I have decided to duplicate all the parts and reset the angles and reshape the bars a little to fit my mare. I tried it on an older QH gelding with taller withers and it fit him like it was custom made for him. I temporarily assembled the tree and tried it on my QH mare, but it was still a little narrow in the gullet and there was not quite enough twist, or wash-out, in the tails of the bars. I have recut the angles on the swells and cantle to reset the bar angle to fit a modern horse. I have not been able to spend a lot of time on it yet, but so far I have completely disassembled the tree, repaired the cantle, bars, and swells with modern wood glues and begun re-fairing them with auto body filler. I will add photos to the album as I progress through the rebuild. The album is entitiled "Teardown of a Visalia saddle, Tony Henrie (or something like that). I thought it best to put the photos in a gallery rather than to take up a lot of space on the forum. I guess the album must first be approved, so it should show up later. I just uploaded to a gallery a bunch of photos of the tear-down of the "Cactus Saddle" I mentioned above with the Visalia tree. I'll post more as I progress, once I get back home. It takes forever to upload the pics and I can't resize them, so the forum limits the number I can upload. I'm doing this from my tablet, since I'm away from home. The Nikkels have a pretty nice article on their website about it, so I may try it myself as a learning project.Īttached are a couple pics as I took the saddle apart. Not sure yet whether I'll try the rawhide myself or have it done. I think I'll reconstruct the tree and strengthen it with a layer or two of bi-directional f-glass cloth, then reapply a rawhide cover. I can spread the pommel enough to get a 90 degree angle without too much bar width for the above-mentioned horse, so I may just do that and re-glue it with epoxy at that angle. The tree currently has bars that have about a 88-89 degree angle, but the pommel was build with a joint in the middle, which is loose. It seems to fit, or can be adjusted easily to fit, so I decided to rebuild the tree and build an old-style saddle for that particular horse. Since he's only about 13.5 hands, I decided to just see whether it would fit him, since saddles with regular QH bars are a bit wide on him. I took the tree and set it on a small Quarter Horse I have. I took lots of photos, so I could remember what I saw. It was a great learning experience for me. It was interesting to me how much leather was used in fairing the pommel to the bars and in the ground seat. The pommel cover has the remnants of nice basket-weave stamping and the horn has the remnants of a braided rawhide horn cover. I was surprised, as I removed the rawhide, to find a paper label on the cantle that says, "Visalia".Īpparently was a nice saddle in its day. It was obviously beyond help as a reasonable restoration candidate, so I used it as a learning project. The rawhide had been cut away in several places to effect the tree repairs. The cantle had been broken and one bar had been reattached. It had obviously had several repairs to the rigging and tree before they finally gave up on the saddle. It was just an old saddle and was missing all the leather except the pommel cover. Don't use anything with " -Lac" in the name (Saddle-Lac, for example) it will seal the leather and won't let it breathe like Tan-Kote does.This evening I dissected an old saddle my dad has had for years in his workshop. When I'm done cleaning and conditioning, I like to put a topcoat of Tan-Kote water-soluble finish on, to give it a nice warm shine. Apply a light layer of conditioner every other day or so until the leather starts to feel right.Ībove all, take your time and do it right. I think they sink in better, but there are many good ones and you'll probably get lots of recommendations here. I like lotion-y ones like Blackrock better than greasy ones. You'll know it's dry when it's stiff and light brown in color.Īpply your conditioner. Don't try to hurry things by putting it in direct sunlight or by a heater, just let it rest. Scrub gently with a soft toothbrush and again, just enough water to rinse it off. It stinks like the dickens, but it'll take off the old finish. (Recipe courtesy of Richard Sherer) 1 part Ivory Concentrated Dishwashing Liquid detergent: 2 parts household ammonia: 1 Part water. You can use Fiebing's Dye Prep to remove it, or mix up this cleaner. It shows up as a grey, alligator-scale-looking haze. These old saddles often had a coat of shellac or similar sealant put on them, and that will make it difficult for conditioner to get into the leather, so it's got to go. Use a pH balanced soap like Lexol and as little water as possible. You need to get all the dirt and salts off the surface or any conditioner you put on it will just pull the filth into the leather.