Progress Report 6: Rinker's Hackamore

After nearly 3 years you can be forgiven for perhaps thinking this massive project would never be completed!  Yet as of May 18th, Rinker's chapter is done, the 7th of the 8 pieces.  His hackamore actually has 2 chapters, as both Fancy's and April's Hackamores had before him.  However, Fancy's and April's had their bosals split off,  while Rinker had his mecate split off.  In all honesty he should have had his bosal split off as well -- it was so long and complex, ultimately coming in at over 70 photographs and 3 Plates! -- but his mecate was even more long and complex.  You see, mecate-making isn't braiding at all, but miniature rope-making,...  Yes, Rinker's Hackamore has been quite a challenge for me.  When you count up that I've been working on it since the third week in February, you can see I'm actually speeding up.

At this point I can focus on what's left better than what's been done.  What's left is the last piece, Tissarn's Mechanical Hackamore;  also, there's the back cover, the front cover, the frontispiece, and a mass of what's euphemistically called "editing" and rewriting.  I'd call it bringing up to snuff.  As might be expected, the whole book has undergone considerable evolution over those 3 years.  An entire blog post, if not the book's introduction, might look into those changes.  Oh yes, and there's also digitizing and uploading!  but those are separate beasts.  

At the moment I'm drawing a sigh of relief and looking up from an all-absorbing but hard-fought grind, kind of like a bear emerging from a difficult hibernation.  Advertisement?  Sales?  How about a bosal for auction!?   Such a bosal you never did see:  Every millimeter of its making has been exhaustively documented and photographed, examined, described, drawn and preserved for posterity.  It's amazing how much psychic oomph is in that little thing.  Except that I'm keeping the original Rinker's bosal, of course;  this bosal is merely a copy.  That there will be untold copies in the future is something my mind thinks it knows while my heart cannot begin to comprehend such a thing.  At some point children must leave home and their parents know not their future.  

Rinker's headstall was comparitively easy to describe, given how much has already been covered in this not-done-yet book.  His bosal, however, was very new.  The first two bosals to be covered were 4 bight;  his was a 3, and that meant a lot of changes.  This was just the beginning!  Both sets of side buttons, upper and lower, were different from April's or Fancy's:  the upper were irregulars, which meant nearly a whole Plate just for themselves;  the lower sidebuttons were a new formula, again calling for a separate Plate.  Rinker's heel knot was also very new, being an 8P 5B instead of the more usual 7P 6B, which is easily raised from the Pineapple.  I had included this formula on an earlier Plate, then changed my mind;  then changed my mind again, and used it for his.  The changing-of-minds about various aspects of this project seemed to take larger swings and become more common as the book went on.  Even now I need to rewrite Fancy's chapter and take out complaints about enlargement of the nosebutton foundation:  What I was tempted to use for hers but fought against manfully (and windily excused myself for), I wound up using for his.

Interweaves are zigzags in braided buttons.  Well, this book has more than a few zigzags!

The book's methods of documenting tackmaking changed when it came to Rinker's bosal.  The 'ingredients,' as it were, and layout of the contents of each chapter, evolved.  In the beginning, there was no "list of ingredients" or materials for each piece;  there was much less coordination with what had gone before versus what was to come.  There was also a smaller list of what was to be included.  This is one place where the book has really shifted:  I am sorry to announce there will be, after all, no inclusion of edge-braiding, which I once promised.  Nor of braided medallions, nor of any kind of braiding on a Western saddle.  😞  The book must stick to its 8 pieces of headgear, and (aside from braided rings) they have no edge-braiding.  It's as much as I can do to squeeze in what's there-!!  The inclusion of all the asides, the galleries of pictures, and the Interlude -- which covers braided rings, hobbles, curb straps, braided connectors and other peoples' rawhide bridle parts -- is more than enough to make up for the lack.

The book has experienced misison creep on a larger-than-Trad scale.  I think you will not be disappointed with what it covers.  If you get through this, braided Western and even Peruvian will be quite within your grasp.  Every picture in this post will be in the book, ... (note the little numbers in some);  we're up to 300 as of this writing.  There's one more chapter to go.

 This is my Covid baby.  Yeah, yeah, way overdue and extremely late, like nearly all my tack projects;  like my FB reactions;  like my very life, it seems, sometimes.  Not Done Yet, even now!  But pause and celebrate one of its major milestones with me.  There's a light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't a train.