Seating Assignment

Some things in life take time - and re-sewing the seat seams on a saddle is one of them. On this saddle, the seat seams on both sides had come undone, the welting had cracked, and the saddle wasn't really useable. I gave the owner the option of patching the seat (a much less involved and less expensive option) or having the seams re-sewn (a much more complex repair that would cost about three times more than a patch). Given the age and condition of the saddle, I recommended a patch, but the owner wanted the seam re-sewn.

Here's the saddle when it came in:

When I say that this is a complicated process, I mean it. You have to completely deconstruct the saddle - almost everything has to be taken off the tree, one piece at a time. Here's what you wind up with:

Looks like a train wreck, I know. Here's what's acutally in the pile.

First, I dropped the panels:

Then, I removed the flaps and gullet cover:

Next I removed the welting between the panels and the cantle:

Then, off came the sweat flaps:

The hardware - falldown staples (dee rings), saddle nails and plates:

And finally, the seat:

Which left me with the tree, and the only thing I didn't have to remove: the billets.

Here are a couple more photos of the damage, which is complicated by the fact that the leather around the seam is compromised by being dry and cracked:

This is going to be a dicey, fiddly piece of work. I've conditioned the leather and have begun re-stitching the seat seams; I have to stitch it tightly enough to bring it all together, but not so tightly as to slice through the rather fragile leather. I'll post on the re-construction of the saddle, as well. It's always an adventure!