Horsewright Knives and Leather

[echoscout]

It's here. Reckon I'm happy as can be with this sheep horn Cowboy and both sheaths

 

[The Zieg]

Yes its so true. It really is a lifetime deal. This event actually scored extra for being in the spade and or using a reata to rope. Ya know I think so many folks have their ideas about horsemanship, particularly western horsemanship, from Hollywood westerns, and it just ain’t so. To give an example, Josie will just about run backwards literally off the weight of the reins. Not by pulling but literally by how I hold the reins and ask. All our horse stop and can STOP hard by us stopping to ride. Spudnik will stop so hard that he about lawn darts me and no pulling on the reins. Kinda different than the Duke coming to a stop with his horse’s head on upside down and i luv the Duke of course.

Amen from this congregation in Colorado!

 

[mitch13]

It's here. Reckon I'm happy as can be with this sheep horn Cowboy and both sheaths

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Fantastic!

 

[Sacto]

Ya bet and we did for sure. Saturday night was even busier at the cafe:

That's because Dave Stamey always does a free concert right next door to the cafe Saturday night. This was his 6th year straight doing a free concert at the Skills:

We've seen Dave in concert many times and he never disappoints. It was a great time. So Saturday night during Dave's break there was a Calcutta auction for teams made up of the pros. So we ended up going in on a team with some friends. Funny thing then I find out that I will be judging the pros, oops. It worked out in the end as my team kinda had some problems (and this can happen any time when cattle are involved) and so me judging it wasn't a big deal cause they were kind of out it anyways. Here's a pic of me and the other judge with our scribes and office help judging the pros. I'm in the tan vest towards the center of the trailer.

So then we started packing up as this was the last deal. We had a little bit of time before we had to head over for the awards ceremony. Coolest part? Nichole won the Stockhorse Competition! This kinda a big deal:

Her buckle:

She also won the headwork class in the Stockhorse competition. She won a set of bridle conchos from our friend Casey Hoagg:

And she came in second in the roping class winning a set of rein chains:

And she also won a hatband for a third place in another roping deal.

She won the loot! Here's a pic of our friends too. I call this the Tehachapi Trio from left to right:

On the left with the Horsewright purse is our friend Tammy. She won the Novice StockHorse competition. Next is Kathleen. She won the Novice Bridle Horse Rodear Roping, Tyrin our friend that was a pro and he helped us all get ready for the competition. Finally Nichole winner of the Intermediate Stockhorse Competion. All three ladies are from Tehachapi.

So we got home from the show and it didn't take Nichole very long to get started on a belt for her buckle. This was the first buckle that she's won and that kind of a big deal:

With the pony (Josie) that made it happen.

And her loot:

So we've got some new knives to put on the website. We didn't have time before we left and so they should be on shortly:

Woolcarta

Wild Cherry:

A Paisano with bocote and Blackwood spacer:

Turkish walnut on a Gordo:

A Paisano with elk and jasper:

And more too.

Thanks for sharing the trip with us and congrats to Nichole. She really cleaned up!

It's here. Reckon I'm happy as can be with this sheep horn Cowboy and both sheaths

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Very cool. That’s a nice one!

 

[jfk1110]

 

[Horsewright]

It's here. Reckon I'm happy as can be with this sheep horn Cowboy and both sheaths

View attachment 3015949View attachment 3015950

Amen from this congregation in Colorado!

Thanks for sharing the trip with us and congrats to Nichole. She really cleaned up!

Very cool. That’s a nice one!

Good deal David glad it showed. I know UPS is really backed up on international shipments, there’s a thread on it over on the Bladesmith side of this ourtfit. Great pics on that knife, it really is a striking set of sheephorn. I like your use of the sun Really brings out the texture.

Zieg, yes sir for sure.

Sacto, ya bet my friend! Thanks.

 

[The Zieg]

Good deal David glad it showed. I know UPS is really backed up on international shipments, there’s a thread on it over on the Bladesmith side of this ourtfit. Great pics on that knife, it really is a striking set of sheephorn. I like your use of the sun Really brings out the texture.

Zieg, yes sir for sure.

Sacto, ya bet my friend! Thanks.

BTW, I sent you a PM.

 

[Horsewright]

BTW, I sent you a PM.

Dang if I didn't answer it and then not post the answer. Got er fixed up. I do that now and then. Wrote it yesterday and posted it just now.

 

[echoscout]

Fantastic!

Thanks Mitch

Very cool. That’s a nice one!

Thanks buddy

Good deal David glad it showed. I know UPS is really backed up on international shipments, there’s a thread on it over on the Bladesmith side of this ourtfit. Great pics on that knife, it really is a striking set of sheephorn. I like your use of the sun Really brings out the texture.

Really like the DIW spacer. Works well with the sheep horn

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks Mitch

Thanks buddy

Really like the DIW spacer. Works well with the sheep horn

Good deal glad that's working out!

 

[jfk1110]

 

[Horsewright]

The Mestano is one of my most popular models. It's a straightforward simple little fixed blade. Its what I've personally carried as an EDC for the last couple of years.

Here is one in Wild Cherry:

My daughter was examine my Mestano while we were waiting for dinner at a food truck. Mine is handled in dyed box elder. She was also showing off here Horsewright purse, mom made her.

One in sheephorn:

Mestano is the Spanish word for mustang. Mustangs are of course, the wild horses that roam parts of the west. Recently we took a trip from here in California up through Nevada and into south eastern Oregon. For long time readers of this thread you'll remember back in April we took our colt Mitchy The Kid, Mitchy for short, up to Oregon to be ridden and trained by our son Logan who cowboys in that area. That trip and what Mitchy got to do with upon arrival starts on post 945, page 48 of this thread. We were on a trip to bring Mitchy back home for the winter time.

Mustangs, (Mestanos), alongside the highway in Nevada:

I spotted them from quite a distance away as we're zooming along the road. This area is open range without any fences and is cautionary posted as a wild horse area:

Looked like a mare with this years foal behind and maybe last years foal bringing up the rear. Further on up the road at Walker lake just north of Hawthorne NV we saw quite a few more. Where some creeks feed into the lake there is a marshy area and you almost always see some mestanos there eating the grass or tanking up on the water. Didn't get any pics as these were much farther away from the road.

It's a 12 hour drive from here to there so we drove straight to Burns and met up with our son Logan and his wife Katie there at a pub that had a couple of food trucks. It was a great place and we met quite a few people from the local area. Also met some folks from Washington that were passing through. They were intrigued that Logan was a "real" working cowboy and that we made things that he would use in his day to day work.

The last Mestano in the silkcarta. This handle material is gone. Well there's enough to do one more knife but Nichole called dibs on that one. I'll be starting it soon. Maybe today.

Saturday morning was cold. Logan and I were going to help feed so we left his house well before sunrise for the 3 minute drive to the ranch head quarters. The weather showed that it was 24 degrees when we left with a felt like temp of 11, it was cold! Met up with his boss and the other full time cowboy at the barn and got going. We fed 30 large square bales. Each bale weighs 1200 lbs. That's 36,000 pounds of feed we fed that morning! A huge loader is used to load several bales at a time into the feeder. This deal cuts the bales all up into small three to four inch pieces. It's mixed with some water and a vitamin mixture to keep the dust down. The boss, driving a very large tractor pulling this feed mixer, comes into one of the pastures after we open the gate and standby to make sure the cattle don't try to get out of the pasture while the feed rig is coming. After he comes in the rig starts spreading the chopped up feed in a long straight line maybe a yard wide. As he'd doing that we were driving through the cattle in a side by side, looking for any that might be sick or need doctoring. These calves were already sold and were being conditioned prior to shipping. They are in an organic program and any that have to be doctored are also tagged as they will bring $25-$30 less than those that have not been doctored. The tag tells the buyer which have been doctored (with antibiotics). Logan is very good at driving through and seeing any that might be having trouble. This is repeated five more times as there are six total pastures with calves in them. They are separated by sex and size. There is a pasture for larger steers, one for medium steers and one for small steers. Also one for larger heifers, medium heifers and smaller heifers. We finished about 8:30 and went back to the house for breakfast. He has the weekends off but when they are feeding like this it's seven days a week. But after feeding he's done for the day on the weekends.

Elk on this one:

Sunday morning we did the same thing but it was warmer at 34 degrees when we left the house. I took a few pics. If ya look close at this one you can see a white thing in amongst the cows. That is the feeder being pulled by the tractor. This pic shows you the vastness of these pastures. Did center there is a clump of trees and that is Logan's house. There's another larger closer place by one of the irrigation pivots on the left but that's not Logan's.

Looking back towards headquarters:

The cattle line up alongside where the feed has been spread and this makes it great for Logan to check them.

A Mestano in Osage Orange:

Bout time to ge feed on this outfit, more later.

 

[RLB0414]

The Mestano is one of my most popular models. It's a straightforward simple little fixed blade. Its what I've personally carried as an EDC for the last couple of years.

Here is one in Wild Cherry:

My daughter was examine my Mestano while we were waiting for dinner at a food truck. Mine is handled in dyed box elder. She was also showing off here Horsewright purse, mom made her.

One in sheephorn:

Mestano is the Spanish word for mustang. Mustangs are of course, the wild horses that roam parts of the west. Recently we took a trip from here in California up through Nevada and into south eastern Oregon. For long time readers of this thread you'll remember back in April we took our colt Mitchy The Kid, Mitchy for short, up to Oregon to be ridden and trained by our son Logan who cowboys in that area. That trip and what Mitchy got to do with upon arrival starts on post 945, page 48 of this thread. We were on a trip to bring Mitchy back home for the winter time.

Mustangs, (Mestanos), alongside the highway in Nevada:

I spotted them from quite a distance away as we're zooming along the road. This area is open range without any fences and is cautionary posted as a wild horse area:

Looked like a mare with this years foal behind and maybe last years foal bringing up the rear. Further on up the road at Walker lake just north of Hawthorne NV we saw quite a few more. Where some creeks feed into the lake there is a marshy area and you almost always see some mestanos there eating the grass or tanking up on the water. Didn't get any pics as these were much farther away from the road.

It's a 12 hour drive from here to there so we drove straight to Burns and met up with our son Logan and his wife Katie there at a pub that had a couple of food trucks. It was a great place and we met quite a few people from the local area. Also met some folks from Washington that were passing through. They were intrigued that Logan was a "real" working cowboy and that we made things that he would use in his day to day work.

The last Mestano in the silkcarta. This handle material is gone. Well there's enough to do one more knife but Nichole called dibs on that one. I'll be starting it soon. Maybe today.

Saturday morning was cold. Logan and I were going to help feed so we left his house well before sunrise for the 3 minute drive to the ranch head quarters. The weather showed that it was 24 degrees when we left with a felt like temp of 11, it was cold! Met up with his boss and the other full time cowboy at the barn and got going. We fed 30 large square bales. Each bale weighs 1200 lbs. That's 36,000 pounds of feed we fed that morning! A huge loader is used to load several bales at a time into the feeder. This deal cuts the bales all up into small three to four inch pieces. It's mixed with some water and a vitamin mixture to keep the dust down. The boss, driving a very large tractor pulling this feed mixer, comes into one of the pastures after we open the gate and standby to make sure the cattle don't try to get out of the pasture while the feed rig is coming. After he comes in the rig starts spreading the chopped up feed in a long straight line maybe a yard wide. As he'd doing that we were driving through the cattle in a side by side, looking for any that might be sick or need doctoring. These calves were already sold and were being conditioned prior to shipping. They are in an organic program and any that have to be doctored are also tagged as they will bring $25-$30 less than those that have not been doctored. The tag tells the buyer which have been doctored (with antibiotics). Logan is very good at driving through and seeing any that might be having trouble. This is repeated five more times as there are six total pastures with calves in them. They are separated by sex and size. There is a pasture for larger steers, one for medium steers and one for small steers. Also one for larger heifers, medium heifers and smaller heifers. We finished about 8:30 and went back to the house for breakfast. He has the weekends off but when they are feeding like this it's seven days a week. But after feeding he's done for the day on the weekends.

Elk on this one:

Sunday morning we did the same thing but it was warmer at 34 degrees when we left the house. I took a few pics. If ya look close at this one you can see a white thing in amongst the cows. That is the feeder being pulled by the tractor. This pic shows you the vastness of these pastures. Did center there is a clump of trees and that is Logan's house. There's another larger closer place by one of the irrigation pivots on the left but that's not Logan's.

Looking back towards headquarters:

The cattle line up alongside where the feed has been spread and this makes it great for Logan to check them.

A Mestano in Osage Orange:

Bout time to ge feed on this outfit, more later.

Soundsand looks like a great time despite the temps.
Thanks for taking us a long

 

[Horsewright]

Soundsand looks like a great time despite the temps.
Thanks for taking us a long

It was a great time, Ya bet. Ya know on the temps deal, it was kinda funny. Even though it was much warmer when we fed Sunday morning at 34 degrees, I got cold on Sunday and didn't the day before. Weird. Must of been dryer when it was colder.

So Sunday after feeding and having breakfast we went over to the barn area and Nichole saddled up Mitchy while Logan saddled up Raymond, a young horse of his. Raymond is actually a year older than Mitchy but hadn't had as much riding. He'd been started back in the spring but he was small so Logan didn't ride him till he was bigger. So the plan was Logan would ride Mitchy for Nichole showing her what he could do. Then he'd coach Nichole on riding Mitchy for a bit. After that he'd work on Raymond and put a ride on him and Nichole would keep on riding Mitchy as a support/confidence horse for Raymond. This is kinda how we avoid bronc rides with a young horse. Logan coaching Nichole on a turnaround:

Here's Nichole on Mitchy and Logan getting ready to swing on.

It all went very smooth I don't actually have any pics of Logan on Raymond as I'd switched to video. It was cold and windy that day and we were kinda bundled up. Here's Nichole on Mitchy. We made the reins in use here and the headstall that holds the bit in Mitchy's mouth, as well as the curbstrap underneath his chin and Nichole's spur straps.

This was after Logan had stepped down but we'd made the same items for him too.

We put the horses away and went back to the house and watched football. There was a beautiful sunset that night.

We got up early headed over to the barn and caught Mitchy up, loaded him into the trailer and hit the road about 6 am. Made that long 12 hour drive back to Tehachapi. Didn't see any Mestanos on the way back.

Did ya know that the Mestano is just a scaled down version of the Cowboy which over the years has been my number one biggest seller?

Me on Mitchy before he went to Oregon. Logan had said he'd had a big growth spurt and he did we could see that but we didn't realize how much till we got him home. He's now the tallest horse on the place.

You got any pics of your Mestano? Post em up!

 

[echoscout]

Glad y'all got to spend some time Logan amigo

 

[echoscout]

I'm a big fan of the the Mestano. Very handy knife. Got three of'um in my Horsewright herd

 

[jfk1110]

Always great to see where and what you've been up too........

Thanx for bringing us along...

 

[Horsewright]

I'm a big fan of the the Mestano. Very handy knife. Got three of'um in my Horsewright herd

View attachment 3029732

I knew ya had several but didn't know how many. I think one of the special thing about this design is the wide range of hands it fits. From small hands to big hands that teardrop handle seems to work well for everyone.

Always great to see where and what you've been up too........

Thanx for bringing us along...

You bet!

Working on a new batch right now. Will be putting the bolsters on today.

 

[echoscout]

Dave I'm curious. Some of the wood you use has an interesting back story. When I saw the wild cherry Mestano I was wondering if the wild cherry has a interesting back story?

 

[Horsewright]

There is indeed a story there. Had an internet friend and customer. He owned a gunstore in AR and would buy my knives wholesale for his store. Ben was also a cattleman and had cattle on two separate leases. We would email back and forth about feed conditions, techniques of working cattle etc as well as business stuff. Ben had a cabin in the hills that he would use for hunting or weekend getaways sometimes on horseback and sometimes on foot. He travelled quite a bit for hunting going to many of the western states.. I made quite a few knives for him and his family over the years as well as leather items. He'd gone on a buffalo hunt some where and killed a large bull with a Sharps. He had the hide tanned into a buffalo robe but had the taxidermist boil down some of the bones and I used them for knife handles for some of his knives. A few years later he killed another buffalo and after having the hide tanned he sent it to me to make a pair of wooly chaps and also a pair of hair on horn bags.

Anyhoo onetime he sent me a box that had a few small pieces of wood of different species Osage Orange being the most in the box. But he also had wild cherry from near his cabin and domestic cherry from his home. Very similar woods but still different with the wild cherry being much more subtle in coloring and grain patterns than the domestic. A wild cherry Mestano is above in our discussions on Mestanos