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I have seen some plans posted in past but the links are all gone. Looking to build a stiching horse - need some plans to work off of. Any help appreciated.

I bought this yesterday from Facebook marketplace. Love it! The stitching arms are detachable from the seat and just long enough to use when sitting on a chair. So very easy to use, on or off its seat. There is a wooden lever to control the arms and hold the leather in place. I am loathe to do anything to it but I need to attach some leather to the insides of the arms to protect the leather being stitched. I plan to do so with some water soluble glue because I do not want it to be permanent. In case anyone wants to buy one, there are at least 3 other sellers offering similar items on Facebook marketplace as of yesterday. I was lucky that this was being offered close to where I stay else shipping might be a bit of an expense.

I found this lovely old horse stashed away in an old leather shop in northern Oregon, and am lucky enough to get to play with it and do some restoration work. It has a maker’s mark of “Randall&CO CIN O.” and a name branded on it, G.B. Mason. I don’t know if that’s a company or an individual. I’m thinking it was probably a saddle maker from the Pacific Northwest or Montana, possibly even a hundred years back or better. I don’t know much about stitching horses but I think it’s a left handed harness horse. I’d love any info or links to where I can learn more, as well as any thoughts on restoration. I’d say I’m a lower level journeyman at repair and restoration of hand tools but this is a little different. For whatever reason, no matter which way I orient them a couple of these pictures are posting upside down, sorry.

Hi All - Up for sale are several stitching clams I recently constructed. These clams were handmade from a variety of hardwoods. Each has been signed, numbered, and dated. Due to the steam bending / lamination process and the use of different hardwood species, each clam is slightly different in its construction. Unless otherwise noted, each clam features the following: Profiled jaws, padded with whiskey Buttero leather Retaining strap for storage Contrasting wedged dowel reinforcements at joints Hidden needle magnets Mortised brass hinges Clam #2 (Ash / Sapele construction) - $500 (Sale Pending) Clam #4 (Walnut / Sapele construction) - $525 Clam #5 (Sapele / Walnut construction) - $525 Prices include domestic shipping. If you are looking to ship internationally, please message me for details on the additional shipping cost. Additional details (along with additional pictures) for each individual piece can be found in my etsy listing here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/784930167/leather-stitching-clam-saddlers-clam

* Designed for all your leather hand stitching needs * Keeps items securely in place * Durable oak frame * Contoured pine seat * Grips are leather padded to hold items securely in place * Convenient foot pedal locks jaws Shipping depends on where you live. I live in Alabama. Will take to post office and give you price for shipping. It has been taken apart in two pieces. Email: cocorymer@gmail.comfor more pics. shipping in USRanges from $50 -$70

Hi all - I’m sure many on here have seen (and like me, drooled over) the Fred Moreau clams that a few lucky souls were able to get their hands on. For my part, I’m still working with a very inadequate Tandy stitching pony, while continuously promising myself that I’d one day get around to building something bigger and better. That day finally came when I visited home for the Christmas holidays and I convinced my dad to donate his skills and equipment as a woodworker to help me in my endeavor. My goal was simple – create something as close to the Moreau clam as possible. Anything else just seemed inferior. For the wood I used zebrawood for the jaws (each jaw is a laminate of 4 pieces at about 1/8” thickness each, bent into shape with a custom form), walnut for the base, maple for the “lips”, and a combination of walnut / ash for the wedged dowels. Overall, the piece is 100 cm from tip to base, and has a little over 20 inches of space to work with on larger format projects. The one improvement for next time (if there is one), is to add some sort of internal “guide rails” on the jaws to keep things aligned well. The hinge has a little bit of play, so there’s some lateral movement that I’d like to get rid of. I’ve tried to chronicle the build process in the imgur album blelow (I’ll apologize in advance for my pictures – I’m slowly being convinced to spend money on a nice camera). This hasn’t been put into action just yet, but am looking forward to tossing the old tandy stitching pony, and actually being able to stitch bigger things like bags without holding them in my legs BUILD ALBUM: https://imgur.com/gallery/7C6NI1t

I saw this and thought I would share it here in case any local members were interested. No affiliation with the seller. https://seattle.craigslist.org/tac/atq/d/cobblers-bench/6681347794.html

I'm working on a new stitching horse/clamp it will be adjustable in many different ways this is the beginning of it hopefully my ideas will pan out. It will have its own frame and seat just similar to a stitching horse only the seat will be from a motorcycle. It is a gel seat from a Sportster a le Pera it was sitting around gathering dust so I figured what better thing to use then a motorcycle seat! So here are a couple of pictures hopefully it will work out the way that I want to. Of course it's all metal and the Jaws will have leather wrap. As always comments and questions are welcome. and here is another picture of what the tensioning device should look like. Hopefully it will work out if not it's been a blast making it so far! there are still many modifications that I have to do to the jaws the silver perpendicular round rod will allow it to rotate on a knuckle of sorts then there is another joint that will allow it to tilt. At least that's the concept for now. This one is going to be a standalone unit unlike my other one that clamps to a table.

Has anyone ever heard of a harness stitching horse with all metal jaws? I am hoping to go look at it this week.

Four of Seven Stitching Horse Patents The drawings are great, but the ingenuity that goes into the descriptions...clever folks. US378295.pdf US474041.pdf US1331487.pdf US2491972.pdf

I went on hunt this weekend. I picked up a couple of stitching horses. One in Quebec and one in Vermont. If there is any interest, let me know. I can get better photos if needed.

I am making a stitching horse ready for use, but I am perplexed about how to re-align the jaws. They are off about 1/2 inch. I am reluctant to remove the hinges and reposition them. Anyone run into this and have an idea how to best approach repair? Stitching horse is in excellent shape but for this. I have other pictures if it would help.

I went antique hunting this weekend. Started in Quebec and ended up in Upstate New York.I found a few stitching horses. Ended up at a pickers garage, service station by day, back room filled with cool stuff at good prices. The first photo depicts what I thought was a very big clamp, but the owner said it was used in harness making. True or not? He was asking $150.00 for it. Not something I need, but I am curious if it for harness work. If it is of interest to anyone, let me know. The second few photos are the stitching horse I found and purchased there.

I am looking for a stitching horse. I have a hand that is partially numb and need a device to hold leather securely. I am in New England, Vermont to be exact, so anyone in New England would be a bonus.

Three stragglers. US42020 (1).pdf US307141.pdf US371198.pdf

Just wanted to post a few pics of my stitching horse I refurbed several years ago. This was an an old barn find out of California purchased off Ebay. I spent about a month tearing it down, sanding, refinishing and have used it for about 10 years now. My wife thought I had lost the last bit of sense I had when I bought it. The "Lil' Dude" Pro Stitching Tree I purchased from the old HideCrafter Leather Co. I have since modified the base to provide a tilt forward capability of about 30 degrees. I was wondering if anyone else owned one of these? I have also been considering modifying it to be similar to a Dale Grabowski Sit and Stitch as thread can get hung on the "Dude's" external tension adjustment hardware.

Hello All, I have been searching for a good stitching horse to use and ran across this one yesterday at an antique show. It is very sturdy and appears to have been well used in the trade. It has an adjustable seat that can be swung out to the side. The big screws under the seat are made of wood and the big nut holding the seat on is also wood. Everything is in tact except that the leather strap is broken and a few tacks are missing here and there. It looks like the seat was recovered a couple of times as there are what I think are the original tacks as well as some newer brass tacks on the remaining seat cover. The jaws are of the straight variety and have what I think are brass plates on them, so I am assuming that this is a harness maker's bench. I was told that this was probably from the 1850's or so, but have no idea. I just thought it was a very cool looking piece and that it was in good enough condition to use. I want to clean and preserve the wood and metal parts, replace the broken leather strap and get it into working order. However, I would like to learn what I have before I touch it just in case it might be valuable. I would hate to ruin a nice piece of history. I am just starting to research to see what I can find out about it and wanted to ask for your help. Any ideas what I have? Are there any good resources; books, websites, etc. that I should be looking at?

I'm brand new around here. Just now in the process of restarting my Leather Shop after a few years of what most folks consider being "semi-retired"... though... I never truly quit working. I just found, I'd thought, a way I could work less hard... Economics and a desire to eat has pushed me to take on the more common labors required to keep beans in the pantry. I ran my own custom leather shop for a numer of years primarily building gun leather for the cowboy action shooting market. So... as I work at gearing up a fresh shop I was needful of building a new stitching horse... since I'd given the last one I built away... I've been publishing mostly Western Fiction on Amazon and such the last few years... and that gave me an idea. I've seen folks hunting around for "Plans" and such for Stitching Horses. I'm curious if an Ebook for the building of this particular design might find a bit of popularity? I was thinking a price of $2.99 or so would be fair? with full list of tools, parts list and a goodly number of photographs and descriptions/directions showing how to put it together? I'm hoping this is the right forum to place this post, as it is only an enquiry... I appologize to the administrators if it is not. Your comments about the need or desire for such a publication is most appreciated.

Thought y'all might like to see this. My dad made this stitching horse. Pretty cool. Holds tight too. It is Foot operated. Will add a removeable spring in between jaws later so it will open by itself when foot pressure is released

Hey All, I was visiting my Sister in Southern Indiana for Christmas. A day or two after Christmas she came up with the idea of hitting a few antique stores in a neighboring town. Since I'm always on the lookout for old tools, I thought it was a pretty good idea. Well, the second store I walked into, I ended up walking out with this nice old stitching horse. It's in pretty good shape. I just needed to add a few shims to the legs and 6-7 coats of boiled linseed oil to restore a finish. All of it seems original except for the second half of the leather strap. I've been holding out for 5-6 years on buying a stitching horse in hopes that I would find a nice old one. Well, I can check that off my list now. Frank

Two stitching horses and two tooling stones available. One horse is a full size professional stitching horse. The jaws lean toward the user and swivel left and right. I can see it's been used, but it is nearly new. The other horse is smaller, home-made, and will get you by for infrequent jobs - more if you give it a tuneup. It is made out of plywood and painted white. The attached photo shows the size as compared to the full sized horse. It is quite functional, but as I say...it could use a tuneup. Marble stone is just shy of 22" square and 2" thick. Top edges are beveled. To surface has visible scratches, although you can barely feel them. If it's a concern, a professional could probably sand them out fairly quickly. Granite stone is part of a headstone. 12" x 12" x 4". Prices: Stitching horse (full): $275 Stitching horse (small): $50 OBO Marble stone: $100 Granite stone: $60 I'm sorry, but I won't be shipping these. I'm in Colorado Springs and go to the Denver area frequently. I can deliver to the Federation show in Sep. If interested, please go to www.moonlightartstudio.com and send me an email. Additionally, I have a heavy-duty desk/bench, bench with casters, filing cabinets and fluorescent lights. If you're interested, we can talk about those too.

Hello All. I have a short story I want to share that shows how nice some people can be and it also shows why you should treat others the way you wish for them to treat you. I have been working on a couple of National Park projects the last few years at a specific Park in the Midwest. I asked the Chief of Maintenance at the Park if he new anyone in the area who could make a stitching horse for me. He made a few phone calls and said he had a friend that would get back to me. I asked him about the contact a week later and he said to just be patient, he would get the info. Long story short, I had lunch with this friend in Maintenance and with the Park Superintendent before leaving to return to VA. Before we left for lunch, they said "I hope you have room in your moving trailer". I asked why, and they said "we have a gift for you". I was floored, when they pointed to a stitching horse sitting in the corner. I told them they were hard to come by and asked where they found it. The Park Superintendent said chuckling, "yeah they are hard to come by". I asked again where he found it, and he said "in my basement". I said, "you mean you had one already". He said "no, I made it". He said he used a combination of plans he found, some which came from the old 1920's era Farmers Woodwork book. He also added that the stitching horse was made from collected wood from a large annual local event near the Park. I was speechless and could not thank them enough. What a great gift.......Rory