We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

When we talked about the front leg, we said there was no defined pivot point because the whole leg is attached by muscle, so the shoulder blade moves around a bit against the chest.  The hind leg is different because it is attached solidly – leg to pelvis at the hip joint, and pelvis to spine at the sacroiliac joint.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

Our band saw is BIG.  It stands 8 ½ feet high and has a 32 inch throat.  When we built the shop, Rod modified the rafters to make a box tall enough that we could raise the band saw up to vertical.  Most tree makers have a large band saw, at least 28”.  This is because we need the height for the jigs used to make the fork and cantle cuts on the bars.  The saw is originally designed to have large blades and to cut big logs into lumber.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

When you read about saddle fit, you find numbers quoted as to how much pressure is acceptable under a saddle and how much is too much, and those numbers will vary dramatically.  Why?  I figured we should know by now how much pressure will cause damage to underlying tissues, so I went looking for answers.  Turns out there are no solid answers and really, this isn’t even the right question.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

We make our own deer hide lace from hides off deer harvested by local hunters, including Rod.  (Venison tastes good!)  Hunting season for deer closed the end of November, so this is the time of year he makes up the rawhide for the lace.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

Today was another day of rawhiding for Rod.  Here he is almost finished rawhiding this Wade tree that will be heading to southern Alberta when it is dry.  I figured in this post I would show you some of the “tools of the trade” Rod uses when he rawhides trees.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

In the first post about the bones of the hind limb, I talked about some interesting lumps at the top of the femur.  Now let’s look at the bottom of the femur.  This is a front view of the left femur and tibia, so we are looking at the front of the stifle joint.  The outside of the horse is to our right and the connection to the pelvis is to our left.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

We recently received this broken tree to duplicate so the customer can put the old leather back on again.  Although there are some markings on it, there is nothing to directly identify the maker.  We are curious if anyone who has worked on these older saddle trees knows who built this one.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

We picked up a “saddle in a tub” from the Greyhound station this week.  The story on this one was that it was on a young horse that was tied to a hitching rail.  The horse got a bit excited and hit the saddle fairly hard on a large post close by.  And that is when the saddle had a lot more movement in it than normal.  The owner really likes this saddle since it is the only one that doesn’t hurt his hips when he rides so he figured duplicating the tree is worth it for him.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

We put Arnie’s hind leg together using the same methods as we did his front leg.  The bones below the hocks are very similar (but not identical) to the bones below the knees on the front leg, but the bones above the cannon bone are very different between the front and the hind.