several other saddles in need of repair, until last month, when I finally got around to taking a good look at it.

It was evident I needed to replace the seat jockey, although I toyed with the idea of just trimming off the ugly and selling it. I finally decided this was a good learning opportunity for me, since I aspire to eventually be a decent saddle maker.

I started by disassembling the saddle and removing the cantle binding. Then I pulled the seat jockey off the saddle. It revealed a seat on the tree that had been inadequately prepared before the seat was applied. While this is evidently a custom-made saddle (it is definitely not a factory-made production saddle) there is no maker’s mark, serial number, or any other identification of the maker or saddlery. These kinds of saddles often come from small shops where the saddler makes one-off types of saddles intended for sale. In order for the saddler to make a living at it, he often cuts corners and skimps on things that don’t show in the final product, but can make the saddle less comfortable and durable. That was the case with this saddle.

I found the seat to be composed of a tin strainer tacked to the seat with a thin layer of leather covering the front half of the strainer, and the seat jockey applied directly over the tin and rawhide on the seat. In my rebuild, I followed a better practice of covering the seat strainer and seat with a layer of heavy leather, which is then skived to make a smooth seat. That is then covered by the seat jockey, creating a much smoother, more comfortable, and more durable seat.

I also made a new front right jockey, as the original one had the corner eaten off by the infamous dog in the garage. In order to make this piece look as original as possible, I had to search out and acquire the correct stamping tools for the tooling. Search as I might, I was unable to find one of the stamping tools required, so I made one out of a 3/8″ by 6″ bolt. I thought it imitated the original stamp pretty well. One would have to look pretty closely to see the difference.

I cut out the raw seat from a piece of Herman Oak 13/15 oz leather I had bought for the purpose. I wet it and let it case overnight, then stretched it over the saddle, using my saddle-making stand, cranking the seat forming belt down tight. I used the old seat to help me determine where the ear cuts should be at the sides of the cantle, where it meets the tree. Once formed and marked, I pulled the seat jockey back off, cut the ears, and tooled it with the stamps I had made and bought, imitating pretty closely the original patterns.

That done, I was now ready for the part I find the most tedious of the whole affair: the cantle binding.

I cemented the formed and tooled seat jockey to the tree with Barge contact cement (Barge is the brand normally used by saddlers, as it was originally formulated for leather), making sure everything was properly aligned and straight. I trimmed the excess leather from the back of the cantle, leaving 1/2″ to form a good, rounded cantle. I made a cantle binding out of a piece of about 10 oz leather, skived thinner on the back side (the part that is on the back side of the cantle) to make it easier to form to the contours of the cantle. I edged and put a stitching groove on the front side of the binding, then wet it and let it case overnight. I then formed it to the cantle and tacked it in place. I let it get almost dry, before cementing it with Barge contact cement to the cantle.

Now the hard part. I marked the stitching holes, front and back, with an overstitch wheel with a 6-stitch-per-inch wheel on it, so I would know where to insert my stitching awl and where it should come out of the leather on the back. Sadly, my expensive Craftool Pro awl wasn’t up to the task and I broke three awl blades in the first six stitches (those blades are $16 each). Pushing an awl through an inch of good leather is tough! The blade has to be strong and sharp. The Craftool Pro blades were simply not up to the task.

Happily, my local Tandy store takes customer service seriously and they refunded my money for two awl blades and the haft (Craftool Pro hafts are made to only fit the Craftool Pro awl blades) and allowed me to put that toward their lower-priced awl haft, which accepts a variety of blades, and to buy a set of their lower-priced awl blades, which are not as well made, but are much stronger.  That leaves me with a credit at their store, which I will have no problem using up in the near future. Thank you Tandy, Orem, Utah.

Anyway, back to the cantle binding. I took my new awl and blades (these blades run about $5 apiece) and sharpened them on my water stones, then polished them on my strop. I broke one more blade through the last stitch of the cantle binding, but it wasn’t nearly as painful.

One of the marks of an excellent saddle maker is the stitching on the back of the cantle binding. An excellent saddler will show nicely spaced and aligned stitches on the back, while a less expert saddler’s stitches will be misaligned, and poorly spaced. I am here to tell you that is a skill that is developed by strict practice and many, many stitches. Mine is admittedly pretty mediocre, but not too bad for my second cantle binding. Many saddlers nowadays avoid the entire issue by either using tacks rather than stitches, or by using hidden stitches, on the back of the cantle. One technique is to split the leather on the back of the cantle binding and stitch under the flap, then glue the flap down to hide the stitches.  I think I may try that next time, however, I have to say I truly admire a saddler who leaves exposed stitches on the back of the cantle that are perfectly spaced and aligned. It is truly one of the telltale marks of an excellent saddle maker.

 

I was pleased with the finished cantle binding.

The next step was to stain the new leather to try to make it match as closely as possible the original leather. I decided on dark brown stain. I prefer Feibings Pro Dye and have had good luck with it in matching original leather finishes. The Pro Dye is an oil-based dye, which I find penetrates and finishes more evenly than the alcohol-based dyes.

First, since my shop was cold with snow on the ground outside, I placed my gallon container of Fiebings 100% Pure Neatsfoot Oil in water in an old crockpot cooker I have in my shop, and heated it. Warm oil penetrates leather better than cold or room-temperature oil. Once it was warm, I applied a heavy coat of oil to the entire saddle, including under the skirts and the backsides of all the parts, both old and new, as well as the saddle strings. Once that had soaked in, I wiped off all the excess oil, then applied the stain with a piece of fleeced sheepskin. I applied stain to the entire saddle, considering that the original color of the saddle was faded and uneven, as evident in the above photos, and that the stain would help hide marks on the pommel from the dog’s gnawing on the leather. It worked pretty well. The original leather was darkened to a nice dark brown. However, the new leather lightened up a bit as it dried and took on a mahogany hue with dark edges – pretty, but exposing obvious restoration. Personally, I don’t like my repairs to be obvious. I like them to return the saddle to as much of an original look as possible, while returning the saddle to serviceability.

I followed the dark brown stain with a coat of Fiebings Pro Dye in Chocolate. That did the trick. The seat jockey, saddle strings, new conchos, latigo carrier, and new right front jockey, now blend in well and it takes a closer look to determine that they are, in fact, restoration/repair pieces, rather than original. I like that.

The final step in the repair was to replace the rigging straps that connect the front rigging ring to the rear rigging ring, and to reassemble the entire saddle. I still need to make a pair of stirrup keepers, but other than that small detail, the saddle is ready for service. I’m happy with the outcome. My skills are definitely improving as a saddler.

Sadly, after all that work, the saddle is just a tad small for me. It measures a 15″ seat, but rides like a 14″ seat, due to the angle of the pommel swells and the extra layer of leather I installed to improve the seat.

So, this saddle is ready for another 75 years or so of faithful service.