Saddleseat saddles finished

I can't believe it has snowed here! We normally don't get snow this far into Cornwall, but an inch fell yesterday morning and it's still here today. I have a pretty bad cold this week so it was a good excuse to stay in and get the saddles finished.

One of these is for an order and will be heading down under when I finish the set. The other I'm keeping for myself, for my lovely Darcy resin and my Miss America resin when she arrives. As the saddles are built on the flexible brass trees, they can be gently adjusted to get a good fit on a wider range of models. If there's one thing I hate, it's a poorly fitting saddle. In the interests of realism a model saddle should fit just as well as a real one should.

I am very pleased with how the saddles have turned out, particularly the shape of the seat and the rear of the saddle. I could really imagine these saddle would be pretty comfy, as I've managed to ensure that the transition between the seat and the skirt is smooth and the welt is nice and narrow. I like the square cantle, but the tree could easily be modified to create a round cantle.

The pins aren't for decoration, they do actually keep the skirt and flap in place securely and actually go through the brass tree.

The panel is a 'half-panel' but still has a good broad surface area. In the above picture you can also see a tiny bit of white in between the flaps, that's the webbing that the girth billets are sewn onto.

You may notice that there are no stirrup leather keepers on the flaps. That is intentional, I didn't forget! Most saddleseat saddles do not have them, instead the excess stirrup leather is either fairly short, or the excess is tucked down behind the saddle flap.

My stirrup bars turned out really nicely, just in the right place. Many real saddles have adjustable stirrup bars that can be adjusted further back, but I haven't quite got that far yet! You can also just see another pinhead by my thumb which also goes through the tree and keeps the flap securely in place.