Draft Harness Resto: Breechings

This post tries to fulfill a promise, showing the remainder of the Draft Pair as they underwent restoration.  This is surely one of the most unique harness restos I have ever attempted.  It has involved surprise, beauty, frustration, the glint of gold (a lot of gold, actually) and -- what else? -- a unicorn and a darling pinto Stone Foal!

Picking up where we left off with the Backpads, the next few pix show the state of things on August 11, the day the second gold wire shipment came in.  Up to this time I'd been using stainless steel wire to 'hold' the place of the future gold rings.  This first photo shows the new breeching seat (bottom) next to the old (top), with steel instead of gold for the 4 inner rings (2 visible) on the new.  Everything else -- the lacing, the pins and the breeching leather for this set, and of course the buckles -- is new.

 Note the minor difference in the appearance of the pins.  The old, above, were more silver-colored and slightly smaller than the newer.  Try as I might I could not find the exact equivalent of those old pins.  But I could find an endless supply of nice ones labeled "gold plated," as noted in the last post.  

Carefully I took apart the rest of the harnesses, making decisions part by part as to what to replace.   I have called this job 'unique' and the condition of the leather really has been something I'd never seen before.  Not all of it was dried out beyond help.  Some was still usable,.. but there was little predicting which, until I had the pieces in my hands and could bend them around.  Below shows how the lacing crumbled when I took out the pins.  Taking them out involves "biting from the back" with wire-cutters, removing the cut-off shank parts and then pulling out the head parts from the front with the same cutters.

 Both breeching seats, for instance, had to have all their lacing replaced.  But to my amazement one breeching seat (the leather) was supple and whole enough to serve again.  The other was too stiff and broke when I bent it. 

I'd started this massive job (June 4) with a modest supply of only 2 sizes of gold-filled wire, 20ga and 24ga.  A lot of the 20ga had gone into buckles.  Around July 26 I had a fabulous brainwave when I realized the problem of bare brass rings could be solved after all because I had earned so much at BreyerFest.  I could afford more gold-filled!  What fun!  In a flurry of what can only be described as prideful eagerness I launched off a huge order of 20ga, the most useful of all gauges.  Rio Grande takes PayPal, bless their souls.

 When the 20ga arrived I had a long moment of quiet frustration.  What I'd thought might be 22 was instead 20 and I now had far more 20ga than I'd ever need for the job.  I had blown all that money but now I needed at least two more gauges, 22 and 18.  And the cost!!  Let's just say that at the end of my second wire order I'd spent almost as much on gold as I'd spent on my most expensive Stone Foal,...

 

But oh, the answers that second order gave me.  At last I had a lock on my gauges.  I labelled the little shiny things (why hadn't I done this before?) since my old method of comparing wire to my stainless steel spools had not, somehow, been sufficient for the gold.  If anybody out there has got an AWG (American Wire Gauge) tool they can sell me for a decent price, I'm interested!

Same size 9mm rings, different gauges

 The 18ga opened all the doors.  This was what I'd waited for, what I needed.  After this the work largely became creating rings and replacing the steel ones and the last of the old brass ones.  To be sure, for the largest rings the ga was smaller (above).  But, but, but!  I felt I could not afford 16ga (the old wire had been $1 a foot, the new was $8 a foot), and the 18 was doing a good job.  It was sufficient unto the need.

Breeching seat still with 4 steel rings

This photo shows quite clearly that while 18ga was not a perfect match, it still worked.  Apparently I have my limits, monetarily and labor-wise.

This shot (below) is particularly interesting as it shows the spider, the arrangement of straps distributed across the top of the rump, in the middle of restoration.  You can see the steel "interim" or holding rings;  all straps were renewed, but the patent stayed.   New cruppers, new holdbacks, new everything except for the chafe straps (the shaped patent behind the hip strap buckles)(and even one set of them stayed);  and the mud drops, behind their English brasses.  One mud drop broke its patent, the only time this happened;  I replaced it.

Those mud drops gave each harness its name:  Horseshoes and 3-Crescents. 

 The above also shows how I was making the trace-carrying hooks, featured on the center strap of the spiders.  These hooks were for the trace chains when the horse was being led to and from harnessing-up.  Restoration involved replacing the trace end dee rings and polishing those chain links too.  Speaking of polishing: I cleaned the old patent first with rubbing alcohol, letting it dry;  this was important.  Then polish with a clean Qtip or microbrush.  Then, to really bring out the shine, rub with some kind of oil:  leather dressing, skin oil, whatever.  Even ancient patent took on a shine.

Here's a couple of shots of the overall parts of the breeching.  This first one is the 'Horseshoe' with its spider and kidney drop strung on the backstrap.

This second shot shows the backpad, or harness saddle, having its terret rings replaced.  It also shows one of the traces and the head of another.  I kept the hammered-brass trace hooks but replaced their holding pins on two of the traces.  Amazingly 2 of the 4 traces was still limber enough to serve!  The others were too stiff and broke or cracked under the 'bend test,' and were replaced with new ones.  I had to dig out the stitchmarker I used back then -- I found it in only the second place I looked!

Here's a unique angle, straight down on one of the spiders.  I'm trying to compare the 18ga spider center ring with the original ancient brass one.  A little refinement won't hurt.  You can see the trace chain hooked up on the off side.

 So what's next?  As you maybe can guess, the restoration is finally done.  Today I held a fantastic photo shoot which turned into a parade down my front sidewalk.  Next blog post!  and thank you, as ever, for your patience.

 

 

 

Draft Harness Resto: Backpads

 

These photos show just one part of my Draft Pair Show Harness restoration, the saddles or backpads.  These shots, and this work, took place in June and early July, before BreyerFest.  

The backpad restoration started with finding the original paper patterns, last used in the 1990s.  They were only 1 envelope away from where I thought they'd be!  (All my patterns are kept in paper envelopes.)  Upper pattern = strap piece body.  Lower = uptug.

(Below) This shows why I had to replace the middle layer (strap piece) of one of the backpads:  the strap itself had broken off.  There was a marked difference between the 2 backpads:  One was in much better shape.  The other was, in a word, friable:  It could easily be pulled apart.  Under the stress of feeding through a buckle, it did just that.  :(  Also, note the brand new double-buckle uptug on the left, its leather more matte-looking than the old one on the right.

 

 

Here we see the first steps of replacing the strap piece body.  The small brass 1/8" faceted dome spots have already been transferred to it.  A slit is cut to receive the lace loop which holds down the rein terret ring.  (In the old strap piece, the lace loop is still there.)  The photo shows the stitch which holds down one end of the lace (underneath)... the tip of the needle is pointing at it. 

 Below, the old patent top is held down in place by the new terret lace loop.  The old little domes are still green with 41 years of corrosion.  Amazingly -- one of the most amazing things I learned during this resto -- the patent pieces were still usable.  They were still flexible and strong enough to take the stress of the restoring.  All they needed was cleaning (accomplished with rubbing alcohol and scraping). 

Why has it been so hard to work on these?  It seems to be a pattern of my life:  When I'm not doing tack projects, I resist, I procrastinate:  everything else is much more important.  But when I do buckle down and begin again, I fall in love:  It's so much fun.  I make great strides and desperately don't want to stop --!!  There's probably a psychological term for such retrograde behaviour.  Right now I'll call it 'the tail wags the dog.'  However one explains it, this restoration project has taken wa-ayyy too long,... again,... but it has been tremendously pleasing and a great learning experience.  

Here we see the other stitch that holds the terret lace loop.  The top is held back for the making of the stitch, which hides beneath it.  The extra lace will be cut off soon. 

In this somewhat out-of-focus view, one can see the underside of the strap piece (held in hand).  Those 4 stitches hold down the rein terret rings (not visible).  This surface will be hidden against the bottom layer, with pins, later.

Something which concerns all 3 layers is the S-shaped checkhook.  These were made of heavy gauge brass wire and curled around all the layers, crimped into place and securing the 'sandwich.'  I had to take them out and clean them, then re-install the wire into the original holes and re-squeeze, carefully.

Here we see the re-installed checkhook, the top back in place and, as it happens, a couple of 'stand-in' terret rings.  Later in the process -- like, a month later in August! -- the terret rings would be replaced with gold-filled wire ones.  But that would be easy.  This, here, is the hard part:  cleaning, polishing, replacing and re-pinning the layers.  

The blue plastic tub holds my gold-colored pins.  They are labelled gold plated.  I so hope they are! ... I've no way of testing.  But they've not tarnished in all these years, so there is hope.  Gold truly is the best way to keep corrosion at bay over time.  My methods are not perfect (the cut ends of the gold-filled sometimes turn green), but the green is a very tiny percentage of what it was before.

Below is a view of the pins, which will clinch the 3 layers together.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my skill of pinning, documented in the Guide and seldom used for the past 30 years, had suffered no loss.  I could still easily do it.

The finished backpad, ready for the gold-filled wire.  At this point extra gold was on order but not yet arrived.  (I was about to run out.)  Turn your eyes away from the corroded brass trace hook (I would clean, polish and seal it later) and admire the smooth newness of the backpad straps and uptugs or trace carrier pieces.  (Not to be confused with the mud drops, also called trace carriers.  Those have brasses.)

A bird's eye view of the restored backpad.

BreyerFest took 3 weeks away from work on these harnesses (although they enjoyed the Fest attention very much!)(below, in Room 612).  After BFest, there were innumerable distractions, puttings-out-of-fires and other unpackings before I could get back to work.

The restoration resumed by July 26th with the kidney drops, cruppers and backstraps.  The entire breeching, complete with sidestraps and mud drops (trace carriers) was tackled during the first half of August.  At least at this moment I plan a third post for all those parts.   Still to go:  Traces!  and final testing.

I am dreaming, yes that's the word, of the time when the entire pair is finished and I can actually hitch up the wagon! and take them out for a shoot.  Even I, who've been making model harness for more than 47 years, have discovered new stuff with this resto, and it all makes me want to make more tack and harness.

 Thank you for your patience.

 

Sarah Hartman's Mecate

 Sometimes the most incredible gift comes your way and makes you almost cry from happiness.  That gift was mine this BreyerFest.  That's not the end of the story -- I recently found out the same carrier who ferried my gift also ferried one to Alexey Z.!  His was not a mecate, nor from Sarah;  but when I heard about it I nearly cried again.  

Thank you, Sarah and Danielle.  Oh my wow.  May your kindness someday return to you.

The mule is mine and the bosal, headstall and saddle are by me (TSII);  the mecate (braided horsehair rope reins & lead) is by Sarah Hartman.  The mecate was my gift.  I first ran across this young tackmaker in 2016;  there is a blog post that covers this:  Why I haven't yet entered the BCC  (you'll need to scroll to the end to find her work).  Sarah won the BreyerFest Best Customs Contest tack division in 2023 with a silver Parade saddle, and that's when we must have renewed our acquaintance.  I'd had no idea she'd been as inspired as she was by our discussions.  It is always deeply wonderful when I come across a new tackmaker who shines;  but how even more wonderful, how deeply amazing, to know that the TSII had a hand in it.

Imagine my surprise when Danielle Feldman walked into the Clarion Room 612 and handed me a little pink envelope and a small box.  Within nestled a tiny glasstop metal can:  the most perfect scale-model rope can you've ever imagined, except that it was brilliant magenta pink!

 Sarah had written me a letter.  No FB for her;  she was using old style communication, a written letter, the sort of thing I had used for 15 years before email and about 32 years before social media took over my world.  (She obviously has email, so don't take my crowing too seriously!)  I'm expressing my nostalgic delight in the old-fashioned relief of this form of communication.  I only regret I'm going to use email in the answering;  it's too quick, too handy.  But oh, I am impressed by this tackmaker.

 I've also been impressed by this photogenic mule.  I've rarely had a mule in my herd.  Aquavitt spoke strongly to me tackwise and now I'm glad I listened.  I had a lot of fun getting portraits out of her with this, as you may see in the future.

When the mecate arrived I had just acquired my Other Fish in the Sea Stone Remington.  I was so excited that I put it on him willy-nilly.  In this photo you can get closer to the detail.

Sarah wrote that she used Shetland Sheep's wool for the mecate.  She braided it by kumihimo, the Japanese method of using a disc and bobbins.  If that were not difficult enough, the wool couldn't really take the strain so this ingenious tackmaker blended in some invisible polyester thread.  I never would have found it if she hadn't told me.  I am amazed by this mecate's texture;  it is neither too fuzzy nor too slick, but seems to land perfectly in the Goldilocks zone of a real horsehair rope.  I've explored scale model mecates before: Three Mecate Artists  and I think this particular one falls between the TSII and the Gillespie one.  You could say it's a little smoothward of the hairiest hair ropes I've handled.  It's like awesome.

 

 

Every time I think detailed tackmaking might be dying out, something like this comes along and renews my hopes.  I can hardly express what a privilege it has been to have a hand in shaping these young artists.

 

Happy tacking Sarah!  I shall treasure it. 

The Loot Shoot

 

The Loot shoot is traditional by now, and comes as the final expression of BreyerFest.  Yet I would like to let my audience know that there are a whole lot of other BreyerFest blog post subjects I want to cover, which happened earlier.  It takes several days to recover from this extravaganza, and several more to get the photos downloaded and organized;  and then it takes time to blog!  So bear with me;  and thank you so much for your patience.

I feel my 'take' was small this year.  There was a reason.  It was that I'd fallen madly head-over-heels in love with one mold -- in mostly one color! -- and spent ALL my shopping time hunting ONE HORSE.   This is an almost impossible feat to pull off!  The most amazing part of the story is I didn't find him,... until the last minute,... and then in a very unexpected way.  Many steps still remain to be taken before I obtain him.  Those steps are being taken as I write, so y'-all will have to be content, as I am, knowing he's in the pipeline.

What I possibly got obsessed with was my own ability to focus down on just one horse (a trance state) and thus handle the incredible flood of HSOs that is BreyerFest,...

This bird's-eye view is the most complete, and shows all the loot I could find at the time of shooting.  The cloth items are pony pockets of one size or another.  Of course (why does this always happen?!) something got left out (!).  You can forgive a missed fridge magnet, but maybe not my little trinkets, of which I had at least 3 more than this shows.  Trinkets are tiny animal-shaped gifties, freely given at the least little excuse, and they came into their own this BFest.  Where are mine?  What pocket did they disappear into?  Ah, mysteries -- the mysteries of BreyerFest.  I don't know where they are.  I found one -- the red Dala horse -- but the rest are in the Zone of Unfound Things. *

The art gifties this year were rich.  Both the above red horse images, the Marwari (oh so sorry, not a Teke as I earlier said) on the left and the gilt Fire Horse on the right, were picked up during the Breyer Youth Show.  The bits below the right image are from my friend Heather.  The flower to their right is a product of Jody Powers' Jaapi halters, her attempt to make a Scandinavian-themed saddle pad for Flinka.  (Technically not a gift, but a purchase.)  Pads are new for Jody.  The halter above the tiny Dala is Jaapi's answer to this year's theme.  She did a Aurora Borealis card backing to a halter with reflective green-and-blue stripes on it.  I am charmed!

StarBatCraft gets some free advertising here.  I've admired her videos.  :)   The bags of tiny round iron-on spots, seen at upper left, are more gifts from my tackmaking friend Heather Moreton.  They are precious supplies which I had nearly run out of and knew of no place to get more.  But now I know!  I think Heather dang near holds the record when it comes to giving me gifts merely for visiting.  I am overwhelmed, in a good way.

The Sarah Hartman mecate, which looks like a brown fuzzy rope above her card, is really a fanastic piece of tack, totally unexpected and very detailed.  I should do a separate post on this gift, which falls into the category of former student does good.  It very nearly made me cry, in a good way,...  Until then, here's a portrait of my new Remington wearing a very makeshift halter of it, posted on my FB July 9.

 In a perfect world, such a lovely mecate would have its own TSII rawhide bosal and a headstall hanger made by Sarah.  Hey a gal can dream...!

 

The Stone Arab Foal, a OOAK tag-named as The Flocking Games, was acquired at the Stone Mansion on Friday night.  As I said on my FB, that ushered van shuttle was a lifesaver, given the crowds and traffic jams,... not to mention the weather!  This was definitely a BreyerFest of challenging weather.  This pinto foal is a delightful sunrise color, all reds and oranges and glowing golden yellows, as only Dawn Quick can do.  I have named her First Light, after the first flush of dawn colors.

The Classic Silky Sullivan is for a friend;  likewise the 2 Flinkas.  The four Special Runs tell their own tale, i.e., I had 2 tickets this year instead of the usual one.  You might wonder where the fourth horse is.  It was Wanderer, whom I really liked.  I was giving myself the chance to change my mind and keep a second FireHeart,... but no.  In the end this hard choice was made easy when I visited Resin Renaissance and a dear friend blurted out how much she wanted a Wanderer.  That was serendipitous!  In token of how hard he was to let go of, I didn't open his bag and I charged a bit more than usual.  Still I would much rather he was sold to a friend than a stranger.  Thank you, Danielle Miller.

 The bunny, a companion to last year's bunny, was again made by Tina McCaussin.  Here he is sitting on the first thing I bought at BreyerFest this year:  a book.  I already had this book, The Red Roan Pony by Joseph Lippincott (Lippincott does horses!), but my earlier copy didn't have illustrations by C. W. Anderson --!!  Talk about a $3 bargain,...

 The blue Stone Remington, Other Fish in the Sea, a limited edition of 10 (sorry, not 20 as I told so many!) from Valentines & Villiantines, was NOT purchased at BreyerFest, but DELIVERED at BFest.  I had been making payments since mid-May on this second-most expensive of my Stones.  Many thanks to M. Camp who so kindly let me buy him!  He is indeed my first Remington, the mold I have currently lost my heart to (sculpted by Maggie Bennett);  but he is not the last.  He was a huge help during BreyerFest as I cruised all the rooms multiple times, looking for a red bay or chestnut Remi, as my ISO poster depicted.

I only put up about 3 of these posters.  I was a little embarrassed by them;  I had never put up an ISO poster before.  It seemed so personal, not being TSII or tack business.  Yet I have to admit they did the job--!  Across all of BreyerFest and in the face of 5+ days of hard hunting, it was the poster that made the connection.  This is a sobering conclusion, but only in the face of the rumour that next year's BreyerFest might not allow room sales or posters.  For the record, I think they might be allowed after all,... the pressure will be great.  Marriott Griffin Gate put up with us, why not Marriott Delta?  But we shall just have to see.

 So we come back to my loot:  It is not finished, I still have one horse coming.  On my last BreyerFest day, Sunday, a face swam out of the crowd and claimed she was the owner of one of the horses on my ISO poster.  What are the odds?!  We were in such a rush I could only blurt out we'd be in touch afterwards.  It was the red chestnut in the center of the bottom row.  I will spare you the on-again-off-again adventures of the next 4 days, Monday through Thursday, while we tried to get hold of each another and kept failing.  The sale went through on Thursday.  I am, finally, the owner of two dream horses.  Thank you, Elizabeth.

 It's been an unusual BreyerFest for me.  The tale is not over.  Nor is my love affair with Maggie Bennett's great gelding.  As Hiccup said in How to Train Your Dragon, "There will be consequences!"  

* On Saturday morning the Unfound Zone was revealed to be inside a trinket box.  I'd had a little bureau-top cedar chest for sale, no one wanted it, I was packing my big Sales Box and must have thrown all my trinkets into it.  Duh!!  I'm reasonably sure the pink Triceratops came from Stone and the frog was given by a little girl and her mother who made the rounds of my entire hall, the 600s, distributing frogs of various colors, one to a customer.

 Thanks for reading.

My BreyerFest Posters

 

I don't know why I didn't think of this before!  So many things are obvious in hindsight,... The TSII doesn't put up that many posters at BreyerFest, but there are a couple of new ones this year.  This blog would be a perfect place to "try out" and also "preserve" them.   Speaking of preserving it has long been a secret pleasure of mine to run around very late the last Saturday night of BFest and make off with posters that particularly caught my eye --- they were all going to be thrown away anyway.  Maybe some day I'll post on those,...  For now, I'm including a couple of pix taken in 2019.  These were shot very early in the BFest process, when only a few posters were up.  Let them, now, stand for the potential of future hotels.  Here is another attempt at a short blog post,... to which we can only say, Hah!

 Here is my main poster for 2026, what I'm calling the Big Three.  The three are, of course, my two books.  Written by hand in the middle, not seen here, are the words View a printed copy in Rm 612.

 The back cover to the Abaft is much nicer than the front, I think:

 I have been slowly hatching wishes to "fix up" the Abaft's front cover.  When I have time (again, hah!).  The horse doesn't match the braided borders or the bosal.  My excuse, such as it is, is that the cover was created at the tail end of 3 years of work, when I was really pushing to finish, and it perhaps didn't receive quite the attention it deserved.  It appears to break one of my own rules about model  entries, which is an equal level of detail for all parts.

But it'll do for now. 

Here is a more typical poster, just the kind of thing you'd see rafts of in the halls of the Clarion.  I am planning on hanging up only a few of these, as they are not horses greatly in demand (except for the Blue Note).  [The Wapasha is an etch, no paint markings.]  But this is their tiny bid for glory.

 

The "Rm 612" will be written in the border.

Taken pretty early in 2019

Here is the poster with my personal collecting desires.  Again, I plan on hanging only a few.  It's a stab into the dark, both the idea and the price.  But I've spent many months working up this desire, and my wish has stood the test of time.  

Photo credits:  Stone, K Gino, E Stayner

One of the methods I use to survive BreyerFest is to really concentrate on only a few horses.  Only 1 or 2 will be on my deeply-desired, actively-hunting list.  Last year it was a palomino Stone ASB.  Also, last year was my [second] Stone Half Arab Mare.  One year it was a Breyer appaloosa POA!  Out of tens of thousands of models!?  This year my eye will be tuned for that reaching right forefoot, the ragged-ended tail and the warm color.  No Pony tails need apply!, nor do I want Remi's smooth long mane.  This mold was inaugurated in 2021.  Curiously, five years seems to be enough time for him to accumulate to sufficient numbers to filter down to us garden variety collectors (I almost said bottom feeders).  

The Stone Half Arab mare was the same way for me:  2019 to 2024, 5 years, before I bought one [Sassy].  Similar applied with my Stone Irish Draft, 8 years (2018 to 2026).  The foal took longer.  I want more foals now, fortunately.  This is just one way to collect Stones, but it seems to be the path I'm following for now.

To round out the offerings of Room 612, there will be other model horses, books, 7 Mink pins and a variety of oddments for sale.

"Horses are Cheaper on the Second Floor!!" 

I'll see you there.