Italian pack saddle - Donkeys & Mules - Donkey & Mules - Horse Community, Horse Pictures, Horse Forum and Information

Posted : 1/26/2010 1:10:10 AM

Hi,

A few days ago a friend gave me this old "basto"&nbsp

ack saddle he found while cleaning out an old barn.
Apart from being a beautiful piece of traditional craftmaship, it seems to fit Nero just fine so i'm definitely going to repair and keep it!

This kind of pack saddle is still very popular in Italy and has been made for centuries with virtually no changes to the basic design, which consists of a tree made from two wooden arches joined together by 3-4 wooden boards per side, and a heavy straw and wool&nbsp

adding, although every maker has his own different way of making it and you rarely find two identical examples.
There are still a few makers that are able to build this saddle to order.
I don't know if this kind of saddle was also made in the US but i guess not.

The "basto" is an extremely bulky, heavy saddle, larger examples like mine can weight 80+ lbs, but due to its large padded weight bearing area, is also really comfortable and allows the mule to carry heavy loads with ease.

The "basto" i have is quite old, probably from the early 1900s judging by the archaic square head bolts used to join the arches, newer saddles also tended to be smaller and lighter and often lack the decorative accents mine has.
It's also a rather well built example, the whole saddle's top side is lined with a single huge piece of soft, strong leather instead of the 3 separate pieces used in most other saddles, and the wooden tree arches are made out of chestnut wood instead of the cheaper fir used in most saddles (which is&nbsp

rone to woodworm)

As you can see, both arches in my saddle are broken, likely due to a mule falling over it, i will need to splice them back together, this won't be easy but it's definitely possible.

in this pic, the bolts that hold the two halves of the arches together have already been removed to disassemble the arches for repair.

The front arch has a previous (bad) repair, it cracked along the bolt holes and someone added this crude steel plate to hold it together.
the croup strap is also missing both buckles and is hooked to the britchen with bailing twine, this will obviously need to be repaired too.

jsoses

Posted : 1/26/2010 6:45:19 PM

Looks great for the horse at this point. Not so great for the rider. Good luck! You have some work ahead of you.

Jimmyhaflinger

Posted : 1/27/2010 12:18:01 AM

There was a variant with the arches hidden inside the&nbsp ';p'

adding that could also be used for riding, it was bulky and really only suitable for walk, but it was nevertheless fairly comfortable as you basically sat on 5 inches of wool,

I actually also have a small rideable Basto in really poor conditions in my actic, with serious woodworm and damp damage, i'm going to restore it sooner or later, it will need a complete teardown and rebuild to replace the arches.

These rideable variants were made almost only in small donkey sizes though, a large mule sized Basto is just too wide to be straddled comfortably.

akyramoto

Posted : 2/12/2010 6:39:22 PM

thats really cool! lucky you!!!

hunterseat

Posted : 2/13/2010 1:45:16 PM

Thank you so much for posting those great pictures! Look what I found!
http://www.sellelambertob.com/en/i/i107.html

Also, you mentioned the bolts but I don't see them. You must have already removed them. What a tease. I'm a hardware kinda gal, too. [ ':D'

]

Jimmy are you native Italian? Your English is beautiful in writing.

Looking forward to seeing what you can do with your Basto!

Jimmyhaflinger

Posted : 2/15/2010 1:15:37 AM

The Basto on that site looks like a really poorly made example, or a badly modded/repaired one.
The padding under this one looks terribly wrong.
Also that website is a bit inaccurate in that Bastos are still made in small quantities by a few specialized makers as lumberjacks are still using mules for logging work in some rural areas.

I had already removed the bolts before taking the pics, the original bolts and nuts had crude square heads instead of the more common hexagonal head, this dates them back to at least the 1910s, sadly i won't be able ro reuse them as most of them were seized by rust and promptly sheared when i tried to unscrew them.

The restoration is nearly complete now, i have already glued the broken arches together using strong bi-component glue, which is also the same color as the wood so the repair is barely visible, then i replaced the strings that secure the outer wooden structure to the&nbsp ';p'

adding, the original strings were rotten and allowed the padding to separate from the structure and fall down a couple of inches when the basto was resting on the ground on its feet (the visible symptom of this failure are the excessive wrinkles halfway down the leather liner as you can see in the "before"&nbsp ';p'

ics above)
Then i carefully cleaned the breastcollar, the croup strap, the britchen and the top leather liner and applied two coats of leather conditioner to them, i also scrubbed the exposed wood parts and applied some furniture wax to them, it looks downright gorgeous now!

I still have to redo some stitching that's falling apart on the rear corner, then it'll be done, pics to come!

Sadly, after glueing the arches together, i was able to see that it's a bit too narrow for Nero, this one was probably made for a donkey, well, now i have an excuse to hunt for yet another Basto to restore!

BTW, I'm a 100% native Italian, but i had relatives in the US so that's why i also write and speak english fairly well.

Jimmyhaflinger

Posted : 3/13/2010 7:00:04 PM

Here's the finished job,
What a difference a thorough brush down and two coats of leather conditioner and wood wax can make!
The leather is now unbelievably soft, smooth and pleasant to touch.

akyramoto

Posted : 3/26/2010 6:39:01 PM

WOW what a difference! great work!