The Restoration Project

McClellan Tree Preparation - Restoration

IN THE BEGINNING...

There was the tree - the structure upon which all basic strengths and weaknesses of a saddle's design rests. We will focus entirely upon selecting and assessing the merits of a tree "find" and where to begin in your rebuilding efforts.

Before 1896 McClellans were all built on hand shaped wooden trees, with various iron strap reinforcements added. These were usually attached with screws, occasionally rivets, and cut nails.

After 1896, trees were built in a mechanized shop, with all wood parts machine duplicated, and precision joined in jigs with screws, rivets and one-piece molded steel arches.

Every tree was painted with a coat of white lead - this is a very important point! The main reason that so many of these trees have lasted until now has been this white lead paint - there will almost never be any insect damage or borer problems. The only thing that tends to really "kill" a McClellan is gross mistreatment (like fire and flood!).

After this first phase of construction, all trees received a rawhide cover, laced on with calfskin lacing. The rawhide was wet (usually having never been allowed to dry out) when fitted and laced, and allowed to dry slowly. The rawhide would shrink considerably as it dried, making a tough, tight cover that firmly binds all the parts into a cohesive single unit.  (Dogs like to chew on them too, so store 'em high!)

After the rawhide cover was allowed to thoroughly dry and shrink, it was usually coated with at least one coat of shellac, sometimes more, to make it much more impervious to water. If the rawhide was to become soaked again, it would loosen up, and on drying out shrink again, pulling at lacing holes, etc. If this happened repeatedly, lacing, stitches, mortice holes, etc., would eventually give way opening large gaps in the rawhide cover.

After this rawhide cover was in place, the leather cover was sewn on. In most saddles made at the Watervliet Arsenal (1870s) and Rock Island Arsenal (after 1880) the seams were machine sewn.  Handstitched covers would have been made by company saddlers previous to this time. This is probably the most maddening of all the places where McClellans need work, as most leather, harness, and shoe shops don't seem to have the expertise to stitch McClellan covers.  There are a number of ways to do this part of the job.  The easiest is if you have the old cover to make a pattern of.  If you need a new leather cover, don't worry, just be prepared to do quite a bit of the initial preparatory work yourself - its not that difficult, just tedious.

The leather cover served to further protect the rawhide from extremes in moisture. If the seat were soaked, the leather would absorb a good deal of the water, with a minimum getting to the rawhide - also, if the rawhide did get wet, it would dry very slowly (water dissipating through the leather cover) which would minimize the damaging effects of repeated expansion and shrinkage. It also made a much more presentable saddle than the old rawhide versions of the civil war. But, it was certainly no more comfortable - riders still had to use a pad of some kind for comfort.

Over this leather cover would go the usual rigging, mortice plates, rings, etc., that made up the fittings of the McClellan.

For this project:

I'm going to use assume a candidate for restoration that most people will be likely to find. In my area, these types of saddle remains tend to go at auctions or fleamarkets for about $10 to $40 each, depending on how nasty they are - if they're clean enough for someone to hang up as a "decorator" item, they go for a little bit more.

The candidate will usually have a very dark, over-oiled appearance to the leather, which is usually totally dried out, hard and cracked all over. Most of the seams will be stretched or ripped out by the shrunken leather cover, which will also tend to have nicks or small holes that are opening up wider by the shrinkage. The rawhide will usually be fairly good, except for fatal gaps in numerous places along the lacing seams, usually around the cantle, and stirrup loop areas. Stirrup loops, especially the brass variety, will likely be nearly cut through by the brackets holding them, or are loose or missing entirely.

Some hardware will remain, usually the mortice plates, some footman loops, and perhaps a couple rings and ringholders. If you're lucky, you might be able to get the remains of the original stirrup leathers, rigging straps or coat straps - but that's not very common.

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