We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

When people contact us about wanting to learn to build saddle trees, there are a few other things we want to learn about them besides just why they want to build trees. If someone is willing to come and pay us to teach them how to build trees, we want them to succeed at it. But not everyone who thinks they want to build trees for a living will be able to make it as a tree maker, so in the information we send out to them, one of the pages is a short self-assessment questionnaire. It has a few different categories of questions to help prospective tree makers figure out if they really are cut out to build saddle trees for a living. We also ask questions similar to these in our discussions to help us know more about the personal characteristics of a possible student.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

On occasion we get people asking about learning to build trees. While we have an information packet we send out to people who ask (because we are willing to teach select people) we also have some questions for the people who ask. If we are going to give someone the benefit of eighteen years of our knowledge plus the information from the giants on whose shoulders we stand, we want to know that it is worth our time and their time. So – what do we want to know?

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

This is a question Rod gets asked not uncommonly. After all, this really is a rather niche profession and a very niche market. Why would someone want to be a tree maker and what is our story behind doing this for a living? Well, we started small...

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’ve been rather busy the last few weeks. Here’s some of what has changed around here…

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

It’s been so long since I did a “take pictures of what is happening in the shop for a blog post” that Rod asked me what I was taking pictures for! So… not much exciting and different like the last blog post. Just more day to day “this is what happens at the Nikkel saddle tree shop” type pictures…

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 were way down south last weekend, at the Bar U Ranch where three days of a side saddle clinic was held.  Lee McLean of Keystone Equine has worked for months preparing for this weekend, and all her hard work paid off.  There were 24 participants in the clinic and 26 riders in the grand parade on Sunday.  Riders came from as far away as Ontario, New Brunswick and Washington as well as the more local Albertans.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

This is the last part of a three part series on how we assess a horse’s back to figure out what tree specs will work the best on him. In part one we looked at the horse from the side. In part two we looked at the back from behind and above. In this part, we are checking the horse’s back at an angle from both front and back to see the amount of rock the horse will need. This view also helps us when deciding on the crown pattern we want to use.

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

It has been a while since I just took pictures around the place to show you what happens around here on a run of the mill type of day.  So - here you go...

Here, Rod is in process, trimming off the back of a cantle...

We are no longer building saddle trees, but we have two videos about how Western saddles fit horses available on our westernsaddlefit.com website.

There have been a couple interesting internet conversations lately asking the question on whether a rawhide covered wood tree will flex and why.  This is sometimes stated as a “pro” for rawhide compared to fiberglass covered trees.  Since I took so much time thinking about and writing up our responses there, I figured I could make a blog post out of it.  So here’s our take on “flex” and rawhide covered wood trees…