Masja

The tile-man recommended Basalt for my work because it is the hardest stone, better than granite, (granite was available), And I have to say: it works very wel.

I got me a basalt gardentile. 1-1/4" thick (the gardenspecialist recommended basalt) 1 from 30 x 60 cm (12" x 24") let it cut into 1pc. of 12" x 16" and 1 pc. 12" x 8" Nice clean cut, the tile was allready polished, no rounded edges, but the cut is clean, so it's not sharp. I don't want a big slab, I want some handy slabs, 1 on my bench, I can push on the side and 1 to go (so I can work in my garden or anywhere I want to) I put some furniturefeltpads under (the big ones 6" x 8" cost me about $3 to do both whole slabs. And the slabs costed me incl. shipping (is expensive here in the Netherlands) $50

Because she allready has a custommade saddle, we designed a headstall that fits with it. She helped a little with the tooling of the earpiece, but she can't carve, so I did the rest. This is the saddle (NOT made by me but www.vaquero.nl , my teacher) You see the flowers in the corners of the skirts that are the same as on the headstall.(sorry no bigger pic)

Herman Oak Quality (from Germany, so not the real stuff but about same quality) tooling leather. Is that veg-tanned? I don't know exactly the english name. It's doubled 2,5 -3 mm (Is that 6-7 OZ?) And lace from a roll .

I started at the buckle with 2 strings for a 4-string round braid. So you kan do the 2 strings round the center bar of the buckle, and just start to braid. At the end, I skived the strings a little, cement them together and cement the leather (also skived a little at 1 side) on both sides and stitched it. It's a simple ..

Thank you!! That's True, I allready made a headstall (for a bosal) for a customer, she wanted that throat latch and the braidings on the rest of the headstall, but than in black, and the buckle on top.

And because I had found my cotton mecate again in the dusty hollows of my stable, I made some matching slobberbars. My horse looks happy with it. It's a halterbridle, so I can click the snaffle out of it, and my horse can graze. She's an amazing model! Her name is Gabion and she's a New Forest pony.

Our christmas-wishes (yes my partner made this one he's a cartoonist/webdesigner/photographer/......):

I can only dream about doing carving like that, some time! (I don't think I have the right tools too) @Mike: I like yours very much too!

Wow, is that your first project? I don't dare to post pics here anymore.. Very nice! Like it a lot.

Oh, wauw, I really, really like that!! It's beautifull! Thanks for sharing how to do it.. uhm.. I think of so many uses for that cuttlebug now! Very inspiring.

Does anyone have an email-address of spurwink? The website doesn't work, and it's a little expensive to call from here.

Hmm, don't know exactly, because most of them were for friends, so they get a nice discount. But I think between $ 150 and $ 300 for normal clients. (i don't know exactly what the differende between dollar and euro is) The lightbrown with natural braided one I just sold for € 260,- Throatlatch is not neccessary with these bridles. But you can add a troatlatch and browband if you want. Or some earpieces.

Wonderfull!!! I don't think I have the time to do that kind of detailed work.. I want to try it though

Some recent and older work... but all bitless... 1: bitless Tan with natural leatherlace braidings, ASB-buckles and leather concho's. 2: customer wanted ASB buckles and concho's, and a carving that looked like the inscription on the ASB-buckles. 3: customer wanted an indian-look and the name of the horse on the noseband. 4: same customer as 3, wanted again name of horse and saw some flowercarvings I made, so she wanted something like that. 5: customer wanted narrow straps and no padding under noseband. It had to fit with her saddle (med. oil with black braidings) I'm making a new bitless-bridle now, I think I have pictures next week.