We went down to Randy’s again and evaluated the Simco with him and after lots of hours of washing, drying and oiling the old Simco we decided not to put it back together after all. At least not now. On this day of evaluation of the Simco we were expecting the new leather to come in, looking the Simco over you can see how far it was taken apart. You can also see the cracks in the fender leather. The leather is not at all in any kind of descent shape.

It was a heck of a lot softer than it had been though and we sure worked on it hard. I had used water at room temperature in a large sink with just a couple drops of dawn first. It was still very dirty so I repeated the process but added some vinegar to the water and that helped to dissolve some of the dirt and salt out. It was getting cleaner but I still decided to use a medium soft brush on both sides and a real stiff one behind the fenders. Then let that dry to almost dry and slathered it with olive oil. Several coats until it seemed done soaking it up and it did soak a bunch of it up.

It was not originally made with top of the line leather. We are waiting for Herman Oak to show up today, the best possible. You can see the old drilled string holes to tie the skirts on in the tree. The nail I mentioned earlier on is not visible because I had already pulled it out. It was in the rear near those string holes toward the center by the cantel. You can also see the pile of skirts, stirrup leathers, rub guards and jockies. I had also cut new saddle strings. It was not a totally wasted effort I learned quite a bit all in all, especially the importance of cleaning and oiling your saddle often enough.

The leather is due in today but we probably can’t stay that long. The trees should be here by the weekend. We are getting excited.

Next step was to try to decide on style for both of us. Ollie wants to cut down on weight and cut it down as much as possible. We looked over all of Randy’s patterns trying to decide what shape and rigging style and fender style and talked about stirrup options.

We looked over several saddles from catalogs from really nice makers for form and function and overall looks of everything that we will need to be deciding on really soon.

My wife Ollie dug through the patterns and found her plan. My plan is to basically make it like the one Randy made for me before for Clara. Not much to think about.

Thanks for stopping by!