His family tree is carved out of leather. The family business–King’s Saddlery–was started by his grandfather, Don King, who is also widely renowned as the creator of the Sheridan Style of tooling. His father, Bruce, taught him the value of hardwork at the family business. His Uncle John along with notable leather artist Jim Jackson showed him what went into crafting and tooling a saddle. And for the last 28 years, Barry King has been handcrafting mallets, mauls, swivel knives and stamps out of his six-employee shop in Sheridan, Wyoming. 

We really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. We here at the ILJ hold the heritage of the craft in high regard. Coming from such a diverse background with the family Saddlery business, your grandfather Don King creating such an influential tooling style, and now with your own maker’s mark on the industry, what was it like growing up? 

(Laughs) Well, there was a lot of work involved. I started working for the rope company [the family business] and the saddlery when I was about eight years old. I was doing a lot of the rope work the first couple of years, because for a kid that’s about all you could comprehend. Then I got into leather work at about 12 years old and then started tooling leather at age fourteen.

And that was what I did there for my job at King’s for about 10 or 12 years until I went out on my own. During that time, when I was tooling leather, I was working with my dad, John King, and Jim Jackson. John and Jim are the two main influences on me learning how to carve and learning the tooling aspect of it.

I had two of the best teachers in the world 10 feet away from me, so the learning curve was fairly quick, a lot quicker than most people.

Did it ever feel like you had to go into the leather/saddle business or did it come naturally to you?

We always had a job if we wanted it. That was the key thing. You know, my parents said you can always work for the family company if you want, but you don’t have to. But for me, I enjoyed working there and doing the leatherwork. 

During the time I was in high school, I took a machine shop class and the instructor helped me make a few tools because he did a little bit of leather work. So when I went in there and said, hey, I want to make this stuff, he was all excited because it was of similar interest to him. You know I still talk to him to this day quite often.

What I needed to do in the class I had finished for the whole year by Christmas break, so I’d have all spring to do some leather work and make tools and some other stuff I wanted to work on.

I’ve only been tooling for a few months, but I enjoy it immensely. At times though, I have had to create my own bevels or backgrounders because I just didn’t have them and still don’t have all the tools I need and although they were very rudimentary, they worked–well, sorta. What is the reason you started creating tools and how did you make it into what it is today? 

You know, my grandfather was making tools but he was just a one-man shop. So he made a few here and there, but it wasn’t a full-off production. I started making a few of the mauls out of necessity for what I needed for leather work and I was using them there at King’s and then Jim Jackson ordered one and my uncle ordered one. I made hammers and mauls specifically for three or four years. After making the hammers for a few years, sales started to level off and I knew there was more I wanted to do. So, I started making the stamping tools and got them nice enough to where I wanted to put my name on it. Basically I wasn’t gonna put out a junk product or substandard product with my name on it. It took me about a year to get all the tools cleaned up enough to where I could sell them.

In what ways can novices and seasoned vets continue to promote and encourage growth in the industry?

It’s a lot about the teaching of all the different aspects of leatherwork, that’s why a lot of the trade shows are so important. Because it’s a gathering of people that share ideas plus they also promote a lot of the classes. It’s the sharing of knowledge to get people to do better work or even get started. That’s a huge aspect of it continuing to have the leather shows with the classes involved.

After looking back on some of my first tooling pieces, I realized that the experienced craftsmen that I showed them to were lying–in an encouraging way–when they said it was good, but it gave me the confidence I needed to continue to learn and practice. What ways can we all motivate each other, not just in leathercrafting, but in life? 

I mean there’s ways to encourage people even on the bad work. It can be a simple, ‘Hey, you know, maybe try this next time’ or something like that. But it also takes people who are doing the work to look at other’s work and realize that they need to improve or they can improve to get to that next level.

So it takes some personal knowledge or a realization to know that they need to get better. As far as motivating someone else, I would say try it first and if you like it, then let’s get you going in the right direction. 

What is the one most commonly overlooked tool that every leather worker should have?

A sharp swivel knife blade and a bevel. A lot of people are using a dull blade or just don’t know how to sharpen it. Once you put a sharp swivel knife in someone’s hands, it’s a game changer. Get a couple of really good bevels because it really makes the leather pop. 

Mankind will always have a need to hammer something, whether it’s a nail or a basketweave stamp, so I think it’s safe to assume that that line of Barry King products is safe, but how have you had to adapt to the rapid pace of technological change? 

As far as actually using the stamping tools there hasn’t been that much of a change in the last 100 years at least, you’re still beating dead cowhide. As far as the technical technological change for making the tools we’ve really adapted to that on our side. 

We’ve got the CNC machines but we’re still doing a lot of stuff by hand that we can’t do on a machine. I mean, even the filing of the lines in the tools and the checker patterns are still all done by hand and that’s by me. I’ve been sitting here filing on tools for four days straight right now. That’s all I’ve been doing for four days.

But we do have the new machines to increase our production and it took out some of the human errors out of some of the stuff we’re making. It’s hard to get two [stamps] exactly the same by hand but with CNCs, we can do a run of 20 and they’re all exactly the same.

This business, yeah it has my name on it, but my employees have helped me so much throughout the years to keep it going. We all work hard around this place to get some tools built and they do a great job.

We take the old world and combine it with the new world technology and try to make a great tool.

Being a part of the lineage of leather working, what are some of the things you would like to see for the future of the craft? 

It’s growing, that’s for sure and the internet has helped with that. There are a lot of leather workers out there that nobody knew about until they started seeing stuff on Facebook and Instagram. It got people to start doing better work because they were seeing everyone else’s work. 

It’s good to see that it’s growing. You know, 30, 20 years ago, people said that it was a dying art and now it seems to be a growing art again. People look at the Western lifestyle and they really like it, you know, open space and cowboys and all that. People like that Western lifestyle. 

Western heritage is still alive and doing well.

Do you have a favorite item that’s in the Don King museum or in your shop? 

One thing I still use is the first hammer I ever made. It’s got an old cracked wooden handle and it brings back the memory of making it in highschool. I still use that quite a bit. My grandpa gave me the piece of nylon for it. I asked grandpa to make me a hammer and he came down the next day, threw me a piece of nylon and said “here’s a head for it, you’re in the class in highschool, make it yourself.” Even though I made it, grandpa pushed me in the direction of making it and that’s how I got started.

I asked this question in our last issue and I want to start a trend, so what is your worst piece of advice? 

Oohh, I don’t know about that. My best piece of advice would be to make something everyday whether you’re doing leatherwork or at your job, create something everyday.