They come in waves...
We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.
Although we rarely get more than two orders from a single maker at one time, it is really interesting how they still comes in waves. Similar orders often group themselves together. For example, a week or two ago we some visitors and were showing them around the shop. We didn't have a single example of a tree with a metal horn - not in the wood, not in any stage of drying, not waiting to be shipped. Not a single one...
So yesterday morning as I was working around the shop, I noticed something. Here are the four trees I had just varnished. (I shipped them off today.) Three are Wades, and the odd man out is a wood post swell fork. All wood post horns anyway.
Under the lumber are the most recently rawhided trees. Four Wades. (Yes, the two upside down ones are Wades too.) The two at the far left were waiting to go out, one of which shipped out today too. (The ladies at the post office were glad to see me!) Two more Wades, both with exposed wood horns, just for the fun of it.
And here is the first of the four trees being built this week - all Wades or modified Wades.
Yet, what is Rod building next week? Three 12" wide metal horn forks and one metal horn slick fork. Interesting...
I try to keep a stock of the common fork sizes glued up and ready to go, usually about three of each.
Since I will be using up all three of the 12" ones for this next set, and since I am a bit down on 13" and 14" fork blanks, I am working on replenishing my stock with this week's wood work.
Something I do just out of interest's sake is write on a fork the month I glued it up. Two of the ones under the bench say August on them. This means we haven't built more than one 12" wide metal horn fork since August - but we have three up for next week.
Yup... when you work alone in the shop (OK, we are together, but nobody else is here) for hours and days on end, sometimes the oddest things catch your attention...
