Finished: TSII #454, The Gold-Tipped

 The Gold-Tipped!!  It isn't every day I have a shooting session with a saddle that's taken 5 months to complete!  For the occasion I pulled out a lot of different horses, and was amazed at the quality (dare I say) of what I've collected over the years.  This one's my favorite: Indian Silver, by Deb McDermott.  (Thank you Danielle for your patience; yours is coming!)

Most people don't think of the Arabian as a parade animal, yet I assure you he certainly can be.  See the bottom of this post for a clipping that proves it!

Most people think of the Saddlebred as the proper breed for a set such as this.

Granted, we have a lot more molds that are appropriate for Parade class these days!  Here's one from not-so-long-ago for the TSII (remember #450?!):

Rialto!!  commonly known as Independence, by the uber-talented Sarah Rose.

He is an iconic horse for a silver saddle maker.  He's on my business card and address labels, and I'm hoping he can be on more than that.

Silly rabbit!!  Of course a Silver Parade saddle is for Palominos. 

I'm pleased at how many different molds this set fitted.  So far, the noseband has not needed readjusting, or even the breastcollar.

Although I did have to fiddle with the bridle for this one, a Chris [Cook][Nandell] Flint Friesian.  Even here, the face ornaments weren't criminally short!

Another breed few think of as a parade horse, and yet I assure you...

The owner requested this saddle, the 101st silver Parade saddle the TSII has ever made, for Zippo Pine Bar.  As it happens, I'm currently in love with chestnut leopard Appaloosas, so my Rikki Tavi was a happy coincidence.

Finally we get to see the face ornaments, amoung the last features of the saddle to be figured out, and amoung the hardest to build!!  Every saddle has its hard places, and this was one of them.

"New and improved" is not something to be ashamed of in model tack.  This is not a business where the product never changes.  The best tack pieces have elements of pioneering exploration in them.  The tackmaker remembers them because they were successful experiments.  The unsuccessful experiments are lessons learned (sometimes costly lessons) and put to use later.

The Gold-Tipped was begun October 17, 2014, and finished 5 months later, on March 31st.


It is the best Silver Parade set I have built so far.

 Previous blog entries on The Gold-Tipped include Beginning the Gold-Tipped,  Three Strands At Once,  TSII #454's Breastcollar, and TSII #454: Base Assembly.

I want to apologize for not always using a hyphen with "Gold-Tipped."  I have a personal vendetta with hyphens in my own name, so please forgive my mixed feelings on the subject. 

The Hip Drops were among the last parts to be made.  I'd originally thought I'd make the spine bar completely gold.  But that was too much.  "Light touches" were what was called for.  I inserted a gold disc on the horn, used one tiny gold square on top of the cantle, and having figured out what pattern the hip drops asked for, rolled on.
These are exceptionally large, long hip drops.  You have seen that on most of the horses above, they do not fit -- not even on Independence.  Better to leave them off than squish and warp them and hope the judge doesn't see how awful that is --!   In a perfect world, I'd've supplied two sets of hip drops, but frankly I'm pooped. A break is needed.

As the previous posts tell, this set is not a portrait of any real saddle.  Its design is based on and inspired by the real thing; but this particular pattern is wholly mine own.  I was given time enough to work out the kinks, a fabulous gift.  Every part was brooded over, pored over, struggled with until it was perfected.  The blanket is by Melody Snow/Unicorn Woman, and the bit is a Kirsch, engraved and customized.
The pommel (shoulders), one of the most pioneering parts of the whole set, will still have its own post, I swear!

And now:  the promised Arabian Parade clipping.

Candy Maynard gave me this magazine clipping

 This glorious picture, which I have seen (and own) on a Ravensburger puzzle, has been in my parade reference scrapbook for lo these 22 years.  Now that I've digitized it, I see the side words almost certainly say "Masterpieces of Equestrian Photography."  But I have no idea who the photographer is nor which magazine it was published in.  If you know, let me know and I'll credit them!

Strangely,  silver saddle sets on Leopard Appaloosas are rare.  Here's another clipping I've had for 25 years, featuring about the only leopard-app in Parade I've ever seen.

"Photo courtesy Tournament of Roses"

This clipping was published in Horseman's World magazine in 1988.  Lisa Frankland, the customer for whom I did the parade set (1990, TSII #288), gave me the clipping.

Also, since I absolutely can't help myself given our past adventures, what else!  but Rinker!

I also intend to post about Fancy's Hackamore -- long tale that will be!
And on that note,
Happy Collecting!

Finished: Rinker at St George Beach

Over the past week, down in Florida for Spring Break, I finished Rinker.  He has been under weigh (yes, named after a boat!) since November of 2012: two-and-a-third years in the making.  When we last saw him he looked like this:

He was a particularly good entry for Jennifer Buxton's "Seeing Spots" contest, since I was literally envisioning his spots as I cut them!  The peculiar thing about etching, at least the way I do it, is I don't know how it's going to turn out until the actual work is done.  Rinker was created, as the saying is, an inch at a time.
One of the places we visited was the beach at St George's Island State Park in Florida.  The Island is in the western panhandle of the state.

The weather was cool and blustery.  The tide was coming in.

The sea will always be fascinating to us Westerners;  remember I was born and raised in Colorado, and live in central Pennsylvania.  This is the Gulf of Mexico, so the tide isn't much, but it's still thrilling to the likes of me.

There was nobody much out on the beach, which was grand.   I did spot one person walking towards me, so I scooped up the evidence and turned away.  When I turned back he was going the other direction and never returned.  Thank you, whoever you were.

For more than two years, I have not known how that last off hindquarter was going to look.  The inner legs came, one at a time, starting this spring; but the outer off hind was absolutely the last place etched.  By now I'd developed many little tricks and habits in my etching.  I did reverse dapples, tiny-fleck roaning, ring spots, peacock spots and other things I don't know the names of!  Let's confess: Rinker is not based on real horse patterning so much as one artist's personal ideas and enjoyment of the craft.  Oh I had fun with him!

Along the inside of the near hock I couldn't reach with the knife, so it remains chestnut.

His etching was not finished on the beach.  In fact I was deep in a forest tract of Tate's Hell State Forest (I am not making this up).  We each had an hour to ourselves, and I sat on a trailhead bench with my closeup glasses and happily scratched away.  Only two cars drove by; the second stopped and interrupted me, but this time, since he carried kayak racks and our canoe was in place on our car right next to me, the subject of conversation was the canoe and not the horse.  After that I had only two inches to go.  Rinker was finished on March 12th, 2015. 

Here are a couple of glimpses for the detail-oriented:

 Back in November of 2012.  See some Mudflap spots lightly outlined?

 Previous Rinker posts include Etching My Own,  Half Appaloosa,  Chestnut No Longer and Rinker on the Scuppernong.

Back at the beach, I was soon distracted by the waves.  You can tell by the tilt.  And so was he.

He is on a ridge of sand which forms an inner 'lagoon' on the beach.

Now I'm going to try something I've never tried before:  an embedded video clip!  My camera can take movies.  Gotta admit it, I'm starting to take them more and more...  What better subject for an introduction:  horses and water...!  O.K., first thing to say is that the sea does NOT reach the horse.  He stays safe!  never fear!  Forgive my tilting...

But after that he had sand on his hooves.

Future blog subjects should include the shoulders of #454 and Fancy's Hackamore.

TSII #454: Base Assembly

Like so many other TSII saddles, this Parade set is having its share of pioneering tricks and features.  I thought I was reasonably through with complete new ideas, so it was a surprise when the pommel of this set evolved so much that it will have its own post!  Meanwhile, take a look at where "The Gold-Tipped" stands right now.
Above are the tapaderos, remarkable in having one type of silver for the outsides and another for the fronts.  It's not perfect -- those fronts don't bend well, and the offside one's tip is not centered -- but I'm content that they are the best I can make right now.  For one thing, they are tooled on their backs!!  This is indeed rare for me -- it's only happened twice before -- and it doesn't happen with the full scale solid silver 1950s ones.

Here are the fenders:

With the second skirt finished, I could thus lay out everything:

Finally, progress!
One of the things I've learned which I didn't know before (it's truly embarrassing how much I didn't know before!) was that the ring for the hip drops emerges from between the skirts.  This really helps in a model context!  more space for the snaphook!  But, sheesh, one hundred silver saddles hadn't taught me that yet...

The horn took some work.  It has been some time since I've used Galaxy lace.  It has to be hand-cut into long strips for silver braiding, and is notoriously difficult to work with.

I tried to completely silver-tape the neck.  It worked, except there is a triangle of uncovered leather right underneath the cap.  It is still there!  I may have to turn to paint for this particular hole-goof...

As I said, this pommel, or shoulder, was so complex that I took lots of pictures.  I'd never done anything quite like it before.  The silver ovals on the right are aluminum blanks for the pommel caps.
Even now, as usual!  the saddle is advanced from what these pictures show.  To wit, one pommel cap is completed -- shaped, engraved, pinned in place -- and the other one is not!!

Basically the new trick was to eliminate leather for the pommel altogether, except for the underneath and the gullet braiding (the front rim).  No one was going to see it...
This picture shows the pins underneath the front rim.

The wires underneath are structural elements.  In this picture you can see my attempt to patch over that little triangle-hole-goof under the horn cap.  Didn't work!! -- it later fell off.

This is the most recent picture of TSII #454.  Still to go: seat, hip drops, bridle...  Slowly, slowly, we are getting there...

Blanket Collection Part 3

First off let me congratulate Jennifer Buxton of Braymere's Blog for a truly awesome job judging the Winter Photo Challenge.  From my perspective, it was fun, fun, fun!  The best part, for me, was connecting names with blogs.  Many hobbyists out there don't put their names on...

Back to our regularly scheduled blanket review.  You will recall two previous chapters:  Three Strands at Once  (blankets are the third strand) and  My Blanket Collection.   I confess the interest I got in this subject was surprising... and gratifying.  Moving on to the third (and tentatively last) chapter in this most interesting corner of the model horse tack kingdom,  I bet you didn't know Peter Stone Company released blankets too!

This lovely example of a genuine Baker's Curvon Blanket was given to me by a dear friend (thanks Ann!).  Note the logo on the OFF side -- very rare in blankets.  This blanket was in the Stone 2001 catalog.  It's just about the only blanket Stone ever carried... and for only that one year!  But I am aware of one other blanket Stone carried:

These can be found today on eBay, in a bewildering variety of colors.
Of course this is the famous Sleazy Sleepwear for model horses.  I may have put on the neck part wrongly -- it should be underneath the body cover -- but this shows how the whole thing goes together on the horse.  There's no cinch or girth for the body cover, just tight, non-adjustable elastic bands for the hind legs.  The stretchy material is quite snug.  Contrary to what it looks like, the tail bag is not about to fall off!  The degree to which this set fit the ISH is astounding; clearly it was designed for this model.  Although I have seen Sleazy Sleepwear in every color of the rainbow and then some,"rainbow" was the only one I wanted.  I felt one example was enough.

Back to Breyer, here is a standard blanket I've had for many years:

This is Breyer model no. 3955, the Quilted Stable Blanket of 1995, which was carried until 1999.  Sadly it was not carried again in another color, as most of Breyer's Quilted Blankets were.  This was Breyer's first blanket to have a 'tail hood' or little double-thickness flap that stuck out over the dock.  At first I thought this addition was to pad the rear (shoulder padding in people's jackets was a clue) but recently I've come to believe it is indeed for the tail.  This feature is quite rare but can be found in the green Rambo blanket.
(Note that this horse, resincast Victrix, came with interchangable tails, and I simply didn't put one in for this shot.)
Speaking of Breyer blankets, here's the golden oldie, model number 3946:

Seriously customized!!  I put on that big white X; and I shortened the straps too.  Even shortened they still fit the Cleveland Bay!!  talk about adaptable!!  As mentioned before, these three blankets (model numbers 3945, 3946 and 3947, the Quilted Blankets with 4 shipping boots) are the longest-carried pieces of tack Breyer has ever made.  They're still being carried today!!  The magenta version was the first (1990-1993) and morphed into burgundy in 1995.  The red Quilted Blanket has lasted for 21 years, the blue for 20 years; the burgundy was discontinued in 2001, which if you add the magenta equals 19 years.  Wow.

One of the shortest-carried has to be this oddity:

A 1996 BreyerFest Tseminole Wind blanket!!  It has a tiny ink-stamped logo on the near hip, and a satiny sheen to the polyester-like fabric, with dark blue binding.  I must have picked it up at that BreyerFest, but I have no memory of how or where.  The logo words are "BreyerFest 96" with the pinto Sham, Tseminole Wind the Celebration Horse that year.  (The resincast Arab is "Sumara,"  Prosser x Bouras.)

Before we leave Breyer's blankets, one last example must be added:  The 2002 Holiday Special, which was only the second Christmas costume to come out.

I had seen this blanket repeatedly on eBay and MH$P, but until I researched it I hadn't realized it was one of the Christmas Holiday offerings.  It accompanied a whitegrey Missouri Fox Trotter.
There is a big brass buckle on black velcro at the chest, which opens.  The embroidered words are only on the off side.  And no, I'm not planning on leaving it on that horse.  For the shoot, I reached for a very loud-colored and glossy animal -- so that's why you have this Breyer blanket on a Stone.
 : )

For the closing section of my Blanket Collection posts I want to focus on what may be the largest, but least appreciated, source of model blankets ever:  Homemades, by Anonymous.

I am sure everyone's tack boxes fill up with these efforts.  As I said earlier, some homemades are always going to be better than Breyer's, for the same reason great tack is better than Breyer's tack.  I have admired Breyer's fly nets without buying one, but when I saw this I had to have it.  Its darted back and double color binding are very well done.
Here's a close up of the winning entry at the 2012 Intermediaire:

It's possible I was the one to put in the extra hooks and eyes, but the color choice, design and workmanship are original, c. 1980.  The eye and ear rings are from fusible (iron-on) material.  You can't see it well, but the inside linings of the leg bandages are matching beige felt.  Travel in style!

Here's a blanket I've had kicking around forever.  Who made it?  When did it arrive?  No one knows.

But it fits nearly everybody and can be repaired easily, if ever needed.

Finally, a case of non-anonymity.  Mary Lineman made this championship cooler:

It has two white ties across the throat and chest, as well as brow and tail loops.  Accompanying this recent gift was a letter with pictures.  They were so extraordinary I felt compelled to share.

Mary writes:  "As you can see, I too love blankets.  This is my collection from the 1980s that I kept in my bedroom.  I felt every model should have a stable blanket & a halter.  I made all the blankets myself. "
Amazing!!!  This is far more blankets than I've ever collected... or even seen in one place...!

That's Mary in the picture...  She goes on:  "Unfortunately, the blue material 'bled' onto some of the models, so I removed all the blankets:  stopped making them.  They may be in ...[the]... attic or have been thrown away.  I only have 2 left.  They are coolers. One was a championship cooler won by one of my favorite models... a CM Trakhener.  The other was a 'generic' cooler with my stable name 'Mountain Laurel Stables.'  I am sending it to you..."

Thank you, Mary.  It will be treasured.