Bosal tutorial

[Annie B]

Hello Alan,

I am new to this web site. I have been braiding 7-8 years and thought I was doing fairly well. I have a bosal that someone is interested in, but decided to change the heel knot because of gaps. Now, for the life of me, I cannot do the heel knot. It has been maybe a year since I have braided a bosal, but in the meantime I make horsehair tassels as ceiling fan pulls so that I can practice the heel knots.

My first problem is that the rawhide wants to slip down from the top of the heel knot. I have been using Gail Hought's instructions. I'll probably end up having to do 4 or 5 interweaves to cover the heel. Is there a step by step tutorial somewhere? Can I just do an 8-bight herringbone? (I actually tried it 3 times and I'm messing that one up too.) Any advice about this would be greatly appreciated. Ann

Finally, we come to the last bit the heelknot. When I started braiding I read where the heel knot builds itself. That as you start braiding THAT's when you decide what the heelknot will look like and how many bands of color it will have and I have found this to be the truth. You can kinda plan but once you start things can change a bit so I sill not really get into the braiding aspect of it, if you can do the side buttons then you can do a heel knot they are just larger and with more passes but fundamentally the same. I do a floral tape build up for my heel knots. I like a fairly heavy heel knot as this speed up the action of the bosal specifically the release and that is what matters to the horse! Add the foundation and then do what you feel. Hopefully the client is pleased with the end results. And hopefully this was a little bit of help to some of you and of interest to the rest. I'm in New Orleans now and will have to wait till I get back to Mi Casa to add the hanger and there are several ways to do that but I'll just save that for another day.

Vaya Con Dios, Alan Bell

Bob Marley - No More Trouble

[roo4u]

hi anne...alan hasnt been visiting with us much lately. hopefully he will get a reply to you soon....you might want to try to pm him, then they notify him via email that he has a message...might get a quicker reply that way. i havent done too many bosals but some things to consider are string size, heel knot foundation and shape. in the tutorial alan mentions he uses floral tape, it is a bit tacky and will help the lace stay in place while you are building the foundation of your knot. you may want to start a topic also and let some of the other braiders give you some advice. good luck!

[Aggiebraider]

Ill throw in my .02 here (worth exactly that much lol). I would definitely do an 8 bight or even more. At the braiding workshop I was at a couple weeks ago, I asked Nate Wald about a problem I was having with interweaves on my pineapple knots. He said the problem was that I was doing a 6 bight and you are limited by where you can place interweaves and what they will look like with a 6 bight. With an 8 or larger, you can put an interweave in anywhere even if its just a single row of one color. Seems much easier to tie an 8 bight exactly like you want.

CW

[rgerbitz]

Hello Ann,

Getting the foundation on can be a tricky at times. I have found that if I start out with my rawhide strings a little wetter than usual it helps to hold them in place. I often just try and get the foundatuon knot on in any way I can then go through and tighten and straighten everything up making sure all is even before continuing on to the interweaves. 8 bights are the handiest to work with on most heel knots.

Rob

[Annie B]

Hey Thank you,

I am going 8-bight and sometimes 10. I reworked the foundation the way Nate suggested, wrapping it with excess kangaroo and one wrap of tape. CW, I think you saw my bosals at the workshop. My strings may be too dry and I will try them a little softer. Yesterday may just have been a bad day. ann

Hello Ann,

Getting the foundation on can be a tricky at times. I have found that if I start out with my rawhide strings a little wetter than usual it helps to hold them in place. I often just try and get the foundatuon knot on in any way I can then go through and tighten and straighten everything up making sure all is even before continuing on to the interweaves. 8 bights are the handiest to work with on most heel knots.

Rob

[Annie B]

Thanks CW,

I finished the bosal and all turned out well. I had 4 interweaves and added a 5th at the center to close up any remaining gaps. Tried something different this time. When I started the first interweave, I stayed higher up when going under the x at the top. That worked out well and I didn't really need a ring knot. Thanks for the help and advice.

Ann

Ill throw in my .02 here (worth exactly that much lol). I would definitely do an 8 bight or even more. At the braiding workshop I was at a couple weeks ago, I asked Nate Wald about a problem I was having with interweaves on my pineapple knots. He said the problem was that I was doing a 6 bight and you are limited by where you can place interweaves and what they will look like with a 6 bight. With an 8 or larger, you can put an interweave in anywhere even if its just a single row of one color. Seems much easier to tie an 8 bight exactly like you want.

CW

[Aggiebraider]

Annie Great job on the bosal. I posted that earlier reply without even reading who I was replying to lol... Guess next time I should look and know who Im talking to.

CW

[ljensen]

I wanted to say thanks to Alan for taking the time to create this tutorial. I finished my first bosal over the weekend and I sure did a lot of referring back to this tutorial throughout the process.

Thanks again,

Logan

[fredz]

Wouahhh.... Great tutorial !!

Many thanks !

[DonW]

Wheres the heel knot?