Jim Frank Goes to Saddle School

In small-town Colorado, next to the Rocky Mountain State Park, is a tidy saddle and leathercraft shop owned by Dusty Johnson, master leathercrafter. Anyone who has picked up "Leathercraft" magazine or attended a Wild West Arts Club international convention will know Dusty. He's the snappy dressing man with the beautiful wife and the silver holsters. He makes and sells chaps, holsters, saddles, spurs, books, and videos. He's also the man singlehandedly leading the pack of private saddle-making schools.

Pleasant Valley Saddle Shop is located on the same little ranch as Dusty's house, the stables for two "pet" horses, Dusty's  wife Sharon, her therapeutic massage business, and Dusty's collections of . .   . collections. The shop is located just outside of Loveland, Colorado, USA.

After knowing Dusty through the Wild West Arts Club for several years, Jim Frank decided that he had to attend this saddle school. Already owning a mini-leather workshop in his own house, the deep knowledge from building a saddle from scratch was too good to pass up. So, after some deliberation with this very kind-hearted wife Lauren (the one writing this article), he had himself placed on the Pleasant Valley Saddle School waiting list. Just his luck! He only had to be on the waiting list for 6 months. He attends in early February, 2000.

Left: The stables behind the saddle shop, Feb. 2000

Next to several display saddles, traditional Western decor, tools, books, and Dusty's collections, Dusty (seen here left), and Jim (seen right) finish up work for one of the days.

Dusty's workbench is an extraordinary array of punches, dies, stamps, and tools. These tools are set up so that even blindfolded, Dusty can reach out for the tool that he needs.

Left: All tools are kept in custom-stamped tool-keepers, ready for any project. The workshop is kept neat and tidy, so that a piece of work can be attended at any time.

Jim and Dusty lay out the necessary patterns on the leather hide.

The saddle tree is roughened to accept glue for attaching each piece of leather. Although Pleasant Valley Saddle Shop teaches traditional saddle making, Dusty Johnson had developed his own style which leads to more comfort of the rider, and better durability of the saddle.

The cut patterns are applied onto the scraped tree, and the edges are shaved in areas. The leather is very thick, so even shaving is not thinning the pieces down too much. More leather will be formed in certain areas to create the perfect seat shape for the Jim's needs.

Jim continues working under Dusty's direction. His 8-hrs per day school schedule requires that he study Dusty's saddle-making video and read through Dusty's books to keep abreast of each day's lessons. Here Jim works on one of the beginning stages of the saddle, doing some shaping and conditioning of the cantle.

The layers of leather are seen on the pommel. Note the stitching is seen from below, and the layers are uneven at this time.

Jim shaves off the uneven pommel layers to create the perfect circular shape. Already the saddle has ended looking like a rawhide base and is forming up to look like its intended Western appearance.