hey guys I've had a lot of people asking how I covered stirrups and they're kind of complicated and you can spend a lot of time building syrups and they're just just what they are you've got lots of parts lots of time so they're not my favorite thing to do but they really really look good on especially on the rope inside or something like that almost all the time you're going to have to cover them so if you're interested in learning how to cover these stirrups watch this video now go through the entire process on what I use and and how I cover all you will need a stirrup plate for a sewing machine or you can sew them by hand so if you don't have that or don't have a sewing machine which most people most people do but if you don't you can sell these by hand and they're not that bad it's not like someone's skirt or something but but all if you are someone a sewing machine you will usually need a stirrup plate and I'll show you what that looks like in the video but it's just got a riser on it and so that when your sewing machine raises your material up and you can basically guide that stirrup you're actually hitting that quill stirrup in there as you're sewing along that's really the only thing special that you're going to need as far as tools go would be that unless you're going to sew them by hand also on my stirrups winter up wherever I build them I use almost solely I use metal stirrups and they're just to me the blanks for them are the best they're the cleanest I haven't had very many issues with stirrups over the years maybe had three or four broke out of 300 subtitles I've only had three or four these strips break and it's usually from an accident or you know something like that that works falling on an aerial or getting caught in a trailer door or something like that but they're syrups don't have the metal binding on them like the stirrups you get from Weaver and some these other companies which those are fine I have no problems with those and that bonding actually gives them a little bit more strength but I prefer the cleanest of the actual final stirrup without that metal in there and so you're going to do that without the metal metals would be the only one that I would recommend because they know how to build disturbs their way out of wood where they won't break because that metal binding it actually helps balls in there so anyway I'm going to show you this video or in the video how to build these stirrups I think you'll enjoy it like so they are a little bit more complicated than most people realize that they get into it but hopefully my way is a little easier and something that anybody can give it a shot and try to cover a pair so let's check out the video and let me know what y'all think ok so here's all of our stirrup outside pieces now these pieces you're going to have two for the inside and two for the outside so one for each stirrup and I only tool the outside pieces and there you can see my nettles blanks and like I said they're in Madisonville they make a really nice clean all wouldn't stir up there's no galvanized binding and all the parts glue really well now that there is my tooling window pattern and basically whatever stylist errupted you're using that you're going to cover then I just trace the outside of half of that stirrup so that I know where the edge of my stirrup is going to be I put just a little mark right there as it turns under so I know where to stop my tooling then I'll take my stirrup outside piece and I usually come down about an inch to lay that pattern and I'll put that and I just kind of Center it up on my pattern so if you're doing a bell stirrup or something that pattern is going to look different but you're just simply just tracing the outside edge of the stirrup and that line that we draw on there that's going to be where the tooling needs to stop so if you're running a border or you're doing anything like that all that's got to be within those marks so you can see there the pattern covers my tooling completely and you're going to stitch right outside of the tooling there so if you're going to use a border or something don't run your border outside of that line so here I've just got my second outside piece for the other strip and I've chased it and now I've car first one first it's usually what I do I'll draw one side carve it up let it dry real good and then case the second one for the other stirrup and I go ahead and put them together and just make a I'm just kind of checking it before I move and make sure I hit everything good enough and so as you can see they're not my patterns completely trans for the other side you're going to do a brand or something you'll have to you know make adjustments or maybe use tracing paper okay so here we've got our liner pieces and I use a three to four ounce lining leather or vege ten leather you can go a little bit heavier but the heavier you go the harder it gets to actually cover with these liners on the inside of the stirrups and there I'm just skiving down the very bottom edge and you'll see why here in just a minute but I just take that down to a nice feather edge right there along the bottom of them now I'm just going to put my stirrup on there and I try to keep you know an inch inch and a quarter somewhere around the top make me a mark where the bolt is going to come through and then Center that up and I just punch a number 10 hole that's just big enough for that carriage bolt to fit through there and we'll kind of put it in and you see how much I've got at the top and we need quite a bit so we can form it around that stirrup and here I'm just putting glue I'm going to put a little on all of my liners and I'm going to put it on on the inside of the stirrup so I basically do the inside of the stirrup and then the edge the outer edge of them all the wood all the way around so as I pull that leather down around the shape of the stirrup I want to stick really good so I'm going to do this and I'm going to do two good coats leading to letting these coats drop the coat dry in between once those coats of glue have dried really good on the liners that I'm going to take two of them at a time I'm going to put them in my sink and get them nice and wet and then I'll take a paper towel and dry that dry all the water off of the glue if you put glue on first and then let that dry and then put in the water it'll actually the glue will maintain its its ability to stick and so then you can still case up your your work and not have wait time in between and as I pull that on there I'll start there at the bend of that syrup first and kind of stretch that in and then work the sides and as you can see it's sticking really really good to the side the edge of the syrup and to that top we need quite a bit of that to have enough room to come around there then I'm just taking my rub stick and just working out any wrinkles and getting a good rub there on the wood so that that leather sticks really good everywhere and be sure and get a good a good contact there in that well where the syrup bins bins around and that way it doesn't try to drum across areas that leather dries so it's really important to get good two good coats of glue on here so that it'll stick really good so we're using we put those liners in there we're using that hole that we made for the bolt to go through just lining that up with a hole in the stirrup and you've got to get your pattern set so that as you bring that around inside there that you want them to overlap in the middle of the stirrup so where the tread would go we want to overlap as you can see in that stirrup there there there are 11 now where they overlap that's why we skies the bottom of those liners down is said as they overlap it doesn't make a big bump right there in the middle of the stirrup where the ball of your foot will be and I'm just going to put my bolt back in here and this kind of takes a trick you'll have to kind of figure out your way of doing it but once you get it kind of going in there and put all your washers back where they're supposed to go and that kind of thing and we're going to put the nut back on where and I tighten it down as tight as we can get it that pipe or conduit spacer in there should keep you from over tightening that but just keeping on your liners that's pretty thin and when you get to really cranking on that nut sometimes it will try to tear through the liner so just don't shove that washer all the way through now I'm going to take my bolt cutters and I'm going to cut any excess of that carriage bolt off as close as I can to the nut and then we grind them down I grind it smooth to the to the actual nut so it's smooth and then I come over to my anvil and I'm just going to go where the nut and the bolt meet inside there with a nut screwed on I go ahead that's ground down real smooth I go ahead and take a painting tool and just put me some peanuts are where they meet the nut and this will kind of mush it out and keep that nut from just wiggling off over time okay so these are the two blank outside pieces for our stirrups and I'm just going down where that nuts going to be because that nuts thicker than the carriage bolt side or the other head side so I want to kind of make a little well for that nut to sit next abysm bowls out as much now kind of the same thing we did for our liners we're going to put glue on our tool tool outside pieces and our two two blank in outside pieces we're going to put glue all over them and put glue all over the wood outside of the wood of our strip and our liners have good glue on them so you don t worry too much about getting glue on them because they should be still really sticky but I want to get two good coats on all the outside pieces and the wood now here when you've got tooling on there you've got to work to try to figure out a system for you for me I can kind of sight down and look and I'm looking at my tooling and as I'm looking down there I'm just trying to line it up and the tooling should match the stirrup shape because that's what we use as our pattern and kind of takes a little practice to get them stuck and lined up I suggest kind of barely putting them on there just enough and then checking them with your kennel pliers just make sure they're lined up with the outside of your stirrup and the tooling is straight before you press everything down because that glue two coats of that it's going to be really sticky and if they're not where you want them it's going to be really hard to get them off and then I just cut straight across down the middle of the stirrup and now we're going to glue that on there go ahead and press it all in now I'm gonna take those outside pieces and remember we skived a little area there and that's for that that nut so it has a place to sit there so that it's not causing quite as much of a bump you're still going to have a pretty good bump compared to the other side but this kind of helps it to lay a little a little bit flat and then I just use the one we just put on I use that as my marks and draw a line and then cut this other side so that they meet up you want to try to cut this as straight as you can so that when you glue that down those two that seam right there is as straight and tight as it can get so that that way you don't have any kind of opening in there it's over time that will show through your tread foot going in and out of there then I like hammer it down really good and make sure that now we got that leather stuck to the wood really good and then I take my candle pliers and get a good crimp all the way around I'm bumping the ankle stirrup as I go in so I know this will also leave a mark on the outside you can check your tool in with that mark make sure that you're not crimping over the top of your tooling as you can see we're lined up pretty good okay so here on my sewing machine you can see that stirrup foot it's just that plate is just raised up enough so basically takes up the thickness of that stirrup and so when we so our stirrups we're just going to shove the syrup in and basically the stirrup will right on the outside of that foot and then if you hold a little tension towards your machine on the on the actual material or the stirrup you can just ride it all the way around and it'll it also exactly where you want it which is basically just following the contour of your stirrup if you're doing a bail stirrup or something like that sometimes you got to be a little bit more mindful but on these Roper stirrups it's pretty well straight line so you just got to hold it up against that plate like I said you can sew them by hand it's just it's pretty handy if you can get a plate for your machine if you do have a sewing machine and usually the plates are 150 bucks but they're well worth it just sew all the way around and one one swipe now here I'm just going to cut my stitches I try to start an end the bottom of my stirrup because I'm gonna cover any of that over stitch with a with a tread so you won't see those and you can see how much excess I've got on my stirrup you always want to leave yourself plenty of feather now I'm going to cut that off my machine you can set calipers calipers to follow around your tooling and set you a cut line my machine is kind of handy actually I don't like the presser foot because it's kind of big and bulky but on this stirrup when I'm sewing stirrups it's actually pretty help handy because it leaves kind of a light presser foot mark on there and one it's a walking foot so the inside foot it actually leaves a mark that's perfect distance away from my stitches that I want to cut so that's the line I'm following there I'm not just freehand and that I'm actually following the marks my presser foot left on there they're not bad marks it's just just enough where I can see it and it helps me to cut those out and you may have seen another video that we did that shows you how to put stirrup treads on so I'm not going to go too deep into that and we'll go pretty quick but I'll put a link in the description for that video if you haven't seen it yet I do show you exactly how I put my treads on let's start with my half inch lace with a bag punch in the end and I've got my treads there some saddle soap to put on the lace now these stirrups have all been sanded edged and slicked and dyed I do that to all the stairs those treads are one of the last thing that we put on there so I do all the all the edge work on them so they're ready to go and like I said we there's a another video that's a little bit more expensive on how I actually do this but we're just fitting the tread my tread pattern is a little bit oversized so it'll fit almost all the stirrups that I that I cover I don't have to make any adjustments I just cut off the excess and make them meet up and I'm just making some new cuts as you can see there I leave a pretty good gap in there I leave a probably 1/4 inch space in between where my treads meet so when I pull that lacing tight for the stirrup tread it'll it'll pull it together and it will keep that tread nice and tight on the bottom of the stirrup and I like to use saddle slope it just seems to help your your lace run through the leather a lot easier and allows you to get it get that lace pulled down tight so that it's snug and your stirrup tread if you do leaving kind of loose at Serb trade once it gets broke in and it won't take long that stirrup treadle just it'll be able to kind of walk all over that stirrup and I don't know if it's dangerous but it's sure annoying when you're riding in a saddle with a stirrup tread that's loose or tor or something like that is pretty annoying you so these are our boat covers all they do is protect your sharp leather from the metal of the bolt that's going through your stirrup so I just glue mine on I don't put a rivet or any kind of lace or anything all they're doing is they're just to cover that metal and that's plenty I really hope this into this video was informational if you got something out of it if you did if that like button and the subscribe button if you haven't already to get more videos that we turn out if you know somebody that might be interested in it which I appreciate you sharing this video on Facebook or Instagram or shoot somebody a link let them check it out we have more videos coming up if you've got any suggestions or you got a problem that you're having in leather work and you want me to kind of go do it if it's something that I can be better off doing a video of that's way up and kind of doing it more questions I get around once courses on how to cover stirrups so I made a video that's kind of what I'm feeling so if you've got anything it is hit up on our email address and choose a choose an email put YouTube Q&A in there and that way I'll know what it is and we'll try to get some more of those going thank you all very much