Making Headway

I finished up Manuela's order today, hurray!



Still in the queue:

• Natalie's order for WeeJay (just waiting on my copy to arrive)
• Barb's order for the WEG Driving horse - saddle and bridle mostly done, just working on accessories.
• Kris's order for the Rayne resin, waiting on him to be shipped

Plus a few in the waiting list. I should be contacting the next person soon.

And We Are Go!

Everything's back up with my webhost and email! Hurray! Let this be a lesson to me: always, Always, ALWAYS make sure that any paid service has your correct email account! In my case, my correct secondary email account, since my primary is tied in to my domain name and web host. The tech support guy was helpful, just slow. Eventually I got everything sorted, people emailed, and I'm good for another year. Huzzah!

In other news...I need to stay far, far away from the Model Horse Sales Pages! I picked up a Mindy, Frank (SM scale mule), and now a Sheza Little Pebble and Rimspark all in a month. I got great deals on all of them, but that's a lot of spending for me in a pretty short time period! Purchasing a new resin can be justified with "Oh, I need it for tack fitting!". That's a dangerous thing to do!

Technical Difficulties

I'm having some issues with my web host and email provider right now, but doing my best to iron them out. Website's down for the moment, but fingers crossed it gets back up soon. I can't email out at the moment, and I've had emails bouncing like crazy because someone on my shared IP was sending spam. Fun stuff, right? I'll update when things are back to normal.

Show For The Cure Donation: Complete!

It felt like it took a long, long time but my donation to Show For The Cure is finally done!

Vicky from over on the Blab was very, very kind and sent me some small silver pieces to use for the bridle. One of those, a diamond/star type shape, makes EXCELLENT buckles if you carefully cut the center out with an exacto knife.

The pad is a new thing...printed on printable fabric! Kimberley Smith (who does the K Smith Tack Magazine) sells them, but I made some patterns in Photoshop that I can edit however I please for a bunch of different color combinations. It took me quite a while to get the paper/fabric to go through the printer but once I did, wow! This is great, I have so much more freedom with saddle pads now and can offer patterns in custom colors and all SORTS of fun stuff!

Studio Progress

I finished Manuela's english saddle this morning. I say it alot, but I really really love this saddle! I wish it could stay with me, but it'd never get shown. The stirrups from Horsing Around look wonderful on the saddle and I couldn't be happier with them. This makes the third english saddle for Working Girl that I've done in the last month and a half, all using the same pattern.

Here's a general update of studio happenings and things to do:

• Show for the Cure donation needs to be finished
• Manuela's Working Girl order needs the bridle and other accessories finished
• Natalie's WeeJay will be coming to the studio soon for fitting, I need to start dyeing the leather
• Kris's Rayne will be visiting some time in the next two weeks, and I can start dyeing the leather for that, too.
• I'll be working on a sales set for Mindy while I wait for Natalie and Kris's ponies to get here.
  

I worked out a new saddle seat pattern for Mindy and tried it out on yucky scrap leather, now I just need to build a pretty one. I'll also be working on a sales set for WeeJay when Natalie's is here in the studio. I'm going to try to remember to get measurements for his head this time so that I can have them on hand. Fingers crossed the pattern from my last WeeJay order will work, but I may need to revise.

Oh, here's a fun photo to give you a good idea of scale:The saddle is perched on my index finger :)

Product Review: 1:32 Scale Stirrups

When I started the new year one of my goals was to improve my tack as much as possible. One of the ways I planned to do that was to use cast or photo etched parts where those would be more realistic. I use various gauges of wire for nearly everything. 32, 28, and 26 gauge wire meet most of my needs. There are times when making my own hardware falls short, though. Some bits are just too darn hard to make out of wire. Driving bits and western curb bits often fall under this category, and stirrups are not easy to do! So far I've used stirrups from Sulser Saddlery and Horsing Around (based in the UK). I'll be comparing the two brands based on scale, price, and material.

Stirrups will be shown on Breyer's G1 Seabiscuit, G2 Warmblood, G3 Thoroughbred, G4/WEG Dressage Horse, Stone's Chip Stock Horse, and the Working Girl artist resin sculpted by Sarah Rose for scale comparison.

Sulser Saddlery
Material: white bronze. Sculptor: D'Arry Jone Frank. Price: $6.99 (TWMHC Ebay Shop)

Sulser Saddlery is an immediately recognized name in the model horse world. In stablemate scale they offer stirrups and a few cast bits sold through The World of Model Horse Collecting's Ebay shop. The stirrups were sculpted by D'Arry Jone Frank who does a lot of wonderful work in smaller scales. I have never purchased directly from TWMHC. In the past, I have received hardware in trades or from my customers who would like it to be used on their tack. In a couple of instances, it was shipped directly to me from TWMHC, though paid for by my customers. Shipping seemed prompt, from what I can remember, but it's been a while.

According to the Ebay listing, the "silver" stirrups are cast in white bronze. The pair I have in my studio has been with me for several years (probably since 2007), attached to a saddle and stored away most of the time. They arrived bright and shiny but have taken on a darker, dull color with age. A little bit of polishing with the hem of my t-shirt did a lot to bring back the shine, but a silver polishing cloth would be more effective. The need to clean them up periodically could be awkward if they're attached to a saddle or, worse yet- the saddle were permanently attached to a model. They don't come with sculpted stirrup pads, but it would be entirely possible to paint them on or glue a thin piece of white or painted leather down instead. I would recommend Eileen's Jewel-It or Super Glue Gel if you were interested in trying that.

I was not thrilled with the shape of these stirrups. They seemed rather triangular compared with the soft curve found on real stirrups. To my eye, they are also on the small side. I have often heard that Breyer's G2 run of models were not true 1:32 scale, being larger, and they've increased in size since. It's very possible that the stirrups are actually sculpted in 1:32 scale, which would make them a little too small for most models. In my comparison, I found that they looked best on G2 molds, passable on G1s, and weren't very well suited to any of the other molds I tried.


Horsing Around (UK)
Material: "White metal". Sculptor: Horsing Around Tack Shop. Price: GBP 1.95/$3.15 (Horsing Around UK Ebay Shop)

I found these stirrups when I was researching my options at the beginning of the year. The price was appealing, but I wasn't sure how the scale matched up. I shot an email off to Horsing Around, requesting photos and a little more information. Given the time zone difference, I feel the response was prompt and the person I spoke to, Vanessa, was nothing but wonderful! She provided photos, shipping cost information to the US, and answered any other questions I had. I ended up purchasing directly from Horsing Around instead of through their Ebay shop. This resulted in a slight discount, since they didn't have to pay Ebay fees. My stirrups shipped on the 24th and arrived the same week.

These are cast in "white metal". I'm not sure exactly what type of metal that is, but it feels pretty lightweight, possibly lighter than the Sulser castings. I don't know how this metal will hold up over time, but I'll be updating this blog when I find out. There is some texture and exposed seams on the stirrups. I'll be cleaning up the seams a little with an Xacto knife, but I don't know that the texture is enough to bother me. These stirrups don't have the mirror smooth finish that Sulser castings do, but there's still plenty of shine.

I find the shape of these stirrups much more realistic than the Sulser casting. They're much rounder and to me more like a real stirrup, like these from Dover. Like the Sulser casting, these don't have sculpted stirrup pads. You could paint them on or glue down a piece of leather if you really wanted to. I actually think the glue method would work better on these stirrups because of the slight texture.

These stirrups are a little bit larger than the Sulser castings and seem more in scale with the models I tried them on. I especially like the way they look on the Chips Stock Horse, Working Girl, and the G3/G4/WEG molds. They look pretty good on the G1 Seabiscuit, but maybe a little big on the G2 Warmblood. Overall, I find the fit better than Sulser.



RDLC (Rancho De Los Caballitos)
Material: Gold plated. Sculptor: RDLC. Price: 7.99 (TWMHC Ebay Shop)

I haven't used these stirrups myself. I'm mentioning them here because they're the only other option for cast stablemate stirrups that I can find on Ebay. From the photo in TWMHC's Ebay listing, they look small and bulky. I can't say for sure since there's nothing in the listing photo to suggest a size. According to the listing, experienced tack makers will find this artists work to be the best on the market. Maybe the stirrups look better in person. I've had that happen several times with saddles. They look great on the horse, but you take a picture and somehow it loses something. The gold plated stirrups were the only ones available at the moment, but I have a feeling that whatever the regular "silver" color is they'll be a bit cheaper. The western stirrups by RDLC were $5.99, so that would be a safe bet for these stirrups as well.


Conclusion

I'll be using the Horsing Around stirrups for my projects from here on out. I ordered 10 pairs, enough to keep me in business for a few months at least. The texture does not thrill me, but it's something I can live with when I compare the shape and scale compared to Sulser's castings (and price!). As I experiment with the Horsing Around stirrups, I may find that the texture will buff out with some work, we'll see.