TSII #430 Finished

 

TSII #430's rebuild and restoration was finished June 11, 2022.  The job took just under 20 hours spread over a month and a week (start May 3), which, although terribly slow, is far from our slowest.  Alas!  May and June have been extremely busy (read: distracted) for this tackshop.  However, the worst does seem to be past.

The owner of this little gem of a saddle was kind enough to send me a photo of it in its natural setting -- on a Stone Pebbles on her shelf.  Thank you Jeanette Eby, who loves longears (can you tell!):

Photo by Jeanette Eby

It is very satisfying to see TSII tack pieces on other people's horses.  They almost always look better than on my own horses, hah!  

Here are some more pix of #430, one of only 5 TSII silver Parade saddles built in this scale of 1:18:

I think some of these made it up on our Timaru Star II Model Tack FaceBook page.

Here's a close up of the Near side:

And one of my favorite tack views, the seldom-seen but always-useful BE, or Birds Eye:

Honestly, model horses must have some kind of inferiority complex.  We are always looking down on them.

The corona blanket here was made by Unicorn Woman (Melody Snow).

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So what's next, now that all our tack orders are filled?  June was retirement month -- an end to a 36 year career.  That was the busy and distracted -- little else.  (Not counting the psychic cost of continued isolation and evasion weighing ever more heavily on ageing folk.) (We are both still healthy.)  A retirement is a huge change, something that happens only once; it's not unlike getting married in the first place... though in this case, both participants are still just as much in love.  :)   While he expands his online birding, wargaming and trip planning, I am deciding to... work on the next book.

No tack orders will be taken for at least a year, or until the book is finished, whichever comes first.  I should have started on it when Covid-19 hit, but apparently I needed more than 2 years just to finish what was in the tack pipeline.  :0  An inventory of drafting materials reveals 20 pens, 8 bottles of ink, 4 pads of drafting vellum and enough triangles to outfit an army.  :)  Three finished plates, several finished chapters, a huge Scrapbook of potential chapter subjects, drawings and braided button formulae and a place on my computer just for this project, make up the balance.  I've done this before; it's more than time to get this one into reality.  It's only been 25 years since the Guide was published!!  Besides, I feel like I'm starting to forget things.

 As I've long predicted, working on a book about Braidwork for the Model Horse will undoubtedly generate braid pieces.  Such pieces will probably be available for sale (if I don't fall in love with them).  You'll hear about them on FaceBook and here.

I'm also thinning down my collection, partly for funds and partly because some have to go if others are to come in.  I am deeply grateful to Margaret Loesch of The Grey Woods Cat, whom I call my pet Breyer dealer.  If you see some weird horses in her eBay store, they might be mine.  Thank you Margaret!