Jeremiah Watt

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah on his new Canon S3-IS, then into Photo Shop 7.0 for a little selective Polarizing

Morning light peeks thru the shop windows as I enter my shop at 6:45am, anyone who knows me also knows that Jeremiah very rarely sees that time of day...............but boy howdy do I ever see alot of 2am's. I just couldn't resist taking a picture of all these trees with thier last coat of Varnish drying in that great light.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah Watt shot with new Canon S3-IS
It has been so cold here in California the last few weeks that getting trees dried and Varnish cured has meant that everything had to come indoors. Even getting the glue ups for forks, cantles and tree bars had to be set in a warmed room so the glue joints would be strong and solid. Not sure if you all can hear the weeping, but there has been no rain and folks with cattle are getting very uneasy about the rainfall situation. So if by chance any of you are into dancing NUDE under thunderclouds........ then I suggest ya knock yer'self out dancin! No thanks, but thanks for asking, I think I will just sit this dance out if'in ya don't mind.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah, this shows a group of saddle trees ready for some BULL HIDE

Another reason for taking this tree picture was to allow me a chance to move on a little more with the whole issue of stirrup hangers in tree bars. You will notice that the tree in the lower forground is our Hamley Hanger tree, she is all dry and ready to build on for a very good 3rd time customer. But wait I say, I have other information in here that I will share with you as well.

There have been several posts placed in regards to the HANGER ISSUE, and I hope that all of you have taken time to read them. There were also about 4 other emails sent directly to my mail box and I am just not enough of a GEEK to figure out how to place them over in the POST LIST of commentors. That is an issue to try and remedy this week if possible. To a man we all feel that the whole idea of a hanger has great appeal, and by God it should work. But it just doesn't seem to live up to the expectations that we all have. There have been several convincing posts that support the notion that it cannot wear out stirrup leathers any faster than say an English Saddle, since it is virtually the same concept that they have been using now for some 200 years.............right? Well, yes and no. Firstly the English version is on a slightly narrower steel bar than is ours, and secondly the English Leathers are narrower. This might lead us to believe that the wear problem would or should be worse, but ther are two other important factors to consider here.

The key difference in the leather is first, the English version of a stirrup leather is plumper and a softer tannage than is the American Skirting that we use. Our skirting is tanned in an Oak bark filled pit, where it sits immersed for some 3-9 months depending on the tannery. all the while our English counterpart is a Chrome tannage that has a short tanning life but a long life cycle. Becasue there is no stamping done on the English Saddles they have no need for the leather to hold an EMBOSSING or tool impression, where as we do and must have leather that will hold an impression of a tool applied to it.

A second factor is one of care and conditioning. Lets face it and take the consequences as they come. The folks who ride English are just fastidious about keeping there gear cleaned and conditioned. Saddles get wiped down after almost every ridinh, they get soaped regularily which is usually followed by a conditioner. So it goes without saying that the leathers on an English saddle would last a lot longer than do the average cowboy saddle. Cowboys are inherently lazy in the care and maintenance of thier gear. I have like many others tore apart saddles that are many years of age adn found that the leathers have never even been rolled over the bars and cleaned nor oiled. The rest of the saddle may well have been cleaned and oiled..........(if it was a lucky one)...........but the harder to reach areas never seen a drop of oil or dressing that could and would extend the life of the leather. If the attitude of care and maintenance were to change, that factor alone would play inot the acceptance of bar hangers I think!

Most of you seemed to also think that a larger diameter bar over which the leathers ran, would make for a better product with less liklyhood of serious leather fatique in the area that the leathers wrap over the stirrup bars. I will continue on with more about the second tree that I had shown earlier, you remember, the one in-which we used a 3" wide web saddle dee to build the stirrup bar. We will be rawhiding this tree in with a group of 5 others, that will start next week and so it will not be dry till into Feb some time. At that point I will revisit that tree, and maybe I can show you some pictures of the Hamley Hanger tree if all goes well............but then don't count on it because there are several saddles and shows coming up that will most likley screw plans up.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah Watt
Now into this whole mix I have to interject my saddle making friend, Brock Lynch who resides in Grand Junction Colorado. Brock has been a custom saddler for many years now, and hails from Australia. During one period of his saddle making career Brock had a Saddle Shop in Florida, and it was while he lived in this southern Region that he had chance to meet a quite famous saddler in his day who had designed a quite unique stirrup bar idea. Now I had never seen this version, no real surprise I guess. And my friend Brock tells me they were indeed quite locally popular with nary a complaint that Brock can recall hearing of. The whole design is quite ingenious really, it manages to have the leathers sit within a loop and swing over a common center or pivot thus eliminating the rocking type wear that gets the leather over a standard fixed style hanger. From a tree makers perspective they are much less bulky than all other hangers that have hit the market place of ideas.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah Watt of the LINGLE FREE SWING when it is in place and the rider's feet hanging strait down.

The saddle maker that we will give credit too here is one Floyd Lingle of Kissimmee Florida. I have done a search in Google for info on this Floyd fella but came up with ZILCH.............(which is a Republicans measurement of the amount of expierience Barack Obama has)..............on to more details of Floyd. He made Palmetto swamp country cowboy rigs says my friend Brock. Funny thing about Floyds saddles says Brock, they were always rough out at least the ones I had a chance too see and they were really short seated like 14.5 or 15 inch saddles. Of course at the time I was building mostly riening saddles quotes Brock, so I was used to looking at a different breed of saddle, but none-the-less says Brock, they were very unique saddles that had a loyal following for sure.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah, this is the free swing in motion and riders feet now nearthe cinch.

The hanger which we will call the "Lingle Free-Swing" is a very simple but effective design. It encompasses a thick plate with a perfect tight fit circle in its center. To the central circle a retainer of lighter Galvanized is folded and riveted to capture the center circle from both sides. Meanwhile within the fold of the retainer portion of the whoel unit there is a long narrow shaped dee ring through which passes the stirrup leathers once they are put in place. It would appear to me that the entire unit is placed on the surface of the saddle tree after the rawhide has been cured and the tree is ready to go. The entire "Lingle Free Swing" is held onto the tree by way of two screws and that is it. Now in talking to Brock, he tells me that he had never seen the swings come loose nor heard of such an event taking place. That of course is not to say that it didn't or couldn't, just that we have not heard of the method of attachment being a problem.

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah with the Free Swing and riders feet well in front of the shoulder at this point.

The whole design is very intriguing to me, and I think that I will have to build a few in order to try it out and give it an honest and true test. This is one of those unusual products or items that had aa very quite life of perfect service and function.................and now eyars later we turn one up and wonder how the heck it could possibly have worked. Our highly skilled overly critical minds will cast doubt on the most promising of ideas..................especially if it was not our idea. I have no doubt that Floyd Lingle has a great design here, and I don't doubt my friend Brock. BUt I do want to put the design to test with the whole world watching, and we will all see together what happens. If you have any ideas, or comments we invite them.
Good night and God Bless
Jeremiah

PHOTO BY: Jeremiah, ya just had to do it didn't ya. Just had to know how far a head ya could git yer feet..........well know what er'ya gonna do with yer rowelks stuck in his mane like that there....................