A saddle reborn

[cowgirl]

Once upon a time a Sakatchewan girl took a chance and spent $25 on this



She was intending to do a makeover on the saddle, but never quite got around to it, but one day in a fit of desperation at trying to find a saddle to fit her stallion, tried it on, and it didn't look to bad



So she dug out an old pair of fenders and had a look



Thought mmmmmmmmmm I may be able to make this work, so she set about them with the leather dye



That looks better she thought, so with a little more work and much swearing she ends up with a saddle that looks like this






Excuse the stirrups, I kind of forgot about those

[penny]

Cool story, excellent purchase and a beautiful job on the saddle!!!

[Saskia]

Wow ,that is a very nice make over!
Love the way you wrote the story.

[DarqAce]

Oh wow, what a transformation! It looks like a totally different saddle! Great job!!

Does it take a lot of skill to darken a saddle the way you did?? I have an old Circle Y saddle that I've been wanting to darken at least a couple of shades (I hate light-colored saddles!), but I have no idea how to go about it. From the little I've read, it sounds like it's a lot of work!

[E. Whyley]

Nice job on the saddle. I am impressed on how close the floral tooling matches.
Darqace, do you really, really hate your light colored Circle Y? If you are changing the color of a natural colored saddle, it usually has a glaze that has to be removed with a deglazer. Then you have to apply many, many coats of dye to get it even. Then you have to wear black jeans for ever more as your clothes tend to dye when you work up a bit of a sweat. or get caught in the rain. Maybe someone knows of a really good glaze that would prevent the dye from coming off?

[DarqAce]

Darqace, do you really, really hate your light colored Circle Y? If you are changing the color of a natural colored saddle, it usually has a glaze that has to be removed with a deglazer. Then you have to apply many, many coats of dye to get it even. Then you have to wear black jeans for ever more as your clothes tend to dye when you work up a bit of a sweat. or get caught in the rain. Maybe someone knows of a really good glaze that would prevent the dye from coming off?

Ya this is exactly what I thought might happen IF I were to attempt to dye a saddle. I don't quite hate the color of it THAT much! lol It's still an awesome saddle to ride my youngster in

[cowgirl]

It doesn't take any great skill, this is my first piece, and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm being talked through the process on another online group, someone there has done a bunch of great how to threads. Her big tip is to keep rubbing down at this stage, until no more dye rubs off, then treat with Blackrock leather conditioner and it minimises the dye loss. So far it's been the least fun bit of the whole project.

I have another one that I'm just about to start on, we'll see how that goes, still toying if I should do it brown, bought a big bottle of dark brown dye to do these, or if it will go black as well, decisions decisions