Back to basics of the saddle

Hidden in the hills of Ohauiti is a man whose passion for a vanishing craft goes to the heart, and bottom, of the rough-and-tumble American cowboy.

Warren Wright uses centuries-old techniques to painstakingly fashion the hefty wooden foundation of the traditional Western saddle.

He is part of a disappearing breed still working fulltime handcrafting the foundations, or trees, of Western saddles. By his last reckoning, there were only five people left in the world and he was the last one still using traditional tools.

The romanticism of cowboys is not lost on Mr Wright whose workshop features a print of a classic action-packed painting that perfectly captures the importance of a good saddle to bring down cattle.

It shows in vibrant detail the authentic relationship between the cowboy, his horse, the lasso and the saddle with its distinctive horn to snare the rope.

Mr Wright is very big on authenticity, right down to the tools he makes himself because you can't buy them any more.

His dedication to a craft perfected over 43 years means he is in big demand by saddlemakers, particularly those from North America where cowboys still bring down cattle using methods immortalised in classic Hollywood westerns.

"I've got a pretty good eye. I've just got to make sure that both sides are the same," he says as he whittles the front piece of a tree using a drawknife and spokeshave.

Recycled douglas fir is the wood of choice and Mr Wright has had his stocks replenished by Tauranga demolition contractor and recycler Malcolm Tweed.

Mr Tweed has just finished demolishing a part of Mount Maunganui's folklore - the old Peter Pan Dance Hall building, latterly Assault surf shop.

Mr Wright left the family's Ohauiti farm in 1969 to apprentice to a saddlemaker. From there, his interest quickly expanded to making saddle trees. In the 1980s, he made what was almost a pilgrimage to the United States to watch the master in action, the legendary Bill Severe.

"I sat and watched him make trees - it was great education."

His workmanship has gone global although most of his trees still end up under the butts of cowboys on the North American prairies. Interestingly, a couple from his last batch are destined for South Island sheep and cattle stations.

"I don't advertise. When you've been in the trade a long time, everyone gets to know you."

He has forged strong friendships with some North American ranchers who were intrigued to meet the Tauranga treemaker, loyal to the old methods.

Mr Wright enjoys the lifestyle because each saddle tree is unique to the measurements of each customer, and at the end of each day, he can see what he has achieved. The other good part of the job is that all the paperwork is handled by his wife, Lana.

His reliance on the quiet and efficient tools of yesteryear carries through to the final stage in the process of making a saddle tree - covering it in rawhide.

Once again Mr Wright does everything himself, using methods unchanged for at least 150 years. He soaks the pelt for 10 days in a lime bath and then takes it back to rawhide with hairing and fleshing knives.

"It comes out beautifully clean."

The next day he sews the strips of hide on to the trees and leaves them outside to dry. Trying to find out how much money he makes from each tree is like trying to draw teeth - he will only say it takes him about a day and a half to make a tree and cover it in rawhide.

Mr Wright, 59, has been passing on his craft to a 35-year-old Aucklander, although he has no intention of retiring.

"I hope to be still making saddle trees when I am well into my 80s," he said.