We have fielded a lot of questions in the last few years
that I never thought anyone would be asking. A lot of people are not really
familiar with what exactly an “old time” saddle shop does or doesn’t do. I’m
going to try to answer some of those questions here.
The #1 question we hear is “Can/will you do saddle repair?”
Historically, that has been the bulk of business in most shops. There are quite
a few more people who need one fixed than need a brand-new saddle. I do
understand where this question comes from. A lot of saddle makers have enough
business making new items that they don’t need the repair part. We have always
believed that the repairing of saddles is where we gain some of the knowledge
we need to know how to build a better saddle. When you tear down a used saddle
you can read it like a book. You figure out what works and what doesn’t. You
also see new ways to do things to improve your own skills.
The second most asked question is “Will you work on a saddle
you did not build?” Most of the saddles we work on are saddles that we didn’t
build. There are a lot more saddles out there that we didn’t build than saddles
we did.
We mainly build saddles for working cowboys. If you come in
to the store or go to our website, what you will mainly see are working
saddles. That doesn’t mean we can’t build any other style of saddle. I was
recently asked twice in two weeks “Do you know how to build a roping saddle?”
Yes, we do! We have built quite a few of them over the years, they just aren’t
what we specialize in. We have made trophy roping saddles for everyone from the
Sul Ross Rodeo to the Jim Bob Altizer Invitational Calf Roping & Steer
Roping, and one saddle for the PRCA Bulldogging Horse of the Year. And yes, we
do build custom saddles. We just keep them within the framework of what we
consider “normal”. We aren’t going to build something weird and put our name on
it.
A “real” saddle shop can make almost anything out of
leather. It may not look like a manufactured one, and it may cost more because
it was made by hand, but I bet it will function a good or better. And no, we
don’t have any crazy leather colors for your project (we don’t know the
difference between mauve and salmon). If you need it to function, we can
probably help you out.
Talk to you next month!
Gary Dunshee
09/06/2021
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