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Strength testing - or - Why we use yellow poplar for our bars

What does it take to break a bar? A whole lot of whamming!!
Subscribe to RSS Feed It isn’t often that pieces of a tree get to the finished stage before they get rejected by Rod, the final quality control supervisor. If… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/strength-testing-or-why-we-use-yellow-poplar-our-bars/

Flex in a wood/rawhide tree

Do rawhide covered trees flex more than fibreglass covered ones? Should they? Here's our answer to those questions...
Subscribe to RSS Feed We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/flex-woodrawhide-tree/

Every tree maker does things differently (part two)

Here's some of the differences under the rawhide.
Subscribe to RSS Feed We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/every-tree-maker-does-things-differently-part-two/

We told you it would be good...

A very sad tale of the life, and death, of a saddle tree.
Subscribe to RSS Feed Once upon a time there was a very nice, Modified Association saddle tree.  He was built straight and strong and true, and had a nice… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/we-told-you-it-would-be-good/

Reasons #1 and #2 to order a hand made tree - materials and workmanship

Here are some explanations for the top two reasons we start with when asked why someone should pay the extra money to order a good hand made tree.
Subscribe to RSS Feed When we try to give people good reasons to order a hand made tree as opposed to a production tree, the two reasons we discuss first are always the… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/reasons-1-and-2-to-order-a-hand-made-tree-materials-and-workmans/

Cantles - making them symmetrical

Making our trees symmetrical is very important. Here's pictures of the basic steps we use to do this with our cantles.
Subscribe to RSS Feed I was once asked "How do you make trees symmetrical if you don't have a duplicating machine?"  It was a new question to me, and it rather… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/cantles-making-them-symmetrical/

This week out of the shop

We did our annual wood buying trip this week. Nothing like going through lifts of lumber, board by board, to choose what we need to make us glad we don't have to do this more often!
We made our annual wood buying trip this week.  For our hardwood, we go to Edmonton (a four hour one way drive) to PJ White Hardwoods to pick out a lot of our wood for the… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/this-week-out-of-the-shop/

Hamley Hangers

Hamley Hangers are metal stirrup bars to go on Western saddles. The Hamley company came up with this design many years ago, but they never became really popular. We finally had a chance to build a tree with them. This is how we did it.
We just shipped out a tree with our first order for Hamley Hangers in 15 ½ years of building trees.  It is fun to be in a profession where you can still be doing different things… https://www.rodnikkel.com/content/saddle-tree-blog-from-shop-and-desk/hamley-hangers/