Saddle Blog

[flynsaddle]

Howdy;

This is my first post on this site, I did post a few times on the old Bulletin board. I thought my saddle blog may interest some of you. It will show you a quick look at the process of building a custom saddle, and the process of stamping/carving leather. Feel free to have a look, go back in the blog archives to January, then you will see a saddle from start to finish. Here is the link http://www.saddleblog.blogspot.com/

I am not trying to advertise or promote my saddle business with this post, I just thought this may be interesting to some of you. If the moderators feel this is inappropriate feel free to delete this post.

Thanks much
Steve

[Sue]

Thats pretty cool, Steve. The mod's better not take that post down! That looks good! Have you done any really odd patterns? I just ask because I am sorta fascinated by different patterns. My saddle is boring old CA poppies.

[FrancaV]

Thanks for posting that, Steve! I'm very interested in how saddles are made and decorated. A couple of terminology questions: is tooling a general word that covers both carving and stamping?

I understand carving, but have only a vague notion of how stamping is done. What do you use to stamp with? I'm pretty sure my saddle is carved only, no stamping, which is what I wanted. I'm a bit of a minimalist when it comes to saddle decoration, LOL. Not only for ease of cleaning but because I like only smooth leather where my legs hang. I've posted this pic elsewhere, so apologies to those who have seen it but I didn't want to make Steve go hunting for it. This should show you how I had my saddle tooled:

http://inlinethumb59.webshots.com/3642/1332151493036196287S600x600Q85.jpg (http://pets.webshots.com/photo/1332151493036196287MiKGVp)

Just carving, yes?

[Excess]

Welcome Steve. Did/do you post on the Western Horsemanship chat site by chance as well?

[Mulie]

Thanks for the post. It looks pretty interesting, but I haven't had time to do anything other than quickly look at it. I was most interested in the ground seat. although you don't want to go into too much detail about it, i guess. Could you maybe just say a few words about what you are are striving for in the seat and is it all leather or do you have a metal strainer, and if there's a reason for a particular preference for you. Thanks. Looks like real nice work.