A Pony Hackamore

What fun to make a small-Trad-scale hackamore out of what basically were leftovers!  When you want a little freshening up, try a different scale... 

This hackamore is neither for my next book nor for the Lottery.  (The last Lottery winner's piece, a big parade saddle, is percolating along; we figured out the border silver this week.)  This hackamore is a little treat I gave myself in between larger projects.  Its starting point was a leftover fiador (from 2012) and an old mecate.  I found the mecate dates to 2000 - 2001;  it really is 15 years old.  (I made very few in this style.)  The bosal core had been hanging around a few years; I tend to make these basic parts in batches.  But the impending freedom of no more Lottery winners was a real spark... and the presence of all my CollectAs!  whispering:  smaller, smaller, smaller -!!

Both the fiador and the mecate had been put aside as too short.  Why not make a Stone-Pony-size working hackamore?  All I had to do was finish the bosal, put a tail and tassel on the mecate, and come up with a headstall hanger. 

It was more of a struggle than I care to admit, to put a tassel button on the mecate and finish out the tail (quirt).  I was rusty.  It took a few days (Sept 23 - 25).

The bosal was another struggle.  Normally I don't like arrow-shaped color interweaves on the side buttons; but with the smaller size, nothing else looked remotely as good.

I can't seem to leave well enough alone, and experimented with using leather for the core of the heel knot.  It seemed like such a good idea; leather can be easily glued and cut to shape.  But again in the mysterious way of miniature materials behaving differently at these scales, a leather core was wiggly and softer than I wanted.  I should have wired the sides first.  Ah well, lessons learned, and it came out OK.

There is a domed Rio Ronco concho nailed onto the heel end with a pin, an idea from the big guys.

My original plan was to make a flat-braid-decorated headstall.  Braided buttons are my love, after all.  But the fact that most working (training) bosal hackamores have very plain hangers put a crimp in that idea.  Fresh from Ricky's Bridle, the slit-braided headstall base was easy.

But after I'd put in a couple of forehead tassels and a single silver buckle (cast & plated Rio Rondo) with a braided keeper... ... it looked Done.  At this point, unable to resist, I assembled everything.  Lightly decorated?!  You bet!

  My PhotoShopping isn't consistent; this is what the pony looks like without any red.

Now for any & all resincasts I could come up with who fitted!!

This beautiful Arab pony, Sumara by Sommer Prosser, was finished for me (as Poker Joe) by Liz Bouras.

 The headstall just fits under the forelock.  On this hackamore the throatlatch has to be tied, and a pair of pliers helps immensely. 
I love the look in her eye!

This one is Maxixe (p. max-SEE-shay), the Criollo sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn.  Here is where things really started to look good.  Perhaps it's his Spanish blood.

The bosal is slightly curved, to reflect the pressures of the headstall pulling it up and the reins/mecate/heel knot pulling it down.  Forgive the background.

Amazing how well trained he is...

The hackamore will be offered at auction as soon as I can, probably Auction Barn.
Thanks for reading!

Horsehair Bridles, Real and Model

After falling in love with a book on Hitched Horsehair bridles, I wanted to showcase every model example I had ever made or collected, or even seen, that depicts this material.  It hasn't been easy to choose amoungst many pictures of a single bridle I'd made, bridles other artists have made, or pictures of the full scale pieces!!  And I want to share the book too:  Horsehair Bridles, a Unique American Folk Art, Book Three in the Bridles of the Americas series, by Ned and Jody Martin of Hawk Hill Press.  Frankly, this runs the risk of being a long post--!

I have accumulated several e-photos of hitched horsehair bridles over the years.  Some of these are off eBay:

 This one appears to be a page from a book I have (thank you C.R.), Cowgirls of the Wild West, with photography by William Manns:

These two look suspiciously like shots from the Horsehair Bridles book, yet I'd swear they came from online auctions:

 In accordance with a sometimes frustrating precedent, I cannot use the words "mini" or "miniature" when speaking of Old West tack.  When you use that word, you get pieces like this:

A true "miniature" hitched horsehair bridle!!  Much smaller than the full scale item (!!)  but a good deal larger than our scale of one-ninth (1:9).  In practice it's close to a 1:4.  So, I'm using the word "model" in this post...

And this one is a reference that a customer sent me (thanks Christie!).

The earliest piece of model tack that I ever made that was based off a horsehair bridle is this one, the Blue Mexican Bridle.  It was built in 2001 and submitted to the NAN Auction of that year.  Looking back, I can say I was influenced by a visit to an actual tack shop in Nogales,  Mexico.  I bought a full scale Santa Paula bit on the occasion -- I still have it.  (Some day!!)  I showed the man behind the counter one of my model bridles of the time; I can still remember his response:  "A bridle for a mouse!"

Of this bridle, I recall being swept away with the new color and ideas of braiding sinew and floss to get this effect.  The bit was scratchbuilt from sterling, as all my bits were by then.

I was quite carried away.  I took lots of pictures on lots of horses.

Unfortunately no one else shared my enthusiasm, and no requests or even responses came in.  The bridle remained a one-of-a-kind piece of model tack, another example of that crazy TSII's obssession with braidwork.

Four years later, in 2005, one of my good customers entered for a Hitched Horsehair bridle, which I happily abbreviated HHH.  Neither one of us cottoned on to the fact that the reference she sent me was not hitched at all, but braided:  Braided strands of horsehair had been sewn together to make the dizzying black-and-white with brown edges.  I was sure I could fill her wishes.  Did I not have a Juliane Garstka bridle to show me the way?

This stunning piece of model tack had been acquired in 2002 by me during my visit to Germany (and France and England).  It was an elaborate trade deal with Regine Nikolaidis as go-between.  The bit was made by Anja Brethauer.  This was the first time I'd seen actual rawhide used on a miniature bridle (the buckles).  And the cheekstraps and browband gave me a fabulous idea on how to do horsehair.

This is what I came up with:

 It was an enormous effort, involving braided cotton thread for the interior colors. I sewed the strips together with the thinnest of nylon fibres and my tiniest needle.  The bit was made, again, by Anja Brethauer.

And there my efforts rested.

I kept collecting interesting pieces.  Somewhere I picked up another Garstka piece.  In this case the "horsehair", again, braided-and-sewn, not hitched, was represented by a ribbon of fabric.  What a beautiful piece, so full of character:

My friend, Regine, had earlier sent me pictures taken at a museum (?) with some fantastic tack in it.  The Germans were more interested in hitched horsehair than I was.  One of that handful of photos showed this, a saddle with some amazing insets:

Somewhere around 2006, another tackmaker, Kim Smith of FL, showed great ingenuity by printing patterns on a smooth, tightly woven, linen-like fabric, cutting out the strips and using them to depict, in miniature, the same effect:

Photo off MH$P

(I'm afraid I don't know the photographer; if anyone can supply this, I will credit them!)
To date, this is the best effort I have seen to capture the look of hitched horsehair in model tack.

 Hitched horsehair, as opposed to braided-and-sewn, consists of 'pulls' (each one about 10 hairs) wrapped, woven or tied around an armature of very thin rope or string.  The string is then spirally wound about a core, usually a dowel of wood, with the horsehair tying each winding (lap or pass) to the next.  The resulting 'tube' of hitched horsehair must be flattened out before use.  Thus 'hitched' horsehair pieces always come in the shapes of either flat strips (ideal for belts) or of ropes.  Hence the fat cheekstraps, browbands and reins of so many of the "prison bridles" seen.  I'll tell you honestly, I was not taken by that texture very much.  I proceeded to ignore hitched horsehair for many years.  Which does not explain the steady accumulation of pictures and articles about them in my files...

In 2009 I figured out, using twisted thread, how to do a really good mecate.

I was so excited I proceeded to do it again with colors, this time on a bridle.  I called the bridle Candy Stripe.

 This was progress!!

The Candy Stripe bridle went, via a benefit auction, to Jackie Arns.

In 2012 the time came round to fill another order.  This was to be a repeat of the earlier Hitched Horsehair bridle and breastcollar set... for a European customer, Heli.  (Which made the abbreviation HHH even more appropriate: Heli's Hitched Horsehair.)  I outdid myself, if I say so:

Another scratchbuilt sterling silver bit, and silver brow concho.
What was wonderful this time around was I had some real horsehair tack myself.  I'm not sure where I got them (Tucson? Nogales?) but these reins were a big help in doing the model reins:

They were indeed of 8-strand square braided horsehair strips, sewn together into the larger, square-cross-section reins (using nylon, I think, for thread).  I wonder if these were not from the Tucson Gem Show...  hh'mm  h'mm...

And so we come to today (2016), and the Martin Horsehair book.  Here's a link: Hawk Hill Press's Horsehair Bridles book.
In my reading and researches, I'm finding many hitched horsehair bridles that have braided leather for a majority of their material.

photo off eBay

 Just looking at the face ornaments gives me joyful ideas.

photo by Jennifer Buxton

This book is feeling like one of those volumes that has life-changing possibilities for me... as did James Nottage's Saddlemaker to the Stars, about the silver saddles of Ed Bohlin (thank you Eleanor!); and as did earlier braiding books by Bruce Grant, Robert Woolery, Tom Hall and Gail Hought.  Oh yeah.

photo by Jennifer Buxton

And that's not even mentioning Book One of the Bridles of the Americas series, Indian Silver. !!  which I also have.
I see I am under grave suspicion of hypocrisy, for I've just scolded another tackmaker for trying to do too many projects at once.
Let us be grateful we're alive and have our wits about us.  I am grateful to be having this problem, instead of so many others, less susceptible to beauty.


P.S. I'd be grateful if someone could explain why this blog, approaching 50,000 hits after 4 years, is suddenly garnering hundreds of thousands of hits since the end of August... "everybody's so different, I haven't changed."

TSII #381, Kim's Blue

Kim's Blue Prism Tape saddle was restored in January, and I've been meaning to share some of the steps of that process.  The most important (and trickiest) repair was the silver to the plates; I also replaced buckles.  Something not shown is that the cinch was taken all apart, and then re-tied using the same yarn. A thorough cleaning and oiling was also done.  Note:  this is NOT the original blanket; it's just for photos.

This saddle, TSII #381, was built in 1995.  It thus lands squarely in the middle of a decade of Prism Tape saddles that I made, starting in 1989 and petering out by 2000.  This technology was part of the first great wave of improvements in my tackmaking that followed my marriage in 1988.  As is typical with new and flashy effects, prism tape on saddles first appeared on a parade set, #343 (Gerhardt's Green & Gold) in 1989.  I would use it on halters, harness and corner plates.  I liked the effect so much I gave it a fancy name:  Filigree Enamel Inlaid.  The last prism tape parade set in this wave was #421, built in 2000.  In that stretch of eleven years, 78 saddles were built; twenty-one (21) of them were Prism Tape Parade Sets in one form or another (26%).  Another saddle from a year earlier (1987) was redecorated (in 1997) in prism tape; this was #197, the famous Perfect Tommy's. 

Prism tape faded out in TSII tack with the rise of better braidwork, the shaped aluminum spot and with the realisation of silver tape's decaying adhesive.  But it was never common in saddles that were not Parade sets.  In the entire 1990s decade, my scrapbook shows just 7 Western saddles using prism tape on their corner plates.  Two used red, two had pearl and 3 used blue.  This is one of those three blues.  Many saddles from this time are missing photos, and I'm only looking at the photos.  There could be a (very) few others.

The number one complaint is that the silver tape is falling off.
Here is TSII #381 at the beginning of the process.

 The offside front corner silver is peeling.  Not to mention the all-pervading verdigris (the green stuff!) around the pin.  The nearside is even worse:

The silver tape has fallen off entirely, and will have to be replaced.
I started by peeling off the fuzz lining, and unbuckling straps.

(As mentioned, the cinch was completely redone.  I had such a problem with twist!!)  The buckles were relaced with stainless steel.  Below, the old buckle is taken off by cutting the stitches (I find stitches much easier to replace than gluing).  The verdigris is cleaned off with rubbing alcohol and just plain elbow grease and Q-tips and a fid (awl).  Replacement buckles are halfway through getting their Aluminum tubes for rollers, which conveniently hides the ends.

 The new back cinch buckle.

Now for the real disassembly.  (Not every step is shown.)  The seat is taken off by clipping away the pins (the green spots) and taking out the front saddle strings.  OK so I've drawn arrows to all four, even though the rear ones stay in; sorry, put it down to PhotoShop enthusiasm.

I take them off very carefully by unbraiding the slit braids and easing off the conchos.  Each string is labelled as to where it belongs.  Back then, I handmade all the conchos from aluminum, and so a lot of psychic energy is in them.  They had a terrible habit of destroying the strings, due to not having big enough holes.  If a string is broken, I make a new one.

 The silver tape is removed.  In theory it does not have to be saved except as patterns; but since I've still got the patterns (oh those stacks and stacks of envelopes) I don't need them.  In the end the original silver tape of #381 winds up stuck on the pages of my N.A. tack notes notebook (volume XIII page 8).

The silver tape is used to make new plates.  I trace around them on sheet aluminum.  This is Maid-O-Metal at 36/1000s inch thickness.  I have dinked with (PhotoShopped) this picture considerably to enhance the lines in shadow.  The prongs are drawn in freehand.

The prongs are there to clinch in the silver on top of the old blue prism tape.  I long ago lost my trust in adhesive, so this is the (very hard & delicate & tricky) method I use to replace errant silver tape figures... those that can be replaced (there are some that cannot, due to shape or location, but that's another story).  You can call pronging and clinching "pulling out all the stops."  The aluminum sheet is cut with an ordinary X-Acto.

The blue prism tape should be cleaned with a little rubbing alcohol.  If it is loose, glue is allowed to hold it down.  It will soon be held in place a lot better!
If needed, a file is used to smooth off the edges of the aluminum filigree, inside and out.  It's easier to file while the figure is still part of a larger piece of metal.

 Testing the fit.  Ho- ho, did you think I was perfect??!  Although there is leeway to these materials, some of the blue will have to be cut away.

 Here's the trick.  I lay down the pronged piece, use a miniature fid to prick a mark where the bottom edges of the prongs are, use a Needle Chisel to cut slits, use the same chisel to open the holes, bend the prongs down and try to fit them in.  Enphasis on the word 'try.'

Using pliers helps.  Occasionally I have to trim down a prong or recut a slit.
Here we have succeeded on two of the three arms.  I'll have to bend the Aluminum for the third arm.  Note the blue peeping outside the silver in 2 places.  It will later be cut away.

This is what the underside looks like.  The prongs have been pulled through as far as they'll go (without breaking them) and then gently pushed over and mashed down.  Sometimes just a fingernail does this pushing, but I like to use pliers.

 

 The finished plate.  I like to run the dull awl around all edges of the blue windows, which trims, smoothes and shapes the metal.  Also, in this photo, some blue has been cut away, using the X-Acto.

Although there is a risk of tearing, of breaking prongs, of non-smooth edges and snagging metal prickings, I still find this method to have solved all the problems of silver tape's lift.  Adhesive is no longer depended upon; the only way that silver is going to come off would be actual breakage.  The prism tape isn't going anywhere -- it's sandwiched in.  The aluminum does not tarnish.

Except for the horn cap, which showed no signs of loosening (and which I can't really fix this way), all the blue plates on TSII #381 were treated in this fashion.

There are a couple of cautions to be broadcast with using pronged sheet-aluminum cut-outs to fix silver tape corner plates on tack.  One is I would really recommend lining the piece with some thin black leather afterwards.  You don't want the undersides to scratch anything, or snag.  Use a white glue designed for leather, and if you have to get in there later for some reason, the glue can be soaked off.  This lining causes thickness problems, but the bother of getting and using really thin leather (try garment) is worth it.

A second problem is corrosion of the prism tape itself, and this is a different beast.  I'm still solving this one.  I know what causes it:  there is an extremely thin layer of metal inside the prism tape, and somehow, either by moisture or oxygen penetration, it can become tarnished.  When that happens the prism tape turns black.  Nothing can fix it - it has to be replaced.  I have backstock, but the real trouble is finding the time and the patterns to recut so many silver figures.  What if the figure doesn't allow pronging?  or doesn't have silver around it?  At the moment all I have are ideas, mostly concerning treating the backs of the prism tape with some impermeable coating, such as nail polish.  Or maybe another layer of silver tape.  It's thin enough.
Field trials needed.

Thank you, Kim, for being willing to share the guts of your saddle!