Popular Post Chestnut Posted December 10, 2021 Popular Post Report Share Posted December 10, 2021 While a teenage my mom's hobby was showing horses. Part of showing horses is to have a nice show saddle. For decades the saddle has been hanging in out garage and both my parents have had a wish to do more with it but never knowing what. This summer my dad send me a picture of a saddle stand, as an idea to make for my mom. So I figured the stand would make a good Christmas gift along with the offer to help clean the saddle. It's covered in decades of storage dust and probably needs some TLC. For the design I did some internet searching and found recommendations for angles and widths. I honestly don't remember the details but the angle for the top was 30 degrees and the width was around 8" per board accounting for the angle that puts the width at 14". The design is simple. 2 assemblies with bridle joint legs (fitting right?). I was originally going to make the stand to separate for easy transportation and storage but decided the disassembled leg assemblies are pretty small so i glued the bridle joints. The "apron" can be seen in the picture below, this is the part that will hold the boards that support the saddle. Due to geometry of the whole thing I wanted to legs to attach in the center and splay to provide support. To accomplish this I set the angle of my miter gauge. Due to the project parts cutting the other side would require a miter gauge set to the same angle but the opposite direction. So i set up my 2nd gauge and copied the angle there but opposite. This will allow me to remove the material from both of the angled tenons? If it's in the middle of the board is it still a tenon? The picture below should give a bit more clarity on the process. I made a stop block to create the bridle area width. The legs have not been milled to final dimension and instead of trying to make the bridle area to fit the leg i figured it was easier to sneak up on the leg dimensions. The legs were made from some 4/4 stock. The stuff i used had a more rustic appearance which i figured was more fitting to something that is more country oriented. I laminated all of the legs at once. Once the legs were glued together I milled them to dimension. I snuck up on the width so the fit in the bridle joint. to cut the mortise for the bridle on the end of the leg I used the bandsaw. I had a test piece, aka the end of a leg that was longer than i needed, and made cuts sneaking up on the fit. I used my fret saw to remove the waste in the middle but this left a square bottom but it needed to be at what ever the angle was that I cut. So i made some marks using the apron to get the angle on the top of the leg and used a chisel to remove the waste back to the lines. I covered this process in more detail on my Nakashima inspired table build. The legs haven't been cut to length at this point and I cut the joinery so the legs would extend past the top of the apron. My idea here is i could flush trim them to fit and then cut the legs to length. After the legs were cut to length I finish prepped all of the parts added round overs and then glued the assembly together. I used minwax wipe on poly and applied 3 coats. Here is the finished product. I used figure 8s to attach the top boards. With the angle of the top boards there is minimal racking despite not having a brace along the length. 8 figure 8s were used on alternating sides of the assembly, i felt this would also help racking. I'll try and get pictures some day with the saddle sitting on it. Just to test it's strength I hopped on and took it for a ride around the living room bareback and everything held up great. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davewyo Posted December 10, 2021 Report Share Posted December 10, 2021 Really well done! Elegant simplicity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BonPacific Posted December 10, 2021 Report Share Posted December 10, 2021 That's a great design. I might show this to my wife and see if she'd like something nicer than the old tube-steel number. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted December 10, 2021 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2021 1 hour ago, BonPacific said: That's a great design. I might show this to my wife and see if she'd like something nicer than the old tube-steel number. I found my design drawing with the dimensions. Saddle Horse.pdf 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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