Fire Department Harness Part 1: Collar

To be honest, I've always made breastcollar harnesses because I only recently figured out how collars are supposed to work, let alone how they're constructed.  So, for my very first set of Traditional scale collars, I'm making a historic fire department harness.  Fire department collars are not like normal collars- they hinge at the top and snap closed on the bottom, and the hames are permanently attached.  I have not been able to find a decent picture of the top side of the hinge, but I need to make a cutout to fit the manes of the intended horses anyway, so I can get around that for now.

I'll have more information about real fire horses in a later post, but here's how I made the collar.  The same concept could be used to make a normal harness collar- it would just be made in one piece, and open at the top instead.

First, I made a paper pattern and a felt copy to fit it to the horse.  (shown here with most of the rest of the harness)

 

 From left to right: 1. cardboard pattern piece with twine glued on (for padding).  2.thin cowhide leather pressed into and glued in the center gap.  3. leather wrapped over and glued onto the bottom  4. final piece bent into shape.

Same thing, from the back side.

The two pieces are hinged at the top with a piece of 1/4 inch leather lace (to fit under the mane, bottom) and one end of the back strap is glued onto that (top).

The inside of the collar is lined with chamois cut slightly smaller than the cardboard piece.  I don't think the real ones were lined, but this covers the edges of the leather and protects the model.  It is not visible when the collar is on.

 

 Collar on the horse.

 

Front opening of the collar. This will close with a latch on the end of the hames.

 Top of collar with cutout for the mane.

The hames will attach permanently inside the collar's groove.  They will be made of bent brass strips.

And that's the collar!

Valemon in Progress

I have several better posts in the works, including a wagon building how-to that hopefully will be up soon.  But for now, here's a quick look at Valemon, my next Fjord in progress.

OF pony, dremeled pony, Valemon

I'm trying a few new things with Valemon.  Previously, I've done two repaint only G3 Ponies to Fjords, and two neck-and-hair-only remakes.  Valemon has a new neck, new ears, new mane and tail, a reshaped belly, and larger jowls.  His forehead was thickened, though it's hard to tell under the mane.  I also filled in his muscles, as Fjords don't usually have that much muscle definition.  At least, the ones I know are pretty chunky.

Valemon (as of yesterday afternoon, he now has ears and a better mane) and an OF pony.  I'm hoping to get him pasteled this weekend, but we shall see.  Anyway, more fun posts coming soonish!

White "Sea Horses"

Google Translate is pretty awesome.  With it, I can read Norwegian forums about Norwegian Fjord Horses...even though I only speak about 10 words of Norwegian.  The problem is that it's just a computer program, so sometimes you get odd translation errors.  "Fjordhest" - Fjord Horse - sometimes gets translated as Sea Horse.  :)

Most Fjords are "brunblakk" - bay dun - but they also come in several other colors: "rodblakk" - chestnut dun, "gra" - black dun, "ulsblakk" - buckskin dun, and "gulblakk" - palomino dun.  Most breed references will tell you that these are the 5 accepted colors of Fjord Horses.  You can see pictures and explanations here: http://www.bluebirdlane.com/the-colours-of-the-norwegian-fjordhorse.html

HOWEVER....there is one more extremely rare color.  Kvit.

 "Kvit" means white, and actually covers three colors: perlino dun, cremello dun, and smoky black dun.  All of these colors are double dilutes, meaning they have two cream genes.  For example, a horse with a bay base color with one cream gene will become buckskin.  Two cream genes will make it perlino.  To get a double dilute, both parents must carry the cream gene, so a kvit Fjord must have parents that are either ulsblakk, gulblakk, or possibly gra (all fairly rare colors at present).  A brunblakk or rodblakk Fjord cannot have a kvit foal.  Double dilute horses have blue eyes and lighter skin.  They are not albinos.  Albinism is a lack of pigment; double dilutes simply have lightened pigment.  Dun factor markings (or white markings, in other breeds) are usually still visible, just very pale.

As in many breeds, traditionally, blue eyed horses were not favored, and so they were selected against.  But genetically, kvit is a normal color resulting from breeding Fjords with accepted colors.  Kvit Fjords are registerable, though there is enough bias still that the color is usually not intentionally bred.

 In a perlino dun Fjord, the dun factor markings will be a darker yellowish color.  Most of these pictures are of a perlino dun mare named Fia.  A cremello dun Fjord will likely have very indistinct cream colored markings, if visible at all.  I have not found any photos of a smoky black dun Fjord.

 If you look closely, you can see the very distinct yellow dorsal stripe in Fia's mane, and that her tail is mostly yellow with white "frosting".

 This last horse is listed as a gulblakk, but is pale enough in this picture that he looks similar to what a cremello dun should look like.  A cremello would have a pinker nose, though.

The following pictures are not of Fjords, but of other perlinos and perlino duns, to better show what dun factor markings look like on a perlino.

Perlino blue eye with flecks of green

Perlino Dole Trotter.  Another Norwegian breed, this is how dark a perlino's mane and tail are without the dun frosting.

Perlino dun

Dorsal stripe on perlino dun

Leg barring on perlino dun

Another perlino dun.

I hope you enjoyed this look at a very rare color!  None of these photos are mine, and unfortunately I'm not sure exactly where I got them.  I've posted them simply for educational purposes.  If the owners of these photos don't want them on here, I'm happy to take them down if they request.

Nirvana's Tack

Western Pleasure classes drive me crazy.  Peanut-rolling horses, sparkly saddles, and trendy show outfits: they annoy me.  Maybe I never noticed this back when I was showing in 4-H, because I was just happy to be on a horse (ah, horseless horse 4-H...I once showed a pony that I had never seen before I was tacking it up for the show...did not go well), but we always showed in the same crappy saddles we trained in.  I did have a "show" shirt (it had horses and fringes on it!) and a rather pathetic hat that wouldn't hold its shape, but the closest I ever got to matching was that navy blue shirt and one pony's bright blue nylon bridle.  And I didn't care.  That fringed shirt that my mom made was COOL.  Just About Horses magazine had a picture of Marguerite Henry wearing a vest made out of the same material!

The model horse Nirvana actually got started because I wanted to make a miniature copy of the real horse's tack.  It's completely trashed, probably close to 20 years old, and it's the most comfortable saddle I've ever ridden in.  I do see the allure of making fantastic model saddles that you could never afford in real life, but for this one I wanted to do an homage to the crappy every day saddles that nobody ever copies in miniature.

Nirvana is a trail horse at a camp, so he always wears a halter.  The barn has tie stalls, and it's safer and faster to leave it on, since the horses may go out once an hour.  Plus, the lead and tail horses usually wear lead ropes on the trail, so that the wrangler doesn't have to carry so many in case of emergencies.

Edgar is modeling, as model Nirvana is still not f

inished.

Nirvana needs his forelock brushed.  Again.

His bridle is plain brown leather, with faded blue nylon reins.  The tack at camp is cobbled together from donations, and is based on whatever works for the horse.  A horse that was trained for English riding may end up with a snaffle bit and English reins on a Western bridle.  And of course, split reins are always tied together.  Like almost every Western bridle I've ever ridden in.  You know, the way you're not supposed to for showing.  :)  Amazingly, Rio Rondo had a bit that matched almost exactly (just a little fancier).

I have to thank Braymere Custom Saddlery's tack tips for helping make this one of my best bridles.  I skived all the leather, punched holes using a mechanical pencil, made real tongue buckles, and sealed the leather based on her instructions.  On the browband, the cheek pieces and throatlatch are separated by a leather lace that is threaded back on itself to make sort of a braided knot.

I was actually at camp for a friend's wedding, and snuck out to the barn...hence the jewelry.

The saddle is a nylon and leather saddle with silver lacing.  I'm sure it was nice at one point...now the outer fabric layer is threadbare and torn, exposing the plastic-y layer underneath.  On the model saddle, I sewed a layer of fabric onto a pleather layer and edged it with ribbon.  Then, the fabric was aged using sand paper, slashing with the back side of an X-acto knife, and "dirtied" with many light washes of watercolor paint and a dusting of chalk pastels.  The conchos were domed using a technique from Rio Rondo's website and colored over with black Sharpie marker, then wiped off unevenly to look tarnished.  They were glued onto leather conchos which had been sewn onto the saddle.

 

 

I used a Rio Rondo resin saddle tree, but sanded the horn smaller and figured out a better way to cover it than their instructions.  Basically, I cut one piece of skiver with the seam up the center front.  To match the color, I used a piece of the same skiver on the cantle, and lined it with tooling leather for stiffness.  All of the leather was aged with sandpaper in places where the real saddle had worn.  In the picture below, you can just see the wear leather at the top of the fender.  These are fully adjustable stirrups (though with regular buckles, I didn't want to deal with miniature Blevins buckles!)

 This method of "tying" the lead rope comes from a camp wrangler.  It's just a loop of rope threaded through the hole in the saddle, and hooked over the horn.  It keeps the horn free for a hand-hold, and comes loose quickly in an emergency, but doesn't slide loose on its own.  The tapaderos make this saddle unusable for most show events, but much safer for trail rides.  The rivets are made from straight pins.

 

The blanket is pretty straight-forward: a wool blanket with synthetic wear strips.  This was made with craft felt and the same pleather as the saddle, but with the fleecy underside peeled off.  (Of course, the day I took most of the pictures, someone had used a different blanket.  But you can see the normal gray one in the first picture.)  I left off the tape labels, as I didn't think I could write that small.

So that's my homage to the sort of tack I've always ridden in.  It isn't a pretty set of tack, and doesn't do very well in tack shows, but I like it.  :)

Guide Horses

Nirvana has had to take a back seat to two large non-horsy projects, the second of which is nearly done.  So mostly because it's interesting, and partly to prove that I do occasionally finish something, here's my guide horse, Salaiset. 

 "Salaiset" apparently is what the tv show The X-Files was called in Finnish, and means "secret files".  Since the action figure used here is Agent Mulder, it seemed an appropriate name.  Salaiset is a fairly simple custom (nothing moved) with a new mane and tail, an opened mouth, added fat, and carved ears, then pasteled to bay with some acrylic details.  She's a Stablemate masquerading as a small Classic-scale miniature horse.

Handle made from translucent Sculpey and wire.

 Small miniature horses can be used like dogs to guide the blind.  They have some advantages over dogs, including that they do not chase cats or squirrels, have better peripheral vision, and they live much longer.  The average working life of a guide dog is 7 years; for a horse it may be 20 years or more.  The downside is that the horses must be small and they take longer to train.  The harness is much the same as a dog's, with a rigid handle, and features a halter with a short lead rope with clips on both ends instead of a leash.  Some guide horses wear modified children's sneakers to give them better traction on slick indoor floors.

To help "force the scale", Salaiset's halter and harness are intentionally made chunkier than normal Stablemate scale.  This helps gives the effect that it is a small horse in a larger world.  Real miniature horse stock halters (at least the ones I've seen) are often made almost the same width as those for a full-size horse, and lead ropes are not scaled down either.  So, the lead rope clips here are huge, as is the working halter buckle. For comparison, Petrelli is showing off a better scaled halter, made with very thinly skived and split leather.  Normally I use bead wire for Stablemate buckles (which is too delicate for working buckles) but on Salaiset's halter I used the same gauge as the halter rings.

To learn more about guide horses, you can visit the Guide Horse Foundation's website here: http://www.guidehorse.org/ or read about training a guide horse named Panda at http://www.theclickercenter.com/ThePandaProject.html

Carriage Repair

Several years ago, I made this cart.  I no longer have the reference, but it was patterned after a sturdy antique vehicle that had been rebuilt and was for sale (and therefore had lots of pictures online).  I never quite finished it - the hand rails and seat cushions were never glued in, and I hadn't attached the wheels as I originally intended to paint them.

I took a few photo show pictures, and set it aside.  Today I pulled it out to finish, so I could box it up and put it away.  And then, I remembered why I hadn't finished it.

See that spot lit by the sun on the left?  It's supposed to be attached.

The springs had popped loose.  Pushing them in meant that the brass strips that hold the slats onto the floor of the cart (which attach under the seat) didn't fit.  I had to re-bend the springs and then tack down the brass strips, which I hadn't done.  It was literally a 4-handed job: one hand to hold the pliers holding  the tack (the cut-off head of a pin), one to hold the...thing...(it's a long metal stick so you can hammer in a small place, not sure what it's called), one to hold the hammer, and one to hold the upside down carriage still.  Luckily, my dad helped out.

Much cheaper than buying dollhouse nails.

Upper left corner...that little silver dot was problem #2!

Fixing that made two of the floor slats pop loose, then re-fastening a few other parts I had left holes for but not pinned caused the wood to crack.  In the end, though, it didn't need repainting, which is why I had left things unattached.  But on to the fun stuff!
The competition number is made from a small plastic bag.  If you can find a stiff cellophane one, you can carefully heat-seal the plastic with a heated butter knife.  Be sure to use one that you won't use for food again; a candle will heat the edge enough.  The number card was made on the computer.  The top edge is just folded paper, and the number is attached by handmade wire hooks strung through two holes in the bottom of the trunk.

The trunk opens using dollhouse hinges, and I'd like to make a full spares kit to go in it.  The cart was painted with model car spray paint - the original was also painted with automotive paint in this color.

 The cart is made mainly of basswood, which is very soft but comes in pre-cut strips from the craft store.  The only power tool I used was a power table sander (and that wasn't even necessary).  Basswood has less grain than balsa, and I think it's a little denser.  Hardwood would have been better, but there's no way I could cut even slats by hand.  Three brass strips hold the slats together - they were sanded rough so that the glue would stick.  A few key places are attached with dollhouse nails (that came with the hinges) which are then bent over on the inside if they stuck out.  The singletree under the curved brace swivels and the "bolt" is a cut-off nail.

The dash is leather, folded in half with short loops glued inside for the frame.  The cushions are two layers of craft foam, covered with black skiver leather.  Unfortunately I misplaced the back cushion, but you can see the strips of brass tacked on with pins.  The holes in the brass strips were made by carefully hammering a small nail in just far enough to create a hole. The edges were then hammered flat.  The hand rails, the dash frame, and the tug pulls were made of hollow aluminum tubing from a hobby shop.  This must be bent carefully and slowly, or else it will collapse or break off, but it wasn't too hard.  The ends of the tubes were hammered flat so that they could be pinned (for the tugs) or fit into grooves and glued (for the arm rests).  The dash frame was left round and pins the seat brace to the top of the foot area.  The springs were made of a thicker wire - lead-free solder?  and flattened on the ends (which were bent around an eye bolt on the bottom, and nailed to the seat on top), and in the center, where they were wired together into a curvy X shape.

 What you may or may not be able to see here is the joint in the shafts.  It is a faint line between the dash and the singletree ring. The good thing about using basswood or balsa is that it is easy to bend.  The hard part is a multi-directional bend, so each shaft is made in two parts and then joined.  Draw the curve you need on a piece of scrap wood (such as a 2x4) and hammer long sturdy nails along that line so that they stick up about 2 inches.  Simmer the strips of wood one at a time in a pot of water until they're soft enough to bend, then ease them around the nails.  Clamp in place (little spring clips will work) until dry.  Repeat until the piece is as thick as you want, spreading wood glue liberally between layers.  These shafts were 3 or 4 layers of 1/8" thick strips.  Sand smooth.  The two parts were either notched and glued or pinned with a nail with the head cut off.  These shafts are quite strong thanks to the glue but they can dent if you're not careful.  It is basswood, after all.

 The cart was made to fit the current Breyer doll's legs, so she can sit with her feet flat on the floor.  It is pony sized - specifically Fjord sized, though it also fits the Haflinger and Misty pretty well.  Please forgive the harness, it literally fell to pieces the last time I had it out.  I only used it for 10 years...

 

 I do have all the parts for a very fancy new harness with working tongue buckles, but I have to get the intended horse to a more finished state first.

Dear Breyer, please make another regular run Fjord.  I'm out of cheap bodies, but not ideas.

 The doll is a Breyer western doll with a new shirt, jacket, necklace (made of silver braid), hat, and a driving apron.  Her hands were painted black and the left is slit between the ring and middle fingers so she can hold the reins properly.

And here is the cart in it's finished (except for the missing cushion) state!  The hubcaps are silver brads, the type you fasten paper with.  The wheels are plastic, and unfortunately the store that carried them went out of business long ago.  The real cart was supposed to be incredibly comfortable to ride in, due to the springs, yet very sturdy.  It's nice enough for show pleasure driving, and sturdy enough for a pleasure marathon, a good all-around vehicle.  Kind of the equivalent of a Meadowbrook cart, but with some style.  And blue!

Edited to add: I've found the original reference.  The cart was called the Buckeye Easy Riding Cart and can be seen here: http://www.shadygrovetrainingcenter.com/carriages/newly_renovated_buckeye_cart_200.htm