The handiest "tool" in the shop
We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com website. Western 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.)
is in the plastic bag in the center of this picture. That’s right – dead socks… I wandered around today and took some pictures of all the places we use them.
The place we use them the most is at the gluing bench. Nothing seems to clean up extra glue squeezing out of joints than good cotton “glue socks”. The polyester or nylon type socks don’t work very well, but the cotton ones are just perfect. And the price is right too!
Move on over to where Rod pounds the trees and you find a few more hanging round behind the band saw where he can reach them easily. If the trees take a while to dry they can get a little slimy, especially behind the cantle. So old socks are the perfect thing to use to wipe off that area and get the hide drying faster. There were only two socks there today. Sometimes he has four or more in different stages of drying, depending on the weather and humidity levels which affect drying times.
Then if you go to the rawhide room, there are a couple on the equipment board. With just the two of us, sometimes we have run low on socks and asked friends and family to donate. The kid’s sock has been a blade cover for one of Rod’s skinning knives for a few years now, and the other one comes in handy for wiping off blades when needed.
And finally, it isn’t often that we wrap up a horn to protect it during shipping, but when we do, a few layers of socks wrapped in duct tape works great to get it to the customer in the same condition in which it left.
Especially when it looks like this when it leaves…
So, does anyone else use socks in their shop? If so, what for?
Comments:
I got the tree and it is absolutely stellar! I reckon I may just look at it for a week afore I put the leather on. Ordered some silver for the cap, just big enough to cover the screw holes. I will be sending you pictures when I get that on and when it is all done.
Thanks!!
