Returning from the summer holiday break with a collection of photos showing how easy it is to put a Wow saddle back together. ;)
We've had our Wow for a long time now. Bought it for our first horse, Jack. Quite different in conformation to our boy over here...
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| Jack |
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| Our Big Pony |
However, true Wow style it could be made to fit our Big Pony. Had to change the normal size panels to extra big ones and pull out the back y-girth strap out and shorten the back of that back-attachment, but it was relatively painless considering that then the saddle fit like a glove. Personally I would never get any other saddle after this one. Been thinking of a VSD or a GP saddle for him, but now I'm more and more convinced to just buy another set of flaps for this seat... It really isn't too tricky to change them - and make an altogether different type of saddle of it.
Anyway, why I'm here reassembling the saddle is because one of the head plate nut retainers broke loose from the seat just a month ago. As I said, the saddle is relatively old, so it's really no wonder if these things happen at this stage. We bought it second hand maybe 7-8 years ago. The FTE people in England were extremely helpful and we sent the seat away to them for repairs. Really efficient service and they had enforced both sides of the head plate nuts as well as given us all new bolts for the whole saddle! And it didn't cost much either... and they did it fast; even with the transport from Sweden to UK and back, it was done in just about 2 weeks. All good! Extremely happy with their excellent service. Will not hesitate to contact them again, if any other problems occur in the future.
Ok, so here we go! I decided to assemble the saddle on the bed, since it's a nice and big surface as well as being soft...
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| Seat is there upside down with one of the flaps beside it, and the other flap and the panels are waiting their turn. The head plate is already screwed in. |
First thing to do is to screw the head plate on the seat. By far the easiest to pop it in now. (Sorry, didn't take photos of putting that on - but you can see the head plate on the front of the seat in this photo still uncovered by the leather covering.) Next thing is to attach the flap.
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| I popped here the bolts on through the holes in the flap. |
Put the bolts through the holes that you are using in the flap and screw in.
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| Here both of the bolts are screwed into the seat. |
After you have bolted the flap in the seat comes the panel's turn...
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| Placing the panel on top of the flap... |
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| Screwing it all in. |
Pop the bolt and the end-screw through the holes and tighten.
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| Turned the saddle around to check on it. |
Sooo, I turned the saddle around and realised that I had used a wrong back-hole for my flap... Good to check these things...
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| (Btw, here you can see what I meant with pulling the back girth strap out and shortening the back strap of the y-connection... It helps in our case to fit the back of the saddle better on our horse so that the cantle is not moving at all. You can have the same type of an effect with an H-girth. ) |
Ok, so it was easy to just undo the back-bolt of the flap and move it one up. Did not have to unscrew the panel.
Next pop on the other flap! Just the same way; screw the two bolts in the seat.
And then attach the second panel. Here a bit more illustrated on the fact that I first attached the panel with the bolt...
And then moved the back screw into place and screwed it tight. And only after that did I proceed to tighten the bolt properly.
Tadaa! The flaps and panels are secured.
What remains to be done is to bring the flaps and panels together by the head plate area. Here you see that I have already done the left side while right side is still undone.
Ok, so the attachment on the panel...
...goes through first the front girth attachment...
...and then through the flap hole...
...to attach into the seat with a bolt.
DONE!
And a photo from underneath.
So, that's how easy it is. Took me in total about one hour to assemble the whole lot. And I think next time I'll be quicker now that I know exactly how to proceed (I had to puzzle a bit...).
Ha, took it to the stables and fitted it on our horsey... and had to change the head plate to two sizes bigger one... haha. Had put nr. 2 head plate on and actually the nr. 4 was the best fit. Oh well, it was now relatively easy as I had the knack of it.
Worked wonderfully again! Maybe some minor adjustments will be needed to the airpanels (pumping the back panel up a wee bit), but it's pretty near to perfect at the moment.
