How it started
From hand-me-downs to hand-built
I rode saddles all my life. When I was young I didn’t have one of my own — I rode hand-me-downs. And when I was finally able to get one, I thought I had the ultimate saddle. Looking back at it now, it was a train wreck.
He rode those saddles for a long time, but the question never left: how are they made? Saddles looked complex and far-reaching to a young man who had neither the tools, nor the leather, nor anybody to show him what to do.
Retirement gave him the time. He started with all kinds of leather work — belts, bags, chaps, wallets, small goods — and then got brave enough to order a tree and build a saddle of his own. That was eight or nine years ago.
Building a saddle is like creating something different every time. The basic structure is always there, but the options stretch in every direction: the tree, the seat, the tooling, the rigging, the fit. He has finished fifteen of them. Tree number sixteen is on order.
