The Building of an Evolutionary Saddle
Once the tree is ordered
it can take up to 2 months to arrive.
Once in, the trees are inspected and tagged for customers.
About 1 out of every 5 trees needs either to be rebuilt or requires additional work. We are trying desperately to correct this as we explore other alternatives. Once a tree is approved we mount the hanger bracket.
The underside of the bars are then covered.
The bar covers are worked up to the top side
A base seat is cut and formed.
When the base seats and bars are covered and set aside to dry, other saddles are being worked on. You can see the pile of billets below the trees. These are for the English saddles, and this inventory is turned over every month!
Once the base seat is dry, which can take up to 3 days, foam as well as other parts are made. These parts take a day or two depending upon the work needed. We try to stockpile inventory for efficiency.
Foam grinding takes time. Don is the only one who has this down to an art... How he does it no one knows.... but it is perfection. Who would have guessed a farmer could do all this?
Foam grinding with can take a day in order to get the pieces just right.
If the the saddle has a Soft-Seat, it is glued as with the other parts needed for assembly.
Garment leather is added to the foam parts. This is a very time sensitive procedure and requires diligence to avoid mistakes. After this process the blocking is sewn.
The Soft-Seat or the standard seat is laid over the base seat and hand sculpted.
Additional padding is added and sculpted if needed or if the saddle is a standard seat that gets sculpted too.
The hide is selected for the saddle and cut for the parts needed. One saddle uses about a side of leather or half of a complete hide.
Hide are sold in sides. A side measures 8 to 9 feet and is about 4 feet wide. Cutting out the parts for one saddle takes one day by hand. We also are working on getting dies made for all the parts needed for saddle building but in order to do so the trees must be perfect each time. So much must be still hand cut. VERY time consuming.
The leather is then split for the desired thickness depending upon what is needed. .
Many parts can be clicked out using the hydraulic one ton press and done in 30 minutes!
Some parts are hand cut.
When all the piece are cut out each one is burnished, dyed and hand waxed for a lustrous finish. This takes nearly a day for one saddle.
These flaps or parts are then tagged for the models to be made
The fork cover and horn wrap can be put on at this time or even before the seat is laid in.
Pieces are then tooled
After edge sewing and tooling the loose threads will be burnt off.
Rigging is made and stockpiled, as are other items.
Nylon is cut.
Parts are dyed. One day for all the saddle parts.
Before sewing, all of the pieces are fitted. Then the various parts are glued, assembled and sewn.
The seat garment is laid. This step takes one day and two people.
Flaps and fenders and blocking are assembled and sewn together.
The pieces are now together and fitted to the saddle.
The hardware is attached. One slip here with the drill and the entire saddle may have to be rebuilt.
Making a custom saddle takes twice
as much time.
Sewing on cantle binding.
The saddles then come into final assembly. This is what awaits Cathy when she comes in on Tuesdays and Wednesday to work. This is also the time that the customer will get a call saying that their saddle is in final assembly . When a saddle gets to this stage it will be just two days or so before it will ship out. Providing the saddle has passed the two person inspection team. Which some do not....
When in inspection this area due to volume can take up to three days.
Strings and other leather pieces are put on the saddle depending upon the model during final assembly.
Leathers, fenders and stirrups are also put on at this time.
A serial number is burnt into the underside of the saddle for a permanent identification
Measuring and marking are done for the next step of mounting the panels. This procedure is tripled checked.
The drilling begins. This is a very delicate job as this needs to be completely true with a steady hand.
Each mount is measured for the correct angle before twisted in.
And double checked with an angle gauge.
When perfect the inserts are screwed in
The western skirts have the panels glued and sewn inside. These skirts are mounted onto the tree.
For the English and endurance models the encased panels are put on. These encasements will require a Saddle Sox.
YES Don does custom work, but have your check book ready.
The saddle is then oiled, conditioned and receives the Hill View Farms Luster Shine and ready for inspection.
Saddle sox are added to those saddle that have encased panels.
Then the saddle is reviewed following a detailed inspection sheet and is checked against the original order; this by two separate inspectors who must sign off before the saddle can go into retail sale or out to a customer.
This is when a saddle either has to go back into production, to be remade or if it passes into the retail pipeline.
One out of 10 DO NOT PASS for one reason or another, The most common is that tooling may have been over looked.... Tooling takes one day but when missed the saddle goes back to square ONE.
Accessories too are added, such the contoured girth. Here the leather girths are going through the process of acquiring the famous curved-to-fit contour. Girths, breast collars and bridles all take a week in the various stages of assembly to produce.
We also develop new products for field testing. We make the necessary patterns and work on those special custom orders. This is what the long Minnesota winters are for. Product development takes 1 to 3 weeks for each new idea getting a prototype ready for testing.