First Pair Of Chinks Finished

[AdamTill]

Hi folks,

First off, I wanted to thank MarkB for making such an amazing video on making chinks - it was invaluable for a newbie like myself in making sure I didn't make any critical errors. Thanks also to Chan Geer for the carving patterns, which I adapted from his belt pack and chaps trim pack.

This project was actually a bunch of firsts for me: first chinks, first sheridan carvings, first time hand sewing, and first time using my newly completed stitching horse. Lots of obvious places to improve, but overall, I'm quite happy for a first effort, and they seem to ride well (my horse was fascinated by the fringe).

The trickiest parts were bargrounding (by the end it started to look okay), getting an even stitch line on the backside (clamping was tricky in some spots), and working quickly enough on the carving side to not run out of moisture. The carving pattern on the belt was a bit of a bad choice - when rubbing the edges, I tended to roll them over the pattern a little since the border was only about a eighth of an inch wide.

Anyway, thoughts would be appreciated!

Cheers,

Adam

[cowdog128]

Wow i hope my first pair look half as good keep up the good work. Happy trails

[MarkB]

Hi Adam

First just want to say Thank You for the kind words about the DVD.

Next I will say that you did a great job on them. The tooling look well done for a first time. I really think you took the DVD and then put you ideas into your chinks. The hand sewing look well done.

I do see somethings I might work on but are not done badly at all.

First is that I would start cutting the fringe at more of an angle so that as you go around the corner it will take less wedge cuts and it will also help the fringe to hang better down the side. In picture #4 you can see that a few more wedge cuts would have helped the fringe hang straighter sooner as well.

Next I would not have cut a border around the yoke just because I think it would look better where you did not back ground all the way out to it. IMO

Thanks again for the kind words about the DVD. I hope to have a pattern pack ready with carving patterns for my yokes and side panels as well. I have some great Carvers working on patterns for it, guys like Troy West, Steve Brewer, Andy Stevens, Bruce Johnson, Clay Miller, and Bob Park. It is looking like a very cool pattern pack with many different styles to look at.

Mark

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Hi Adam,

Just a couple of things. First, a really admirable job on your first chinks. Anyone would be glad to have and use them. That said, just a couple of comments, I echo Marks' commments on the fringe. Here are a couple of pics to show what he is talking about. One has twisted fringe, but ; they are cut the same way. Second, where the reinforcement is sewn on the top inside of the leg, I see that it stops just short of the yoke. I like to have it go up under the point of the yoke an inch or so. I skive it dorn to about 1/8 th thickness as the end so it does not create a bulge there, but it allows for much better strength at the point of the yoke and will be more durable.

Bob

[AdamTill]

Hi Mark,

>First just want to say Thank You for the kind words about the DVD.

Not a problem, I meant them.

>Next I will say that you did a great job on them. The tooling look well done for a first time. I really think you took the DVD and then put >you ideas into your chinks. The hand sewing look well done.

Thanks much! The hand sewing should be strong, and looks good on the front, but I need a lot more practice getting the even lines on the back. Some of the issue came about in that I needed to get these done for next week for a vaquero horsemanship clinic, and so had to buckle under into using a Tandy awl blade instead of the Bob Douglas blades which SHOULD be here whenever the backlog from the postal strike clears out. I've been waiting a couple of months to get them from my local leather supply place. The other was the jaws of my stitch horse aren't quite deep enough to easily clamp some of the angles when stitching especially the belt yoke. I end up rolling the leg up as much as possible, but then the jaws don't close completely. Have to do some more thinking on that end (or buy a sewing machine, I guess).

>I do see somethings I might work on but are not done badly at all.

>First is that I would start cutting the fringe at more of an angle so that as you go around the corner it will take less wedge cuts and it >will also help the fringe to hang better down the side.

Thanks again! I guesstimated at the angle based on what you'd shown on your pattern, but I could see pretty quickly once I was started that a steeper angle would have helped. That was compounded by the leather I chose, which isn't quite as compliant as some I've seen since (nice leather, just a bit too much body). Thinner fringe may have helped that.

>In picture #4 you can see that a few more wedge cuts would have helped the fringe hang straighter sooner as well.

I had already taken about 7-8, and was worried about losing too much leather. Probably would have been the proper decision though.

>Next I would not have cut a border around the yoke just because I think it would look better where you did not back ground all the way out to >it. IMO

Yep, my mistake there. The original pattern called for the partial bargrounding with no border, but I think I had been so used to cutting a border that it was habit.

>Thanks again for the kind words about the DVD. I hope to have a pattern pack ready with carving patterns for my yokes and side panels as well. >I have some great Carvers working on patterns for it, guys like Troy West, Steve Brewer, Andy Stevens, Bruce Johnson, Clay Miller, and Bob >Park. It is looking like a very cool pattern pack with many different styles to look at.

Sounds good, I'll look for it. Any chance you could send an electronic version (like a pdf or something similar) instead of the printed copies with an order? I'd like to order the tap pattern after the clinic, but since I'll end up scanning it anyway that would save tiling the images back together in photoshop. I generally do all my layouts on the computer.

Any plans for an armita pattern?

Cheers,

Adam

>Just a couple of things. First, a really admirable job on your first chinks. Anyone would be glad to have and use them. That said, just a >couple of comments, I echo Marks' commments on the fringe. Here are a couple of pics to show what he is talking about. One has twisted fringe, >but ; they are cut the same way. Second, where the reinforcement is sewn on the top inside of the leg, I see that it stops just short of the >yoke. I like to have it go up under the point of the yoke an inch or so. I skive it dorn to about 1/8 th thickness as the end so it does not >create a bulge there, but it allows for much better strength at the point of the yoke and will be more durable.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for your comments as well!

I definitely goofed on the reinforcement, and that became obvious after everything was together and I went back and reviewed Mark's DVD again. After next week I'll probably pop some stitches on the reinforcement strip and yoke and stitch a skived bridging piece in there...may as well fix it properly.

The other thing that didn't go quite to plan is that I must have mis-measured my knee measurement, since the upper leg strap fits great at the middle hole but the bottom one isn't quite where I'd like it even on the tightest hole. Not sure if the measurement was off or I leaned the concho reinforcement side panel too far, but I'd like to fix that too. Don't have time to pop the six rivets, trim the leg, and sew on a new doubler there this week, but I'll get it in a little while. I'd rather do it properly then try to rush through a fix right now

Thanks to you all! (cowdog128 as well for the nice words!)

Cheers,

Adam

[thecraftsman]

my horse is fascinated with my horse hair mecate and breast collar! how coincidental that our horses are both fascinated with tack!