More Racing Set Updates -- nearing completion

I am doing work on the girths now.  The undergirth will be a glue-only type of deal, and the overgirth will have a working buckle but should be glued in place to reduce stress on the leather parts.  Undergirth is done.  The overgirth just needs a strap & the strap keepers.   

The hood is done.  It has those long straps on both sides so that Lisa can glue them down to her horse.  Glue and trim off the remaining pieces.

I have the saddle mostly done, though I am debating on whether to create a bottom to it or not.  There is no need really since it'll be permanently attached to the horse.  I'll figure something out as I have a little tweaking on the front end I want to do.

The bridle also mostly done.  I have a buckle keeper to add, and just some sheaths over where the rubber meets the leather on the farside rein.  Otherwise, that should do it.

Lastly, I have the black #2 saddle cloth to start.  Since I'll be making it myself instead of outsourcing like I usually do on the saddle cloths (and I have no idea how to use a sewing machine), I think I'll be using the iron-on hemming adhesive.  I used that once before and had good results.  As for the #2 in white, I'll do an iron-on transfer if Kinko's can print something in white ink for me.  I liked how it turned out on my previous saddle cloth that I made.  I think Secretariat also raced with a chamois and possibly a foam pad under his saddle.  I think I'll include that too, since you'll be able to see part of it when the cloth is flipped back.

And that just about does it for today.  It's going a little slower than usual, but I'm putting more time into making this a great set.  Too bad it won't be for the show ring! 

Racing Set Updates

I'm finally coming down the home stretch for my racing set.  I have the bridle & hood done, I'm just currently waiting on my leather clearcoat to dry on the saddle before assembling the whole thing (killing some time online while I wait), then I just have the girths & blanket to make.  Then we should be all good.  I'll edit this post later in the evening when I get the saddle assembled.

Edit (sort of):

 The saddle isn't fully assembled, but I hand-stitched the Ewalt brand logo on both flaps.  The overhang there will be factored in there when the flaps are actually glued down, the stirrups glued in, and the stuffed panel added.  That should about take care of it!  It's a brown saddle with glossed finish. 

Valor's Racing Set

My Valor just came over the weekend, so I'm taking a pic of the bridle so far.  I'm finally through with my dog shows, dog training (for a week anyway), and I'm taking a vacation from work!  YAY! :)  It should be a good week.  Anyway, I'll be doing more work on the set this week but I wanted to post a good pic of what I have so far.  I remembered to bring my digital camera + Dolica photo studio home from work, so you can see more details.

EDIT:  I started on the race hood and I'm posting progress below.  I need to add blue eyecups, some cheek straps, little leather bits like the real hood from the '70s, and then trim out the rest of the border in while then we should be good. 

Reference for me so I don't have to keep finding the files buried in my computer:

Racing Pix & Dewey

Ok, I think Valor will be here tomorrow but I feel like posting a little something now.  I realized that blogs are pretty boring without some pictures to look at!

We'll start with a photo of Secretariat, and the main inspiration of what I'm doing.  This is essentially what I'll be making.  It's hard to find a photo of his saddle without a Ron Turcotte sitting in it, so I think that gives me a little creative license to make something neat!

Here's just a quick shot of my bridle so far.  The white cheek strap will be hiding under the racing hood, so there's no need for buckles.  If it were for someone in the hobby, I'd be doing it a little different but it's just going to be glued to the horse in this case.  The blue straps are working buckles, and I'm doing loop end reins with orange rubber grips.  I've taken the dimensions from a particular brand of rein that's 56" long in real life, or 12" bit to grip x 24" grips x 20" grip to end.  I know it's a little different than his photo dimensions, but the rubber is pretty resistant to glue!  It's better if just the leather can be glued down instead.  He'll have a white browband, brown-ish saddle with some type of embellishment, blue checker hood, and everything else you can see in the photo (tack-wise).  This is a very handsome set in real life, so I sure hope my scale version turns out just as nice!

And of course there's Dewey who thinks he's the "other" kind of show dog and not just an obedience dog  :)

Secretariat Racing Set 1st Updates

Nothing major to report today.  As I mentioned previously, I'm trying out some new techniques for this set.  For the rubber part of the reins, I actually cast some rubber pieces from a mold I made to look like the real thing with grips and all.  It's been quite a challenge so far (lots of castings before I found something I thought looked good enough), and I'm sure there's a better way to do it, but what I made isn't bad.  I'll keep experimenting and perfecting on future sets but its time to move forward. 

The bridle has been a little slow going since I have to paint everything blue, but its looking sharp so far!  I also have my checker pattern created for the blinker hood in a scale that I think looks good, so I'll be getting to that shortly.  I just ordered the last solid cast Valor from Rio Rondo, so once he arrives I'll take some pics on him.  Yay!  He's a cool model.   Anyway, that's about it for now. 

Oh yea, my dog and I did get our title this past weekend.  We got a 98 out of 100, which was a tie score for 1st place but the person who got first was 2 seconds faster...so I got 2nd. Still a good showing and I'm proud :). Next up is Advanced Rally (RA title) and Novice Obedience (CD title).  We shall see!

End of September Updates

Happy Friday to you!  It's the last day of September, and finally we're into my favorite season.  Weather has been crazy rainy and windy (blew pieces of my neighbor's chimney right off her house!).  Anyway, it's been a little while since I posted.  I've been quite busy with some other things in real life, but I do have a new project that I've started working on.  The very talented Lisa Bickford was looking for someone to create a Secretariat set for a non-hobby person.  She's painting a Valor to look like Big Red, and I contacted her asking about doing the commissioned racing set.  Very exciting!  It's going to be displayed along with a piece of real Secretariat memorabilia.  I'll be sure to post some updates along the way.  I'm currently experimenting with some new methods to really capture the realism of the tack, so I hope it turns out!  Photos to come soon.

I do have some other news from real life, both good and bad.  The good first -- I've been competing with my dog at some local AKC shows, and we're doing quite well.  We earned a Beginner Novice (BN) obedience title in July.  BN is just an optional titling class, it's not the same as an official title because it was earned in a non-regular class.  It is a title, but it doesn't have the same prestige, if you will, as regular titles.  It's good for people who want to get their feet wet in showing.  Anyway, that was quite fun so I decided to also try Rally classes.  We've only been training for 7 weeks (as of yesterday), and I decided to try our hand at showing already.  Last weekend, after only 6 weeks of training in Rally Novice, we competed in 2 trials.  On Saturday, we earned a perfect score of 100 and 1st place out of 8.  On Sunday, we earned another perfect score of 100 but 2nd place out of 10.  Someone else who got 100 did it faster than Dewey and me, but I can't really be disappointed with a perfect score.  Tomorrow we're going to our 3rd trial in Rally Novice, so I'm pretty confident that we'll at least qualify.  I'm hoping for but not expecting 100, but a qualifying score will earn us our first regular AKC title -- RN.  Yay!  He'll be known as Newsflash Let's Make a Deal BN RN. 


As for the bad news, I just found out on Tuesday that my parents' house is being foreclosed on.  I guess that makes us another statistic in the wonderful state of IL.  My dad has apparently known it was going to happen for at least a couple months, but didn't bother sharing it with my mom or me.  Yet another aspect of our lives he's been able to muck up in the last few years.  Ugh!  Luckily for us, we do have a place to go -- my house!  Half-hearted yay.  My mom is quite stressed out over the whole situation which I can understand, but I'm oddly at peace with it.  Even though my house is still a construction zone from the remodeling, having this looming deadline is a little more motivation to get things done faster.  My house is like 1/3 the size of their house, but at least they don't have to seek out a real landlord with all the stipulations that'd go with it.  I had been excited at the prospect of living at my house alone, but if I can help my family out like they've helped me over the years, then I'm glad to do it as much as I'm not looking forwards to living with them in such close quarters.  Oh well.  I think my biggest worry is the fact that they're messy people -- they can come over but their clutter cannot!  We'll see.  I don't think they're going to appreciate abiding by the rules of their child -- mom might be, dad + rules = don't mix.  It's nice to have a place to share this with people who don't know me!   

Micro Mini hunter jump

I was in the mood to change my crafting up a little today.  I started in on a micro-mini jump.  It's natural wood, so I guess it would be a hunter jump.  Sorry for the crude editing job, I only have half of the jump finished so I didn't want to spend too much time editing an in-progress photo.  I'm pretty happy with it so far.  The bottom photo is the inspiration for my jump.  Not an exact replica, but a similar type.  I did jump feet a little different because it's tipsy otherwise.  Needed some extra stability.  Can't wait to show it!