East Crow Saddlery

03/21/2023

I almost forgot to post the photo's of the new trim strips on the contest saddle! So, here she is.
This is the shape & size my friend gave the thumbs up to. Matched the color as best I could, stitched in place and covering the minor damage to the flap.
Kept the curve at the back to not only show the brand name but also to not cover the rear thigh block under the flap on the sweat flap. Important to keep the block area open.

Thanks everyone for voting, I had a lot of fun with this!

03/11/2023

Thought I'd have a little fun with this saddle. This is a friends saddle that she sent to have a wear guard added to the bottom of her flaps. She's worn through the top layer of calfskin, and before the damage gets any worse we're going to add a new trim strip.

I normally try to stick with the original design, be as organic as possible. Make it look as though the saddle came from the factory with the new leather added.

I custom make new wear guards, so any size or shape is possible. I draw on the flaps with a regular pencil, it easily wipes off.
Not the easiest taking photo's, tried to catch it at the correct angle to make the pencil pop.

But because this is a friend and she's ok with me drawing all over her saddle, I thought I'd have a little fun drawing up different options and see what the people wanted.

So please, vote away! Let the people speak!!

A. By far the easiest and least amount of stitching.
B. Sticking with an exaggerated version of what the original manufacture would do.
C. Flames
D. Turtle
E. Waves

03/09/2023

This is an older, much loved, Passier dressage saddle. When I dropped the panels I discovered a previous repair of the billets having been replaced. Whoever replaced the billets stitched the new billet directly to the stump of the old billet. They cut the old billet so there was about 5" of it left, and stitched the new billet on. While this is an ok/acceptable repair in some circumstances, it's definitely not something that should be made a habit of.

It used to be more common to have the billet riveted directly to the tree point. Most saddle makers these days will rivet webbing to the tree point instead, making is much more easy to replace billets.

While I have the saddle apart, it's easy enough for me to rivet webbing in place. The webbing I'm putting on is plenty long enough so that it will come out from under the thigh block and have plenty of room to stitch the billet on.
In the future, this makes replacing billets very easy. No need to rivet anything ever again, and no need to even have to drop panels.

01/26/2023

Did you ever wonder what these bumps are on your calfskin flaps?

It's usually balled up bits of adhesive &/or foam.

In a lot of covered flaps, there can be a very thin layer of foam between the layers of your flap. Sometimes there's foam, sometimes the calfskin is glued direct to the thicker bottom leather.
A thicker, more rigid, bottom layer of leather to give the flaps form & function.
And then the gorgeous calfskin layer on top to provide grip & texture.

Oil will delaminate the layers, render the glue useless so the layers loosen and start to move. The little balls form, as well as bubbles between the layers.

My best advice, do not oil covered flaps. You'll do more harm than good.

11/03/2022

Let's talk about tree's. (Seriously, lets talk. I'd love a discussion from backyard riders to Master Saddlers.)

More specifically, let's talk about "testing" tree's to see if they're damaged or broken.
And even more specifically, my target audience is for the people doing their absolute best to fold saddles in half.

I have been sent a hundred video's & photo's over the years of people flexing, showing off their core strength, and doing a very impressive job of trying to get the pommel to touch the cantle. One memorable photo sent was of a saddle sitting on the barn floor, pommel down so the saddle is sitting on it's nose, with a person sitting on the cantle.
These are all supposedly evidence of tree's being broken.
I'm alarmed by most of these ... because if the tree wasn't damaged before it sure might be now.

People, please stop doing this. A quick, gentle flex is fine. But all you fine folks determined to make origami out of a saddle, please just stop.

If you truly have a suspicion a tree is damaged, then send it to a bench saddler who can drop the panels, do a visual inspection and accurately test the tree.

I replace broken tree's every week; different brands, models, disciplines. I'm sure there are plenty of other bench saddlers & master saddlers that also replace broken tree's, they can likely back up these statistics ...

The vast majority of tree damage or a break is in the head of the tree. It's not even in the seat/rails.

In my shop, I'd say 90% are broken in the head.
8% in the rails.
2% a variety of other random & bizarre breaks.

I have a shelf full of broken & damaged tree's that I've held onto because they were a really interesting break, or the story of how it was broken was interesting. I have tree's that were welded and broken again. Wood tree's & synthetic tree's.
I think 1 of them is actually broken in the rails. And it literally is folded in half, 2 separate pieces. The seat leather was the only thing holding it together.

The seat & rails of the tree are flexible on purpose, they're spring tree's. The wood of the tree is laminated layers of wood, glued & pressed together. This gives the wood flexibility while maintaining structure & integrity.
Then there is flat piece of tempered steel running from pommel to cantle. This steel is incredibly strong, but not 100% resistant to damage or complete failure. However, when it fails it almost always snaps completely through. That's the nature of "tempering" it.

Between the flexibility of the wood and steel, it's designed to absorb the landing weight of the rider. "Landing weight" from either a sitting trot, 3' jump, etc.
It's a shock absorber, as is the wool in the panels, the horse's spine & hocks, and also the riders hips & knee's ~ you get the picture. These shock absorbers are supposed to work in harmony, when 1 starts to fail the others take up the load.
And just like a person's knee's start to wear out, so too can a tree.

So when I see someone hyper flexing the tempered steel & wood rails of a spring tree ... it makes my knee's & heart scream.

Slightly different for synthetic tree's, due to a lack of laminated wood & tempered steel spring rails, but the same principle applies. They've been tested to flex in all the right places and be rigid where it counts.
Some synthetic tree's are more flexible than others, synthetic can actually be very rigid ~ some of the more rigid tree's on the market ~ to actually being some of the more flexible tree's on the market. They can still break, but usually when they break it's obnoxiously obvious.

I applaud people for wanting to test their saddle to be sure it's not compromised or damaged in any way. I've built a career around this. But for the love of your saddle, please just chill when it comes to testing the rails of the tree. There is not a world where tree's are supposed to be folded in half. Please stop making me clutch my pearls.
Thank you!

05/21/2022

My brand spankin' new pattern knife from my very awesome friend, Janice. ❤

Cutting out new (extra tall) trim strips for a customer's saddle.

12/22/2021

This post has been a long time coming, I’ve struggled with exactly how to word it. But, it's time. With Winter Solstice yesterday I’ve decided to embrace the light ahead and leave dark days behind.

As some know, almost exactly 2 years ago I was diagnosed with a rare cancer. NeuroEndocrine cancer, appendix primary. After 2 surgeries I’m now considered No Evidence of Disease. In general, I feel fine, but I do not have the energy I used to have.

For the last 2 decades I’ve almost always worked 7 days a week. But really, it wasn’t “work”. I love what I do. Truly. Repairing & fitting saddles has brought me great satisfaction and joy. It’s a trade that I stumbled into but have loved since the first day. Plus, I get to help horses. How cool is that?? It’s humbling, and I’m honored that I get to help horses do their jobs more comfortably.

But it’s time to slow down a little bit, bring things down to a 40ish hour work week. This past year I’ve struggled to keep up, it’s been a little overwhelming. I get tired a lot more easily.

Effective immediately, I’m restricting the saddles I’ll take in for repair to only the brands that I’m authorized to do warranty work on. Warranty work or not, those brands are ~
Amerigo/Vega
Black Country
Bliss/Loxely
County
Detante
Frank Baines
Hastilow

This has been a tough decision to come to, but the right one for me. Depending on my current workload, from time to time I’ll ponder taking in other repairs. But for now, I need to take the burden off a little bit. The last 20+ years of saddle fitting and repair have been good to me, and I’d really like to keep doing it for another 20 years.

I’ve also decided to refocus and reinforce passing along knowledge & skills to the next generation of saddlers and fitters. Nothing formal, of course, but it’s my way of keeping the balance. If I can’t do the work myself then it makes sense to keep it going in others.

With appreciation and gratitude, Patty

11/21/2021

Awesome news! We desperately need saddlers here in the US also, becoming a rare breed.

Restoration expert Suzie Fletcher has visited Walsall to help encourage more young people to consider careers in the town's historic leather industry.

04/04/2020

Work in progress, recovering calfskin flaps.

And done!

02/24/2020

Another big project, new seat and knee pads.

02/09/2020

Work in progress