Saddle up!

I'm on a roll! Yesterday a guy offered me a free saddle to use for practicing my cleaning and restoring techniques on (because I don't want to try anything experimental on my good stuff or a client's item). He said all the pieces were there, but he couldn't tell me anything else about it -- which I think is odd, because even something as general as "I bought this in '87 for a hundred bucks from a neighbor" can help place a saddle in history, but whatever -- free saddle! So I drove out with Dave to pick it up.

That, my friends, is what I call rough shape. And dude was wrong-- the stirrups are missing. I actually found some that would match nicely, on eBay, but I'm not spending money on anything until I know if I can get this piece into riding condition. Here's a picture of the stirrups anyway, so you can see what a nice match they'd be.

That is a really blurry picture! I apologize. The leather is a little light, but with oiling, they'd probably darken to match, and if not, then I have leather dye and I'm not afraid to use it.

I'm using my secret weapon -- my Shark steamer-- to clean the white buckstitch detailing and the tooling, and it's working very nicely. I'll end this post with a Before and After of the stirrup fenders --that's the part that hangs down from the seat and holds the stirrup. "Stirrup" is a funny word, if you really look at it. Stirrupstirrupstirrupsturrip...

Before                                                       After