Anyone know who built this tree?
We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.
We recently received this broken tree to duplicate so the customer can put the old leather back on again. Although there are some markings on it, there is nothing to directly identify the maker. We are curious if anyone who has worked on these older saddle trees knows who built this one.
This is one of the better built production trees we have seen. Although the lacing on the rawhide is nylon thread rather than deerhide, the rawhide on the tree was thicker than a lot of others we have seen.
The fork is all softwood, but it is laminated with five layers. We’ve never seen that many layers in anything but a hand made tree before.
Another thing we have never yet seen in anything but a hand made tree is a cut on the bars for the cantle. Generally on production trees the top of the back of the bars are smooth and the cantle is attached wherever the seat measures correctly.
Stamped on the back of the rawhide is Made in USA.
It is painted white, but stamped on the wood is the number 4330K.
Has anyone ever seen a tree like this before and knows who made it? We’d curious and would like to know too.
