I recently had two very interesting antique/vintage show harnesses come in to the shop; a horse size gig harness with a 4 1/2" wide saddle and a cob sized 6 1/2" wide saddle. Both are in poor condition and need to be remade from the ground up, so to speak. I thought it would be fun to document the entire process so others could see what's involved.
The saddle is 4 1/2" wide, has straight flaps and takes a sliding backband for a heavy two wheel cart. The patent leather has separated and bubbled up in places and the old finish is flaking off in large chunks. The unusually long stitches on the flaps do not match the finer stitching used elsewhere, leading me to think the driving pad has been relined at least once in it's life. The padding has also gone flat. The 2 brass headed nails at the bottom of the skirts along with the crescent shaped brass pad ends are a nice touch. Usually, there aren't any, just two harness nails at the top and leather wedges instead of the pad ends.
1st step: Teardown, removing the liner
Liner is very thin patent leather with navy blue wool tufts and has a backing layer of 5/6 oz veg tan leather. The ends that meet in the middle are overlapped and glued. The square ends are glued and folded over the veg tan backing, as are the sides. This was machine stitched to the patent leather flaps. I was able to see the original stitching holes. At some point, a harness maker relined this and went with a longer stitch length to avoid having to sew in the original holes. The padding consists of wool needled felt.
Also, not shown, there was a 1 1/2" beveled leather strip glued to the veg tan for giving the outside patent leather a slightly raised effect, instead of being totally flat in appearance.
The navy blue wool tufts were sewn through both the thin patent , padding and veg tan layers.
Top of pad showing the stuffing
Underside of tree, showing the iron braces. Skirts , seat and flaps are still attached. Note the four clinched nails holding everything in place. These are the ends of the decorative brass harness nails showing on the outside. A tack is used to fasten the patent leather of the cantle.
Closeup view:
Front view showing the joining of the patent leather. Note: That is the front of the saddle. The patent leather of the seat is folded under and tacked to the wood tree.
Short steel tacks are also used to help hold everything in position. Note the cutouts for the rein terrets and sliding backband .
Covered seat and skirts. The top of the skirts are skived down to not quite a feather edge and stitched to the patent of the seat. Sandwiched in-between is very narrow 1/8" patent leather folded in half to form a piping trim. They were sewn right sides together and then flipped back to hide the stitching. Seat and cantle leathers are glued down.
Wood and iron braced tree
Back view
Conclusion: I ordered a new tree as I feel this one is too far gone. I expect there will be some seat and cantle modification needed on the new tree . I will post the next part as I get to it. Please feel free to ask questions or leave comments. Thanks for reading!
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