Making a moving English snaffle

Another tutorial... Now about how to make a traditional scale bit - which moves and can be placed much behind the plastic horse's lip corners. 

What you need:
- thicker metal wire (0.9 mm)
- thinner metal wire
- jewellery pliers
- larger pliers and cutters
- contact glue that dries sticky; can be replaced with tacky wax or whatever you use

Builder pliers, jewellery pliers, and the wires. Glue and large cutters are needed too, in case anyone tries to read this picture literally.

Thicker wire (0.9 mm).

The actual tutorial:

Cut at least 20 cm piece from the thicker wire.

The wire's length really doesn't matter, except that it is better to have a bit more than less.

Take the round pliers and bend a ring from it, usually as big as you can (jewellery pliers are small).

Round pliers, good for making jumprings and curves.

Use the root for this step.

A ring that's ready to be cut.

Cut that with 'builder' cutters. Then repeat making rings at least nine times, because these rings are your friends.

The big builder cutters. I can't survive without these!

Ring fresh after cut.

Do not trim them or anything.

Cut at least 20 cm piece from the thinner wire.

20 cm.

The well-known round jewellery pliers.

Make a tiny loop with the round jewellery pliers' nose.

Making the tiny loop.

The tiny loop after shaping - it's hard to photograph.

Bend it a bit backwards to make a even round loop.

This is not round, but just enough of a loop.

Then get to pliers the loop seam area and bend a bit more backwards, so it resembles the letter P.

This way the loop seam gets hidden since it's against the horse.

Take the piece and put it flat in the pliers' jaws, and let it bite. It flattens the piece, so it's even. (Make sure you don't straighten the excess wire too much from the loop seam.)

Biting the excess wire...

...and flattening the loop part to make sure it's straight.

This is good enough for me. It depends from horse to horse how much the loop should look P or should it be rather just a loop with an excess wire.

Measure about 5 mm, use the root of your pliers if that matches it enough.

These pliers have the roots in a shape of square.

About (roughly more than) 5 mm marked by shaping a corner.

That square is 1 cm alias 10 mm wide.

Cut it.

As a whole the piece seems to be almost 1 cm long.

Make those thin pieces as much as you do the thick rings.

Now we have a) snaffle ring and b) mouthpiece. Let's assemble the whole thing.

Take a thick ring and a pair of thin-nosed builder pliers (or one builder and one jewellery). Hold the wire ends with them, then bend a bit sideways to open the ring nicely.

Thick ring opened.

Second, take a small piece, alias mouthpiece. Put the loop end to the thick ring.

Use builder pliers to bend the ring close. 'Bite' it flat.

Biting.

Now your bit (and hopefully it's pair) is done. Play a minute with the bit, because it is awesome and we are childish enough to do that.

When the bit is done, we have yet to figure out how to attach it to the horse's mouth. It depends from each hobbyist what we prefer, and if you can use Tacky Wax or something else, go for it. But I use Pattex contact glue because it dries sticky and works for metal as well as for leather.

This step requires a handmade wire tool. Take thicker wire piece and bend few loops to it's other end to make a handle. Make sure the tool is long enough (about 10-20 cm + the handle). Bend it's end with round pliers or fingers.

Wire tool's handle.

Seems it's over 20 cm long - it must be.

End bent.

To make the bits actually work-able, open your contact glue tube and blurt a bit of glue to a waste piece, like here the glue tube package remains.
Beware: I don't have experience of more than one type of contact glue, and I don't know if the other glues are sticky too or only this what I have. This my glue is meant to be applied on both surfaces and let dry a bit (about 15-45 minutes) before splatting the surfaces against each other.

Have something to put stuff to hang from if they need to dry without touching surfaces. I have this:

Put the bit and it's partner to hang in that, the 'outside' areas being against each other. This helps with gluing since you can actually see what the toe you are doing.

The seams are facing out of each other, see? Meaning the actual outsides are against each other.

Dip the wire tool's end to the glue. Apply it by stroking/petting the mouthpiece's inside area a few times. Try to add a thick enough layer of glue, so it has some sticking surface; I also cover the mouthpiece's end with glue as that could possibly protect the horse from it's sharpness.

Petting the bit.

If the glue feels difficult to apply, let it dry a bit and put more later. About three layers is usually okay, since the glue gets thicker and so has more surface to stick and so stays better on when 'put in the horse's mouth'.

Leave the bits dry for a couple of days. Just let it dry more than what the package tells you to, because you're not going to stick that bit to your horse forever. Go for example eat something or walk during waiting.

After the drying, test touch the glues. It should feel rubbery and sticky but not too soft or sculpt-able, and my glue also changes from white to transparent when dry. I found out it's better to let the bits dry for a day or couple more so the glue really is dry enough to use; if it's not, then it may either be too soft or that and so sticky that it bites some paint off from your horse when you unbridle them. Yes, I've been this stupid that I injure my models because of some bits; at least it's now proof that this glue is strong. (Maybe paint and varnish quality has some part in this; the glue sticks very well to Vallejo Acrylic varnish - better than in any other surface my horses have had - but hasn't damaged it yet at all!)

Because the contact glue is sticky, it gets all trash in it very easily. With bits that is mostly irritating, but that can also protect the horse's paint surface if there is a danger of damaging it with rough handling. When the glue is too dirty after much use, just add a new layer of glue and let it dry. You can remove all old glue first, or leave some to help the new layer to have some surface to attach in.

I personally couldn't recommend using contact glue with resins or other very high-quality models, since it would upset yet more to damage them with it than the regular factory ponies. Partly because the paintjob in resins is usually (if not always?) an artwork done by professional hobbyists, and injuring that could feel extremely bad. A great artwork is more valuable than the risk of ripping paint off from it because of some damn bit.

Storage of the bits
To keep the bits organized and away from disappearing, I keep them in some small storage boxes that have partitions in them. There they are protected from air and trash that could dry the glue in a way that it loses it's stickiness.


Some photos of the bits in actual use:

Snaffle with a chocolate brown mouthpiece - this seems to disappear quite well with dark colored horses.

Green mouthpiece. In monochrmoatic photos that could also disappear quite well.

Right placement - not in the corner of the mouth, but a bit higher! (And that mouthpiece has already some dust in it...)

But anyway, no matter what you use for attaching the bit to your horse's mouth, try to have fun with it. I've also documented a how-to for a curb bit, so let's start to wait it then!

How to make tiny hooks from wire

Here's my first how-to or a tutorial to this blog. It's about one of those small but important pieces: a hook. I hope this tutorial makes some sense, English isn't my native language so I may have wrong words and difficulty to explain how things are done.

This turorial's hook was originally made for Schleich stuff, so it had to be that small. Yet more it is in scale with traditionals.

This type of hook is the simplest thing ever to make, and when I first did a tutorial about this to my other blog, I thought if that was stupid. But it was not; I've learned with humans that even the simplest things ever need to be told and shown, so they get the idea. So, here's how to make tiny hooks (or bigger, but isn't a 5 mm hook quite small?).

Why to make hooks? I use them as a attachment piece for everything that requires clasps and clips: halter throatlatches, ropes, etc. That includes also replacing some bridle buckles with hooks (to attach bits), and adding hooks to rein ends for same reason. This makes it easy and quick to change bits and reins, as you may guess.


What you will need:
- jewellery pliers: round, flat/thin and cutters
- thin (but not fragile) metal wire

Ignore the big pliers and thick wire.

To start, get the wire you need and cut at least 20 cm long piece from it.

You need a long enough piece to hold from.

Then get the round jewellery pliers and put the wire end in it like this.

A tip to tip.

Make a loop. Don't release it yet; bend the excess wire a bit 'backwards' so you get the loop rounder, like in the second pic.

The loop after shaping...

...and bent backwards. That loop can get closed a bit more with flat pliers.

Then hold the wire in pliers couple of millimetres away from the loop, and bend it from the excess wire to the shape of long U.

I roughly measure it from how wide the loop is.

Bend to upwards direction.

Almost done!

Cut from near the loop. Gently trim the hook if it looks uneven.

The cut goes about to where the loop seam is.

Finished hook!

So it's half of a cm long... 2 cm is roughly a bit less than one inch.

ALTERNATE
After bending the loop round, mark and cut the excess wire from about 5 mm length. I use the pliers itself to mark where to cut; I bend it by holding the wire in the pliers' root piece like the loop is touching them, bend, and cut that.

This is a bit (of old style) being made, but you get the idea of using plier roots (square shaped) for measuring. I mark the cut part by bending the  "excess wire".

Trim it if needed.

(I use that plier root -system as a rule of thumb when measuring things, and it also straightens wire when needed. I really measure all bit mouthpieces, certain bit part lengths, etc. with that. It's very useful really.)


TIPS

- I usually make a batch of hooks at once, or just loops with right length excess wire to bend them later when they get in use. This is another reason for the long wire to bend from.

- Bit hooks, that are those used to attach bits to bridle cheekpieces, differ from other type of hooks. That is because they better not to add too much extra length to the cheekpieces, and they also should be able to hold the bits securely and not allowing them to drop accidentally. When I do bit hooks, I make that typical loop + 5 mm piece, but I bend the U differently: I place the pliers right to the loop's seam and bend the wire over it, so the piece actually gets shorter than other hooks. When the bit hook is in use, the bent piece should be very close to or touching (depending from it's length) the leather part. Bit hooks also should have larger loops so keepers don't slide off from the straps and then jump wholly off from the piece via the hook.

Two bit hooks and a normal hook.

Bit hook in use. (This bridle is old and my way to make certain parts have developed much after it, so the bit hook doesn't match my todays version of it as much.)

- After the hook is got in use, remember that there is no need to constantly bend it open and close to change bits or related. When made correctly, that simply is not needed. Also the hook will become misshaped (or eventually break!) if you continuously fumble it. We don't want that to happen.

- I often use tweezers and pliers to handle small metal parts, like curbstraps that are always a bit against attaching to the bits. This will both protect the pieces and also allow you to see better what you are doing.


ATTACHING TO THINGS
If you don't glue the strap to the hook's loop, you can bend the hook's loop to open with thin flat-nosed pliers (have a pair of them). Gently smuggle the hook's loop end to the strap's loop. Use a pair of pliers to push the hook's loop back into round shape. Trim if needed.



Next I could post a tutorial of how to make a moving English snaffle. Or it's placement...