Sunday, February 14, 2021

Making an anatomic breastplate for Gustavs horse

I like to work a bit in leather occasionally, and leatherwork gear is even easier than woodworking gear to bring onboard a ship. From before my dad got really ill, I had purchased some leather meant for making a breastplate that I had seen, and Gustav and I had measured his horse to get an idea of the size of the piece. I had made a sketch and sort of left it all due to making a coffin and all that followed.

This time due to the pandemic, I have had to stay 10 days in quarantine in a hotel in Norway. I have a hard time expressing how much I dislike sitting idle in a hotel room, so before heading out, I had made a bunch of leather straps ready and found my sketch so I could sit in the hotel room and do a bit of leatherwork. 

I had brought some basic tools with me, and a piece of 1/4" plywood, so I had a place to do cutting without damaging the hotel furniture.

A thing that I didn't bring was something to polish the edges of the leather after assembly, so I'll make some sort of polishing disc when I get onboard and then make the edges look really nice too. At the moment they look a bit dull.









All of it mounted and laid out on the bed.


9 comments:

  1. I have no idea how that is supposed to look like, but it sure looks good. Great idea to whittle away time in quarantine, bravo.

    Bob, who hopes this find you in good spirit, Cheers

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    Replies
    1. Hi Bob

      It is supposed to look like this (when in place on the horse)
      https://schockemoehle.net/en/dyon-anatomic-breastplate

      We are finally going to get out of here today, and fly to Tenerife to meet the ship, that is going to be so nice to get back into real life again.

      Brgds
      Jonas

      Delete
  2. Lesser mortals are known to simply overindulge on room service and payperview

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mitchel

      There isn't even payperview on this hotel, and I guess that even if there had been I would have been too cheap to use it.
      No room service either due to the pandemic, and no cleaning or making up of the rooms, so without a project it would have been some really long days.

      Brgds
      Jonas

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  3. - How do you eat without room service if you can not leave the room? Here, in Belgium, the hotel dining rooms are closed (as any restaurant).
    - I have seen in a high-end handbag factory passing a hot iron (like a soldering iron for electronics) on the edges of the leather pieces.
    - Where is a breast-plate necessary? for jumping?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Sylvain

      We were bought a portion of food 3 times a day, 8kind of like prison I suppose), you could choose if you wanted water or a soft drink - but those were your only choices.
      So it wasn't a super fancy self spoiling hotel room stay.

      The hot iron used in leather working is a creasing iron, I haven't got one of those yet, but it helps make a groove along the edge that you can either use for decoration purposes or as a stitching line.
      It should also help to keep the leather from fraying as far as I have understood.

      Most competition jumpers use a breast plate on the horse to prevent the saddle from sliding back during the jump. There are various designs, but I like this one due to the curved front piece. I am anxious to see how it works on the horse once I get back.

      Brgds
      Jonas

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  4. What is the intended function of the loop? Nice job, by the way.

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  5. Hi Xoney

    the loop is for attaching the martingale, Gustav uses the running martingale system or German martingale.

    I am glad you like the look of it, I think it came out pretty well too.

    Brgds
    Jonas

    ReplyDelete
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