My oldest son is putting stuff and money together to go apprentice under a custom saddle maker this fall building his first custom saddle. The question we have, and have looked all over the web for the answer to, is what is the differance between all of the wade trees. There is the Ray Hunt, Hamely, '98, NW... you get the idea. He plans on ordering a custom tree from a top maker (don't know which one yet) and he knows what he wants as far as bars, seat, cantle, etc.

I found this. I have a Wade Saddle I use on a Draft. It seems to put me more forward in the saddle. Combined with the width of the horse I don't consider it the most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-wade-saddles.htm

I found this. I have a Wade Saddle I use on a Draft. It seems to put me more forward in the saddle. Combined with the width of the horse I don't consider it the most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-wade-saddles.htm

Mike,
Ben and I both have wade saddles now, and love them. They are semi custom / semi production saddles, not $3000.00 handmade but tough enough for what we do and extremely comfortable. With a lot of experience in them, there's no question that's what he wants to continue to use. It's just that, as he starts to research the higher end and fine tune his tree selection, he is looking for an explanation on the differance between the differant kinds of wade trees themselves.

Hi 73sharps,

before I spread my "wisdom" you better go to the search button on this side and type in "wade". As a result your will be directed toward some discussions where "wade" is mentioned, incl. some postings by Darc Kabatoff and Gumby (Greg Gomersall). I checked quickly and they explain e.g. the difference between a wade and a Homestead wade (which to my knowledge is the same as a Ray Hunt wade). That should give you a start.
Another option you might want to go for is google for "treemaker", call one or more of them or another treemaker of your choise. Whenever I called someone I found they were very willing to answer my questions. And since there is no industry standard different makers might do things differently.

Where you sit in the saddle depends on where the saddlemaker puts in the low spot in the seat and does not depend on the tree style (fork style). However I have seen more wade saddles with the low spot toward the cantle than in the middle of the seat.

Hope this helps.

Tosch

Tosch,

I did the search like you suggested, and found a wealth of information. I don't know why I didn't think of trying that before. I guess because every time I leave for a while and come back, they've changed the layout of the site again, and I get tired of looking for things all over again, like the "search" button, for instance.

Again, thanks for your help.

Currently I am using Trees made by Rod Nikkel. Greg and Darc also use his trees as well. Check out Rod's website at http://www3.telus.net/nikkelsaddletrees/ I dont think you can find a better made tree.

Ashley
SnakeHorse Saddlery