Web Saddle Girth: Pointed Leather Chapes and Safety-Bar Buckles (Hasluck, Saddlery, 1904)

"Saddle girths (Figs. 12, 13, and 14) are made of linen, worsted, or union (that is part linen and part wool); they are also made of raw hide, whipcord, and plaited brown leather. It is, however, more common to employ the first-named material."

Cut the web 3 ft to 3 ft 6 in long. Get girth buckles with safety bars across them. Cut the chapes pointed at the ends, swelling out at the sides and growing narrow to the width of the buckle at the top, where they bend.

Stain the edges of the chapes. Turn in both corners of the web to meet in the centre, run a stitch through them to keep them down, and cut a little off the extreme point.

Tack the chapes and buckles in place before stitching. Always stitch the chapes round, and put a straight line in the centre to keep down the point of the turn-down; only about twelve or fifteen stitches go in the centre.

From **Saddlery**, edited by Paul N. Hasluck, David McKay, 1904 (archive.org saddlery00hasl), chapter V, saddle girths, pp. 47-48; read on the scan. He gives no web width and does not say how many buckles go on each end; his Figs. 12-14 show cord girths, not this web girth, so the picture is our own diagram from his text. One buckle per end in the list, the thread, tools and metric figures are ours.