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We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

Flat on round and round on flat - a paradox

Posted by RodandDenise on December 12, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Dec 12 1a round muscles.jpg 2015 Dec 12 1b flat muscles.jpg

Some people think that when we get Dennis Lane measurements or back drawings of a horse, we make the bottom of our bars the exact reverse of the back shape of the horse. Nope, we don’t. We have to make the tree fit that horse - to work whether the horse is standing still or moving, is walking, trotting or loping, is going uphill or down, is dragging a calf to the fire or holding the rope while the cowboy is doctoring the animal. This means that we learn the basic body type of the horse from the drawings or DL measurements and then we make the tree with the allowances built in that are needed to fit that body type.

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Western Stock (Aussie) trees for sale

Posted by RodandDenise on December 9, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

Western Stock saddle tree for sale 1.jpg

We have three Western Stock or Aussie style saddle trees in various levels of completion. (Yeah, there's a story. There's always a story...)  These trees are now sold!

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Angles - it just isn't that simple

Posted by RodandDenise on November 25, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Nov 26 1 angles are not simple.jpg

When people discuss saddle fit and try to label trees or saddles to describe their fit, you can get into a real quandary. The old Quarter Horse, Semi-Quarter Horse and Full Quarter Horse labels are so inconsistent that they are not very useful. (We wrote about that before.) Now people like to talk angles, figuring that saying 90 degrees or 93 degrees will mean that all trees with that label will fit the same. Nope. T’aint so…

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Waiting...

Posted by RodandDenise on November 11, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Nov 11 1 saddle trees drying.jpg

I snapped some pictures around the shop this morning and realized that pretty much everything there was waiting for something. For example, the trees sitting under the bench are waiting to be dry enough to varnish...

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And thus begins...

Posted by RodandDenise on November 2, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Nov 2 1 Rod on phone.jpg

the long goodbye…

Rod has spent a lot of time on the phone over the last week calling customers,

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Around the shop today

Posted by RodandDenise on October 27, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Oct 26 1 four saddle trees drying.jpg

Yup, we’re still working around the shop. Just haven’t been taking the time to post pictures lately.

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Saddle fit video

Posted by RodandDenise on October 17, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

Rod and I are thinking about putting together a video on saddle fit from a tree maker’s perspective.  We are looking for any feedback people would like to share about what you want to see in such a video, any ideas on the best way to present it, and just what you think about the idea.  Comments here are great or you can contact us directly.

And we did!! See information in red above!!

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How do you spell "relief"?

Posted by RodandDenise on October 12, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Oct 5 1a 2 crown on front bar pad.jpg 2015 Oct 5 1b edge on front bar pad.jpg 2015 Oct 5 1c flare.jpg

Is the allusion to a very old commercial showing my age? Anyway… We had a question recently from someone wanting to clarify the difference between crown, flare and relief. Since they are all terms relating to curves on the bottom of the bar, how do you differentiate them?

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It's been a wood post swell fork month...

Posted by RodandDenise on September 8, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Sept 8 1 Rod pounding seams on a saddle tree.jpg

It really does seem like things come in groups. We make a fair number of wood post swell forks – about twenty percent or so of our total output – but they are a relatively new innovation in the long history of saddles. We don’t know for sure when they started to appear, but we were quite surprised to find the date of 1986 on an old tree we duplicated a while ago. Looking at the construction on that one, it is likely it was a very early model.

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You know things are changing when...

Posted by RodandDenise on September 1, 2015

We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com websiteWestern Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)

2015 Sept 1 1.jpg

you look out at the shop in the morning...

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