Building the Charro Wade
by R.J.Sagely
Sometimes when building a custom order for a patron of Sage Saddlery I will build another saddle to have on hand for immediate sale if someone takes a shine to it. I have had a saddle design in mind for a good while now and decided to see if I could bring it to reality. I special ordered this tree (well, the horn anyhow) and will provide ongoing and updated pages to chronicle the building of this rig. This tree came out just like I had in my mind so I will be building it for my personal use. When it is done I will have a used Wade for sale (my current rig) at a good price. It will be a well broke in saddle with some fairly deep dally grooves in the mulehide... Hope you enjoy this story of a saddle being built. If you like what you see when I get done with it you can try and buy it out from under me or just have me make one custom to your taste.
Swell Cover, Blocking the Skirts and Building the Rigging -
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These pictures show the swell cover on the slick fork. You have here a simple fold over for the bill or front of the gullet. |
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Here is a skirt, already blocked, stamped and sewn. You can see the lugs that will hold it to the bar as well as the depression formed by "blocking" the skirt. This allows the skirt to flush up to the surface of the bar under your leg. |
| This shows the carlos meander with the double bead and inside border stamping. There is also basketweave stamping as you will soon see on the rigging plates, fenders and jockeys. |
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The somewhat confusing "plate" rigging. This is a separate, heavy roping style plate rigging. The plate hardware here is mounted in a leather rigging "plate". The hardware can also be mounted "in-skirt". The rear rigging is a riveted plate in the leather hanger instead of a "dee" ring style. This will be tacked to and screwed into several points on the bar and ought to hold about anything you stick your rope on. |
| Just some of the stamping detail of the rigging plate. |
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| Take your pick of pics. The one on the right is with flash and the other is without. Neither is the best but I'd say the one on the left nearly captures the brown of the leather. The flash makes it look too much like chestnut, a redder hue. | |