bosal & riding crop

[rawhide1]

Crow

While no master by any means I think your off to a great start. Just keep after it and you will get better with with time an practice. I know its hard to know what your doing right or wrong(width and thickness of strings, beveled not beveled ect..) with no other work to compare yours to. Thats way this is such a great site you can get many opinions from a lot of different folks. But if ya get a chance to stop by a tack store or theres a horse show it's awful nice to be able to study others work. Me and the wife just got back from Vegas and while there we went ot the cowboy Christmas show there were hunderds of vendors there. So I had plenty of braided gear to study!!! Some was excellent (probably should be hung on a wall and not used) and some was pretty poor ( should probably be thrown in the corner and not used) my point being if ya can get to a show and study braided gear it will help you a lot. Mike

[Knotnutz]

I am certainly not a master braider (minds outa gutter boys!) but as someone who is not too long from her first braid, I can make a couple of comments here.

I echo what has been said earlier - experience will give tighter braids and knots, but, what you have done is wonderful. I would also strongly suggest bevelling your lace - Jim Downey in Arizona sells a great little beveller, I can't live without mine now.

One of the things I learned is to roll your braids and knots - and NOT lengthways like pastry, but sideways (thats a really funny story about how the light suddenly went on one day) with a piece of hardwood. It helps the strings settle in better, distributes the tension a bit more evenly etc.

I look back now at my first attempts - and giggle like a mad fool - they are sooo bad!

Keep up the good work!

[crow]

thanks to everybody,

the reason i showed up here was to get some encouragement, and that`s what i got, thank you all alot.

Next i want to try how is it to work with rawhide, finished belly of snake whip and waiting my rawhide now. I sure let you know of progress when i`m so far.

Knotnutz, i`m not sure what u mean by rolling sideways?

Buying beveller has been in my mind for a while but it is a bit too expencive for sunday braider. I made one myself just need to get learn to use it.

Does anyone have some close up pics of beveled lace? Would like to see how it should look like. I have general idea but is my idea correct or not.

brgd

Crow

[Knotnutz]

What I mean by rolling is that you take the item, put a board (piece of hardwood) on top of it and roll it from side to side, so that the item underneath rolls from side to side as well. This helps distribute the tension on the strings. I do this several times during the tightening process when finishing knots, and once or two when braiding.

As for bevelling - here is a scan of a scrap of roo lace - one side bevelled, the other not.