Broken Links

Well in the midst of trying to organize all my photos and clear space on my hard-drive, I managed to confuse the hell out of Picasa and Picasa Web albums. It looks like I've broken lots of links to photos as well as made whole albums disappear, doh! So just bare with me here as I figure this stuff out. Hopefully I'll have it all sorted out by the weekend... In the meantime, here is another driving series that I managed not to delete. I had hoped to do a showjumping one, but those pictures are somewhere in la-la land....

This is a different obstacle that I had a great view of. The team is Jimmy Fairclough from the US. I tried to just keep clicking through the whole routine so you can get an idea of just how long and intricate these obstacles are. The person in the middle of the cart is the navigator. They have a tough job of knowing exactly where the team needs to turn and when. They also need to give the driver ample time to be able to guide his horses in time. We saw one US team miss lots of their turns in the water obstacle. Having to go around the entire thing to get through one opening after you've missed it adds a lot of time. Look at all the different gaits and poses these horses have - lots of performance ideas!

I made them into a slideshow - I think it is more fun to click through them then have to scroll down through them.

(If you click on the slideshow, it will take you to the web album where you can see the photos bigger)

WEG - Marathon Driving

I couldn't believe how much fun the marathon driving was too watch! It was so intense and incredible to watch four horses navigate a cart through such tiny pathways. I took this series of photos of one entrant doing the obstacle. They have to go a certain way through each of the openings and as fast as they can.

Here they are coming in:


and heading to their first obstacle:


up through the middle of it:

and back around.

Here you can see the entrant name and his current time:

Coming around the other side

and getting ready..


for the plunge!


they are even still in unison!






up

The guy on the back is there to steady the cart and keep it from flipping over.


and on their way out!

World Equestrian Games

Edit 10/15/10: this is a post where I have accidentally broken the picture links, hold tight, I'll get them back soon!

So much fun! I got to watch para-dressage, vaulting, showjumping, and marathon driving. I had never seen any of the events except jumping, so it was really interesting. I have nearly 1000 photos to go through - large SD cards make it much too easy to be trigger happy. It'll take me awhile to go through all these and post the good ones. Lots of interesting stuff to post - I'll get there! For now, here are a few shots of Hickstead from Friday night, which qualified him for the final 4. Look at that bit-age! That did not look like an easy horse to ride - it was really fun to watch the other riders take a shot at riding him!

WEG worries

Whenever a big trip is coming up, I feel more stressed out about it trying to wrap everything up before leaving. It has been insane in lab - I worked all weekend to get this project nearly finished before leaving. I know if I leave it hanging I'll have a hard time relaxing in Kentucky. I really haven't gotten too much done with tack these last few months. I haven't taken any orders since the Breyer Diorama project, I've just been playing around, making stuff I've been wanting to make for the last few months! These pieces have actually been finished for awhile, I just finally got the 'ole photo tent out to get some decent shots of it - such a pain!

These are available for sale on MH$P (click for link to sales page):

I'm hoping the Breyer store won't be sold out of all the SR's by the time I get there. Thanks to some fellow hobbyists, I got the re-issue of Big Ben picked up just before he was sold out - definitely have to add him to the conga!

I also got Wimpy's Little Chic from someone who said they had an extra, just had to pay a "pick-up" fee. The others I'm hoping to still get are the Autograph Cleveland Bay, Gold Raven, and Woodburn. Maybe Cedric... Unfortunately I am an avid OF collector, so the WEG Diorama model will most likely be staying with me for awhile. So while I won't recoup the cost of supplies and time for that tack set for Breyer, I do get an amazing model to add to my collection. I might have to rethink my decision to not do the Breyerfest Open Show next year... I know it's been awhile since blogging, so the set for Breyer I'm talking about is this one:

I'll blog about this set at a later date. I don't think the general public can see this diorama, I believe it is in the "media room" which is quite unfortunate! I really wanted to see this in person! Maybe if I'm really nice to the security there.. and the model I'm talking about is this one:

This model hasn't arrived yet, though, these is just a "promo" pic. So I'm growing quite impatient, LOL! Well that's all for now, I gotta catch this bus to school so I can slave away in lab for the day!

NAN 2010 Donation Complete!

I have completed my donation item for NAMHSA's 15th Anniversary Party! I have created a huntseat set to fit Palouse. It includes a bridle, saddle, girth, and saddlepad finished in a dark brown (cordovan) dye. The bridle features a full cheek snaffle bit with bit keepers, tongue buckles, leather raised browband and noseband, leather laced reins and is fully adjustable. The saddle is built like a real saddle with adjustable stirrup leathers, cast stirrups with stirrup pads and has a very correct shape over the withers. The girth has elastic on both ends for a snug and even fit. This set is sure to bring in the ribbons! It is extremely realistic and performance friendly. In order to reach a larger audience for this item, I decided that I will allow the winner of this set the option to swap out the bridle and girth for one that fits another mold of their choice if they wish to do so.

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

From NAN 2010 Raffle Donation

Check out NAMHSA's website for more information on how to get tickets for this item:
www.namhsa.org/nan2010/auction/auctionpreview.htm

Also visit their group on Facebook for the most up to date info: NAMHSA on Facebook

Project Tandem Harness: Completed!

Well, 100+ hrs of work, 52 buckles, 2 Palouse models, and over $200 in hardware alone, I am finally finished with this tandem harness!

Luckily, Squidly arrived just in time for the photo shoot!

Unfortunately, I didn't notice until I went to put the crupper on him that he has an attached tail! Normally, with attached tails, I would split the crupper and then "sticky wax" it to the sides of the tail at the base to give the illusion that it went underneath. But, for this order, the horse it really will go on does not have an attached tail - so just ignore that the crupper is sitting on top of the tail in all of these photos!!

Here they are together - this is a tandem harness, where one horse is front of the other, as opposed to side by side in a pairs hitch.

Here is the leader bridle.

This order is meant for a specific time period, so the bridle has an overcheck, or more commonly called a bearing rein. When used correctly, they are not a cruel device as depicted in Black Beauty. Today, they are set up just a little differently.
The wheeler bridle needs "Roger rings" on the sides of his bridle so the reins from the leader can pass through. I'm also super happy about the way these face drops turned out.

This is how it looked in a previous harness I made. You can see that it is more rounded, flat, and has no stitch markings! A massive improvement if I do say so myself!

Overall, this harness is much more detailed and really forced me to research what I was creating so it would be as accurate as possible. Each harness I make has had major improvements. Although this harness took me MUCH longer than I was anticipating, I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I hope my customer will as well! You can see the full album here: Blue Diamond Tack - 2010 Orders

Dying leather = gigantic mess!

I try to put off dying leather as much as I can. It is so messy. The bottles do not seal very tight, but they need to be shaken extremely well, otherwise the pigments in the bottle are not even and you can get different results each time! This is the problem I have been struggling with over the last few dye batches. Certain mixes will turn out too dark, or too uneven than the last time I did it. Dying leather is a complicated business and it is so time consuming to prep all the leather pieces for dying. So you can see the frustration when things don't turn out how they are supposed to! There are so many factors that go into what the color will turn out to be. A few, but not limited to are:

• natural hide color: this can darken naturally if left out in the sun or even out on the kitchen table for a few days!
• solvent in the dye: if you leave the cap off for awhile, the solvent in the dye will evaporate and affect how dilute (or concentrated) the solution is.
• the amount of dye that goes onto the leather piece
• how well-mixed the dye is
• humidity: affects how fast the solvent evaporates after being applied to the leather, aka how fast it dries
  

Too light of a brown shows blemishes on the leather, but too dark of dye looks black and does not have nice, rich brown tones. To combat these problems I have been having, I decided to get more "scientific" about this process, I am a chemist after all! OH not to mention that when the dye gets on your hands, it will be there for the next few days- and I mainly work with browns and blacks...hmm. Anyways, I got some syringes and gloves to use for this next time and tried mixing some "formulas". I did three new mixes, wrote all the amounts down and tested it on some leather scraps. I liked how two of them turned out, but tweaked them just a bit. So tonight I have dyed some real leather pieces and we'll see how they turn out compared to my "test" pieces. It takes a good 5+ hours for the pieces to dry completely, then they need to be conditioned and sealed before the true color really shows. All in all, starting from a natural hide to the dyed and finished pieces is about a 3 day process! Whew! well keep all fingers crossed that this batch will work out, otherwise it will be another week before I get a new batch finished.