(hammer tapping) - I cut my decorative cuts like this, see.

I push it away from me.

The right way to do it is like this.

Towards you, and I can't do it that way.

Because I never learned.

So I push it away.

(light guitar music) - [Dave] Rex is a good guy, he's a cowboy, he'd help anybody.

If I have something, a question, I'll run it by him.

Same deal, he'll run things by me, he'll, "What would you do in this deal"?

And he showed me how to carve.

Rex is an excellent carver.

(hammer tapping) Rex and I have been in cow deals, horse deals.

He's the kind of guy, an old time cowboy, he can get it done.

- [Rex] Belts and purses, quite a number of them.

And in fact, that's something I made all the time, and I've made that most of the time.

And then saddles, and what's it called?

Rest collars, I've made several of those.

I always was interested in leather.

And when I grew up occasionally you would find a cowboy that had what they call a hand-carved saddle, and I couldn't imagine how they could carve it.

And I always had kind of a passion for doing it, and I tried with old leather and tried to carve, and it didn't turn out very well.

And so I got the address of a Montana leather company in Butte.

And I just wrote them a letter and said I wanted leather to carve belts and purses and a set of carving tools, and I had no idea what I was getting.

And they sent them to me and I looked them over and kind of decided how they were supposed to work.

(light guitar music) The job is to cut all the parts so they fit.

It's fit on a tree, the tree ordinarily is made out of rawhide, wood covered with rawhide.

And then you've got to form the leather, which is wet, and form it to that tree.

And you do it by stretching the leather and pressing it into place, or in some cases you've got to put gussets in and sow it.

So that's part of they key, is to make everything fit.

And one of the critical parts is the seam of the saddle, which is pretty hard.

Some of the cuts you can only make one time and they've got to fit the first time.

- No shortcuts.

Part of my deal now with these Bronc saddles, is the experience I have.

It's not rocket science, but the rigging's got to be square.

Got to have good trees, good leather, don't take shortcuts.

- [Rex] Saddles are specialized for certain things, and they sit a little different.

Cutting horse saddles are a little bit different than roping saddles.

A good seat, it's hard to describe how a good seat is kind of like sitting in a good chair.

It's hard to describe a poor chair from a good one, but there's a difference, and that's the way it is with saddles.

(light guitar music) I was born in 1928, my family had always been horse ranchers and raised hundreds of horses.

Of course I was always interested in horses, always wanted to be a cowboy like a lot of, everybody always wanted to be a cowboy.

But I had the advantage because I was right there, so if I wanted to ride, go ahead, and we've got this to do, so I would get to do.

And I broke my first horse riding it, I was 12 years old.

(light guitar music) That's where my ranch was, it had been a ranch site as long as anyone can remember.

There was a line camp for some big ranch.

I always, after I had the land, I never lived there, but I always had cattle horses.

And then when I was teaching school, I would go up and work in the summer time and pasture cattle and work them out there, and that was a lot of fun.

High school rodeos came along and I got involved in that, and so my son and daughter both got involved in that.

People knew about it and then they would want their child to get some help and then they would come to me.

From then on, I had kids that I helped, every year I would help one or two.

From then the kids are gifted because they learned a little something about riding, whether it's roping or whether it's working cutting horses.

- [Dave] I asked Rex, I said, "How many kids have you helped rope?

"How many kids have you helped in cutting?"

He says, "I don't know".

He didn't know there were so many of them, he didn't.

I would say, realistically, he's probably helped 50 kids cut.

And even today, he helps those high school kids that has a horse, high school kids that can ride.

- [Rex] I just like to ride, always liked to ride, and liked horses.

It's something I like to do.

So I've got patterns in what I do with them.

See I cut them out here.

This is a technique a lot of them don't use, but I cut them out here.

And then when I do it, I just tip this over, and I've got the bare leather wet, and I pound it down and I put the pattern on here.

I guess practice, like anything else, it's practice, practice, practice.

And you've got to have a little artistic ability to layout the patterns and make them work, or you can buy patterns.

And then the secret is working a swivel cutter, swivel knife.

- [Dave] Rex for his age, has been a lot of places, done a lot of things, and is still going, and still living that lifestyle.

He gets up in the morning, he goes out, feeds his horses, or he goes to his place out in the hills.

He don't sit down, he's always going.

(light guitar music) - [Rex] I did pretty much what I wanted to do.

And like I said, everybody wants to be a cowboy.

And I do those things, and I think the western way of life describes how this country was settled and formed.

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