Replacing flair with flocking in wow panels?

Slightlyconfused

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Just a musing this morning after speaking to a friend.

Can you replace the flair air bags with flocking in the wow panels?

A friend likes my saddles but her horse does do cair or flair (have tried multiple time and bad reaction each time) so we was wondering if it could be taken out and replaced with wool flocking?
 

ycbm

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The panels open with a strip of velcro along the entire length, she could flock it herself if she wanted and can get the wool.

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SpotsandBays

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Not specifically Wow saddles but I was taking to my saddler about a different brand that I now can’t think of the name of! She said she could replace the cair with flocking.
 

Slightlyconfused

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I know you could do it with the Bates.


Thank you.

She has seen a nice jump for a good price so will speak to her saddler.

Does this mean that technically you don't need a wow fitter once its flocked and can use a normal sms?
 

ycbm

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Yes you won't need a wow fitter, but a lot of us buy a pump and do them ourselves anyway, which is way better than periodic fitting by a saddle fitter if you know what you are doing, and with most horses it's not rocket science.

.
 

Kernalgrain6

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Hi, can I ask you how your horse reacted to the air panels? I have a wow saddle which I bought for another horse which I have now sold, but I have a tb who has a harry dabbs flocked saddle which fits him. I love the wow saddle so was thinking of getting it fitted to the tb, but I broke my leg last year and I am very wary of any adverse reactions.
 

SpotsandBays

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I know you could do it with the Bates.


Thank you.

She has seen a nice jump for a good price so will speak to her saddler.

Does this mean that technically you don't need a wow fitter once its flocked and can use a normal sms?
Ahh Bates was the one I was thinking of! I’d give your local saddler a call. I’m sure they’ll be able advise
 

ycbm

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Hi, can I ask you how your horse reacted to the air panels? I have a wow saddle which I bought for another horse which I have now sold, but I have a tb who has a harry dabbs flocked saddle which fits him. I love the wow saddle so was thinking of getting it fitted to the tb, but I broke my leg last year and I am very wary of any adverse reactions.


I have never had one react, but I never use it without a gel filled cloth or sheepskin/wool. Some of them can feel the airbag overlap. Most who can might wriggle but the odd one will go stratospheric. It's not a saddle I would want to try on a horse which reacts to a change of numnah, for example.
.
 

Kernalgrain6

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I once used a le mieux sheepskin dressage pad and he flybucked most of the way home as the binding was annoying him (it had rubbed a small bit of coat off) so maybe not suitable for him
 

Wheels

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I know you could do it with the Bates.


Thank you.

She has seen a nice jump for a good price so will speak to her saddler.

Does this mean that technically you don't need a wow fitter once its flocked and can use a normal sms?

Has she already had a wow fitter out to tell her what shape tree, what type and depth of panel she needs and what Headplate size is requires and does this saddle meet those requirements? These requirements still need to be met even with flock. Just like any other saddle these things need to suit the horse
 

Slightlyconfused

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Hi, can I ask you how your horse reacted to the air panels? I have a wow saddle which I bought for another horse which I have now sold, but I have a tb who has a harry dabbs flocked saddle which fits him. I love the wow saddle so was thinking of getting it fitted to the tb, but I broke my leg last year and I am very wary of any adverse reactions.


Mine is fine with it.

Though they had always had wintec cair so in away had experience with air.

The flair is softer, it sometimes seems if its not got enough air in but its working properly. The cair is quite hard in comparison.

All I can advise is to maybe see if you can borrow one and then lunge in it?
 

Slightlyconfused

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Has she already had a wow fitter out to tell her what shape tree, what type and depth of panel she needs and what Headplate size is requires and does this saddle meet those requirements? These requirements still need to be met even with flock. Just like any other saddle these things need to suit the horse


She is planning on getting a wow fitter out to demo etc and then take it from there but she doenst want to be beholdant to one company for fitters. The fitter she is thinking of has the the classic range but she doenst like the fact that you can't change the flaps etc like with the flair.
 

Wheels

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That fitter will still highly likely be trained to fit the Competitor even if they dont have the demo saddles (it is very expensive to gather all the demo kit needed to be able to fit a variety of horses, especially if you are fitting difficult to fit types that need something more specialised) The flaps are less important when it comes to fitting the horse so as long as the fitter can let your friend know the correct seat, headplate and panels then that should be ok. The flaps are really rider specific rather than horse.
 

Maeva_03

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The panels open with a strip of velcro along the entire length, she could flock it herself if she wanted and can get the wool.

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Hi, I have a flair saddle (not from wow) but the air bag broke so I want to flock it with wool, and don’t have tons of money to do it… how would you go about flocking a saddle by yourself?
 

SpotsandBays

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Hi, I have a flair saddle (not from wow) but the air bag broke so I want to flock it with wool, and don’t have tons of money to do it… how would you go about flocking a saddle by yourself?
Oh please get a professional to flock the saddle! You want it done properly otherwise you could damage the saddle, or damage your horses back in the long run
 

Baywonder

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Oh please get a professional to flock the saddle! You want it done properly otherwise you could damage the saddle, or damage your horses back in the long run

^^This - a million times over!

Please do not attempt to do this - only have your saddle assessed and flocked by a professional and competent saddler or saddle fitter.

If you try and do this yourself, yes it will save you money initially - but the problems it may cause will undoubtedly cost you much more to rectify. :(
 

ycbm

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Hi, I have a flair saddle (not from wow) but the air bag broke so I want to flock it with wool, and don’t have tons of money to do it… how would you go about flocking a saddle by yourself?

Unless you've had years of experience with fitting saddles, you wouldn't.

You can take the airbag out and find the leak. They actually repair really well with superglue, I had one last for many more years. Often it's a hole in the pipe where it's been creased inside the panel for too long and you can just cut the pipe shorter.
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ycbm

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Please don't recommend DIY, even I don't do full strip flocks as I don't have enough demand for me to "keep my eye in" and refer them on to bench saddlers.

It wasn't meant as a serious suggestion though I can see it reads that way, sorry. It was meant as a 'yes it can be done and a saddler should find it easy' but I was very clumsy how I wrote it. Nobody who doesn't know about stuffing saddles could get hold of the skeins of wool that's used, could they?
 

sbloom

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It wasn't meant as a serious suggestion though I can see it reads that way. It was meant as a 'yes it can be done and a saddler should find it easy but I was very clumsy how I wrote it. Nobody who doesn't know about stuffing saddles could get hold of the wool that's used, could they?

By hook or by crook...and I'd guess that anyone might be able to open a trade account with a supplier if they had an equestrian business.
 

Darkly_Dreaming_Dex

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Please don't recommend DIY, even I don't do full strip flocks as I don't have enough demand for me to "keep my eye in" and refer them on to bench saddlers.

And us bench saddlers are very happy to remove any type of airbag and replace with flock but it is important to properly balance the saddle and it will also bed down very fast and possibly unevenly so it is also really important to have a breaking panel in plan with a follow up visit in the first 6-12 weeks I find
 

Maeva_03

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It wasn't meant as a serious suggestion though I can see it reads that way, sorry. It was meant as a 'yes it can be done and a saddler should find it easy' but I was very clumsy how I wrote it. Nobody who doesn't know about stuffing saddles could get hold of the skeins of wool that's used, could they?
Probably gonna replace the air bags by a saddle fitter and sell after since I’m not a man of this saddle anyway
 

Maeva_03

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Probably gonna replace the air bags by a saddle fitter and sell after since I’m not a man of this saddle anyway
*fan not man ?‍♀️ Btw for people that were worried I’d do it it was highly unlikely that I would’ve been dumb enough it was more out of curiosity since someone wrote that
 

ycbm

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Probably gonna replace the air bags by a saddle fitter and sell after since I’m not a fan of this saddle anyway

Cheaper to get WOW to sell you a new airbag if you can't stop the leak on the old one. Changing an airbag really is easy.
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