Saddle prototype

[Moorefieldc]

Got some free time after work to make a couple changes to the saddle design.            

[Moorefieldc]

Heres it on my buck im gonna shorten the legs up 2 inches 
   

[Nanno]

Looks like you also need to tighten up the angle of the front fork. See how the saddle is pointing downhill in the front? It should sit level across your goat's back. Otherwise it's looking pretty good!

[Moorefieldc]

Looks  like you also need to tighten up the angle of the front fork. See how the saddle is pointing downhill in the front? It should sit level across your goat's back. Otherwise it's looking pretty good!

I just threw it on him to see how it looked length wise. I'm gonna try and get the side boards cut out and shorten up the crossbuck "legs" tomorrow after work.

[Moorefieldc]

I got the rest of the saddle parts rough cut this morning and weighed them and I think the weight of the saddle looks promising! That's with 11x8 side boards that still need cut down to 11x5 and skeletonized and the angle plate and legs need to be cut down with more machining to the legs and I'm going to taper the cross bar down in the middle I think I can get it down to 6ish.            

[Nanno]

Looks like you're having a lot of fun!

I still think you need to re-examine the angle of your front fork though. Shortening the length of the fork ("legs" as you call them) will not change the angle, and neither will adding sideboards. If you look at the photo of your tree sitting on your goat, you can see that the front fork is right down almost pressing on his withers. It should have more clearance than that. The front and rear forks should have similar clearance above the spine so the saddle sits level. I wrote an article about saddle fit a few years ago if you're interested. You can read it here:
https://www.goatorama.com/wp-content/upl...itting.pdf

I love seeing the progress you're making! I hope your saddle turns out awesome!

[Moorefieldc]

Looks like you're having a lot of fun!

I still think you need to re-examine the angle of your front fork though. Shortening the length of the fork ("legs" as you call them) will not change the angle, and neither will adding sideboards. If you look at the photo of your tree sitting on your goat, you can see that the front fork is right down almost pressing on his withers. It should have more clearance than that. The front and rear forks should have similar clearance above the spine so the saddle sits level. I wrote an article about saddle fit a few years ago if you're interested. You can read it here:
https://www.goatorama.com/wp-content/upl...itting.pdf

I love seeing the progress you're making! I hope your saddle turns out awesome!

Once it's done it'll be sitting higher. It was also falling off to the other side because he kept moving. The end of the forks will be be somewhere between a 1" to 1.5" off of the side boards so that'll bring it up off of him also. And then the padding to go under the side boards will bring it up also just a tad.

[Nanno]

Once it's done it'll be sitting higher. It was also falling off to the other side because he kept moving. The end of the forks will be be somewhere between a 1" to 1.5" off of the side boards so that'll bring it up off of him also. And then the padding to go under the side boards will bring it up also just a tad.

Yeah, I took that into account before making my comment. You can take it or leave it, but my observation is that adding side boards and a pad will lift both the front and back forks an equal amount. That means your saddle will still be angled downward with the load sliding forward into your goat's shoulders. The saddle should sit level or it won't fit right. Now is the best time to address these issues. It's much harder to fix poor saddle fit with padding than to make the tree fit from the beginning.


Edit: I just now remembered that your goat is quite young and he will grow a lot and most likely widen out in the shoulders as he matures. That often happens (although the back of the ribcage often widens out as well). Saddle-fitting on a young goat is very imprecise.

[Moorefieldc]

Got some more work done on the saddle. Just some more cutting and drilling and it'll be read for some pads and straps.                

[Nanno]

Exciting! Can't wait to see it in action!