How-to: traditional scale bridle

Now it's... Time for another tutorial! I'm going to tell you how I make my bridles, at least in the simplier way I have used all the time until very recently. Just a plain everyday casual bush-riding bridle. No dressage double bridles, westerns or anything else. Just a normal bridle without anything fancy in it - it has the main parts plus the cavesson (you really don't need a cavesson in every bridle, no, you don't).

Double bridles are as simple as the casual bridles; just add an extra pair of bit cheekpieces plus their hanger.

MATERIALS
- roughly 1 millimetres or 1,5 mm wide leather lace (you can also use 3 mm wide lace for certain parts like split crownpieces)
- 0.4 mm metal wire
- glue which works for leather (I have Pattex contact glue)

TOOLS
- a rubber cutting mat with centimetre grid pattern
- a craft knife (X-acto is okay)
- two needle nose jewellery pliers
- round jewellery pliers
- small jewellery sidecutters
- a 0.3 or 0.5 metal tipped mechanical pencil (Pilot, Staedtler or Rotring Tikky)

Notices:
- I don't make my tutorials for kids. If a kid wants to follow my tutorial, I recommend an adult to supervise them.
- I'm not a professional in any way, I am just a serious hobbyist with severe perfectionism and stubbornness. 
- This tutorial expects you to use working mini tongue buckles. I don't talk about sliding buckles here.
- Everything is meant to work in this tutorial's bridle. So no fake tongue buckles or other types of creative eye-fooling.
- This tutorial doesn't include a how-to for split crownpieces. I have started to make them very recently, and already captured a tutorial for them, but I still think the single strap crownpieces are better for beginner tackmakers.

Recipes?
I have recipes for my tack measurements to help me keeping them in scale and easier to make. This means that I write a list on paper, and the list includes each part of the bridle and it's cut length in centimetres and then what that piece is meant to be when finished. Like a cheekpiece's cut length can be 6 cm and the finished length 3 cm. I have multiple recipes for bridles, since horse heads vary a lot, but most of the sizes work for what we have; the sizes are pony, small warmblood, large warmblood and draft. I can mix some of these if necessary - and it is, in this tutorial! The idea is that this bridle will fit most light type models, so it's something that could roughly fit both GG Valentine and Salinero. I have both and have checked it.

So as said, this tutorial focuses on making a bridle that fits most average light breed horses, mainly warmbloods.

What comes to making metal parts, there is a separate section for those under the actual tutorial.

MEASUREMENTS
- cut length (includes tabs) > finished length
- crownpiece (bit): 10 cm
- crownpiece (noseband): 10 or 11 cm
- cheekpiece (bit): 6 cm > 3 cm
- cheekpiece (noseband): 5 cm > 2,5 cm or 5,5 cm > nearly 6 cm?
- browband: 9,5 cm > 5,5 cm or 11 cm > 5,5 cm (when twofolded)
- throatlatch: 16 cm > 15 cm
- noseband: 11 cm > 10 cm
- Noseband padding to be 3 cm or 3,5 cm, located 2 or 2,5 cm away from the noseband's buckle end.

The actual tutorial:

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The lace
First we start by making some lace. The leather has to be thin and flexible, but not paper-thin or fragile. If it feels like rubber, better to leave it off. The texture should be as smooth as possible. To make lace, I cut over 5 mm wide pieces from large saddle leather pieces (leftovers). Then I use a thinning knife (Safety Beveler) to slice the top side off from these, as smoothly as possible. And these narrow, thin strips are what I cut into about 1,5 mm wide lace. One by one. I use a wide bladed knife for this.

My lace-cutting knife - I can't cut with anything else anymore!

That's 2 mm wide. It can be also a bit narrower.

The lace will end up varying in width and evenness, although I try to make them as straight and even as possible. I have a rule of thumb: First, the strips to use for the holed straps (like crownpieces) have to be slightly wider than 1 mm and they should also be even through the whole length. Then I can use the more wonky, unbalanced ones for shorter or unadjustable pieces like cheekpieces, browbands and flash attachments. Sometimes I re-trim these a bit right before use if they seem to be too unevenly shaped.


Metal parts
Have the metal pieces ready at this point. This bridle will need 5-6 buckles, same number of D-rings and four round jumprings plus yet two hooks (which at this point are just rings with a straight 5 mm wire with them).

Crownpieces
First we make crownpieces. This bridle is going to get buckles on both sides, so both the bit and the noseband are going to get completely detachable crowns. Cut one lace to be 10 cm long and one to be 11 cm long. Trim the ends like seen in the photo.

The shorter one will be for the bit.

Throatlatch and noseband
Then we do the long strap that keeps the bridle around the horse's head; the throatlatch. Cut it to be 16 cm long. Mark 1 cm from one end. That is where you put the buckle at. (You can also just bend the end and check if it's roughly 1 cm long.)

Another strap we measure and cut is the noseband, it's 11 cm, including the glue extra. Bend also that (the 11th part) like you did with the throatlatch's.

Now we have the crownpieces, throatlatch and a noseband. Though they don't form a bridle yet, heh.

Cheekpieces
To make cheekpieces, I check some uneven lace. The reason to this is that I use (and you should, too) the better lace only for the parts that get holes punched to them. And the reason to this is simply the fact that I can't fully control the quality of the lace I do, no matter how hard I try. (If I could, I could of course use only even and smoothly cut lace for all parts in a bridle.) Making lace can be exhausting for eyes and arms and fingers. And I want to use all the lace I have made at least at some point, so I have decided to use the worse lace for parts that don't get much stress similarly to the straps that get holes in them (holes make a strap, especially this thin, a lot weaker and more fragile; prone to breaking).

Here's that one in the left. Use something like it for the cheeks, and the one in the right finds it job as a crownpiece or something.

The noseband cheekpieces can be shorter than the bit cheeks. Cut them 5 cm or 5,5 cm; even the 5 mm definitely adds more length or takes some off from it, so pay attention to that. The 5,5 cm will be okay if you want the cheeks to have more length, like when it has to fit bigger headed models.

The bit cheekpieces to be cut as 6 cm or 7 cm. The 6 cm ends up being 3 cm and 7 cm goes to 3,5 cm; the latter can be already too long for some heads, so cut 6 cm.

Here the to-be noseband cheeks seem to turn out quite short. It's okay, but the extra 5 mm can make them yet better.

The browband
Somewhere during the cheeks, cut also the browband. It should become 5,5 cm long when done, and there are various ways to make that. My old way is to add 4 cm extra to the finished length and then mark 4 cm at each end, so there could be 1 cm long area of glue and the same length about space in each end in the finished strap. If it goes twofolded, cut a strip twice as long as the finished length, mark a dot in the middle and apply glue while making sure you know where the loops go at.

At this point, I recommend making the browband twofolded so it's simplier to understand. That way it also gets more even. (And this tutorial doesn't include padding in the browband so it remains very simple.)

Prepping the pieces for buckles
Next bend the buckle tabs to each piece (cheekpieces, throatlatch, noseband). They should be roughly 1 cm long.

Then hold each tab down, folded, like seen here. (I really use fingers to that...) Use a knife to cut a lengthwise slot to it. It's okay to keep it deep and slightly long; not a hole but indeed a slot.

Slot made.

Make the slot to each tab.

Metal parts
We need metal parts to make the bridle work: 6 buckles, 6 D-rings, two jumprings and two hooks (a loop with a 5 mm extra in it). To keep things under control, place the parts together with their straps and keep all these separated from each other. (Does this make any sense? Look at the pic.)

From left: noseband cheekpieces, bit cheekpieces, browband, noseband and throatlatch.

Before actually starting to construct the bridle we have to put the buckles in where they belong.

First I put the lace through the buckle, from the front. I stick the tongue through the slot I made for it.

Done.

...and here it's not upside down.

That is what the slot was for! Just a hole could not work.

The D-rings get placed only after glue. Find out how!

Next we glue
I use Pattex contact glue for most of my tack. I have used also fast-drying ones, but after getting used to this contact one, I found out I don't even know how to use the smelly fast-drying glues anymore. You can use whatever glue you want to, the main thing just is that the glue works and is suitable for leather. (Unfortunately, some glues say they are for leather while they really are not. Or at least they don't work for this small pieces which need to be durable enough to get along with bending and sometimes rough handling.)

I put some glue on a glue package piece and use a homemade tool to apply it on the leather.

To keep it easy, I hold the strap from the buckle's tongue and put the tail in between two fingers. This way it doesn't fly around and the glue goes where it needs to. (This contact glue is very sticky and gets annoying if it goes where it should not.) The technique stays similar no matter how large the buckle is. This also is why I want to keep the tongues long before the whole piece is complete.

This is not a bridle part, but the technique and hold stays similar no matter what I am gluing.

Pattex contact glue gets applied on both surfaces that come against each other. It's white when fresh, and turns transparent (and slightly dark) when ready to get splatted against. Then I hold the piece for few seconds to make sure it grabs well. Pattex contact glue dries transparent and gets clearly yellowed when it's thick enough, but in model horse tack use it's not a problem at all. I also recycle the dried blops as pecks for tippy models, and use them to pick dust, cat hair and random little trash from backdrop cloths I use for photography. (Sometimes I also use that to collect several small metal parts at once if I have a large amount of them to move.) Useful!

Here you see how I store glue while using it: on a waste plastic.

At this point I assume you have your buckle glues added. Take a D-ring and put it to the strap behind the buckle, about in the middle of the glue part. Now leave the straps to set on their side, and make sure they don't flip flesh side down (this makes them to stick to the mat or collect all the dust on them). Of course, if you have fast-drying glue, which I assume most use, just close the tab instantly after applying.

While I wait the glue to set, I play with the browband. The two jumprings are for this. I put them to the loop ends.

The glue has set, so I splat the surfaces together.

Next we put glue to the rest of the cheekpieces. It's good to bend them to see where the fold goes. The idea is to put glue only to the long tab's end and next to the buckle end, and this means about 5 mm long glue for each surface. As you may see, the cheekpieces go completely twofolded with this technique. They become symmetric to each other and also are easy to keep balanced, since you just cut each half in certain length and know that it shortens to half when done.

There can be a nice amount of space between the glued areas. (Especially the noseband cheeks may have just enough space that a buckle can go through the loop.)

Do that to both noseband's and bit cheeks. Let them set or splat instantly, depending from your glue of course.

When the glue has set, I put a hook to each bit cheek.

Then I splat them all. First I place the tab's end next to the buckle part's tab. I really don't have words to describe this, so, just look at the photos...

When I'm okay with the start, I press the rest of the glue area between my fingers.

Pressing the glues.

A finished noseband cheekpiece.

Cheekpieces done! Notice how the bit cheeks have more empty compared to the noseband cheeks. This is to make sure there is space for a noseband if one has to be tied through the loops.

Padding
I usually like to pad both nose and browband, but a fact is that you don't need to pad a browband really. If it presses the horse somewhow, it's fitted badly, and that is something you can't fix by just padding it. (With real horses... And in fact padding can make a too short browband way worse on a model as well.) With nosebands, a padding adds more detail to the bridle and also adds variety to the widths. Full scale bridles have varying in the strap widths, so this is also a thing about realism. I personally don't like the idea of unpadded nosebands (although I can't say anything about how nice that is for the horse - some say that horses could prefer narrow nosebands more!), so I always include these to my bridles.

I place the noseband strap upside down and measure 2-2,5 cm from the leather's end, and mark it. Here it's 2,5 cm away from the end.

Then I measure 3 cm form the mark, and mark also that. (I can also check and mark the midway in case I want to add a flash noseband attachment, which I did for this bridle. It's still not a necessary part of a bridle, so you can well leave it off and just add the padding. I have a separate section for the flash attachment below this actual tutorial.)

Okay, here the padding is going to be 3,5 cm long. The longest I dare to make for average bridles is 4 cm.

For padding I use those thicker and softer leathers that can't be used for actual straps. I cut them into strips that are clearly wider than the main straps.

Checking if the padding is in right width or if I need to narrow it a bit.

Then I take a ballpoint pen and draw a lengthwise line on the top side of the strip. This should work as a guide.

This is where the fast-drying glues get useful. Contact glue can work, too, but it can be very very slow and it's difficult to get enough glue to both surfaces without any escaping out of the midline, so here it's better to have glue which can be applied on the narrow strip only.

So, I put glue on the noseband strap's first mark, which is that one closest to the buckle. Then I place the padding's end on it. Flip it topside up. Add more glue little by little and press the surfaces together. That is how I do that. (I can't photograph this step at all because of how fast the glue dries.)

If there's a flash attachment, I use tweezers to push the strap siding it slightly flat against the mat, so there should be less of a bulk when the noseband is in use.

I continue to apply more glue until the last ballpoint mark hits the padding. I check that roughly by separating the surfaces, applying glue to the strap until the mark and pressing the surfaces together. Then I check where the mark is again, and trim the padding little by little.

That little violet dot on the narrower piece is the last mark.

Then I check the symmetry by placing the padding on the mat.

If I want the padding to be narrower, I can trim the long edges of it... Or at least try doing so. I'm not good at that and usually end up with more messy edges than what I cut before gluing the padding.

After trimming.

At this point, everything is glued what needs to be.

Trimming buckles and bending hooks
I trim the tongues from the buckles only at this point. It's an easy and simple step, but can also go wrong; the tongue easily gets cut too short or not enough.

This is the angle I put the sidecutters at before clipping the tongue.

...and it is slightly too long. But anyway, it's still useable, and sometimes too short tongues ruin everything, so that shall be enough.

To bend the bit hooks, I grab each from the loop seam and bend outwards with a finger, so when the cheeks are "undersides" against the mat, the hooks should face up.

Bend those upwards.

Done!

Strap trimming and hole punching
Use a knife to trim the strap ends from the noseband and throatlatch.

To punch holes, you need a 0.3 or 0.5 mm metal-tipped mechanical pencil that has no lead inside. I don't press the "click" down while punching, that is what normally feeds the lead forward in case there is one. The tip has to be straight and not releasing when you add pressure on it. I want to mention that I did not invent this trick. Another thing you need is a piece of scrap leather, which should be soft and not too thin and not too roughly textured.

I keep my tackmaking mechanical pencils in a good condition, so they are actually useable for drawing and writing all the time - just put a lead there and that's it. But I already have a COLLECTION of these, so I can keep some of these permanently for tackmaking purposes.

Before I punch anything, I place the straps on the mat and mark four dots one centimetre away from each other. The first dot should be 1 cm away from the strap's tip, no more or less. (And my thumb hides it in the photo... That just is how I hold it there.) This gets done to each end of the crownpieces, which is where I am really careful with. The throatlatch and noseband aren't that serious cases, though it's nice to get also them turn out okay.

All straps marked.

Then we are going to make the holes to the straps. I usually start with the crownpieces since they're the most vicious. For this we first place the scrap leather on the table (not on the mat!) and make sure there is nothing under it that could add bulk. Then, the strap gets placed on that. When I punch, I place the pencil's tip on a ballpoint pen mark, make sure the pen is straightly, and use both of my hands to press it down. You should get a crunching sound, which means that the pencil ate through it. Punch first on each of the marks.

Marks punched.

Then, use the same technique to make two holes between each of the "mark holes". This way you should end up with 10 holes per end. (My split crownpieces get only 7 holes per strap.)

These look so rough when seen up close...

When the cheekpieces are done, and nothing has broken (it's not a rare problem), we punch holes to the noseband and throatlatch.

The bridle parts are now done. But, we still can't call it ready for assembling. We need some rings!

Add one ring to the throatlatch and one to the noseband's buckle half. The latter is something I always bend a bit flat, to make it oval shaped. To add that ring to the noseband, open it, smuggle into the place and close with two needle nose pliers. Turn the ring so that the seam side (and the strap's flesh side!) is upwards, grab from one side and press it slightly flat from the seam side and opposite. Make sure it doesn't get too flat, and if it seems to become too wide for the strap, then cut a little off near the seam and press the ends together. Flatten more.

Throatlatch and it's ring.

The noseband's keeper ring, which gets flattened into an oval. The seam side must be on the flesh side of the strap.

The bridle is now ready for assembling.

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ASSEMBLING THE BRIDLE

Start by grabbing the browband and putting the throatlatch's strap end through one of the loops. Make sure the browband's ring is already there.

Next put the strap through the other loop in the browband. Do NOT pull it so that the buckle goes near the opposite loop, no no no. There is a reason why.

Next take the 11 cm crownpiece and buckle one of the shorter cheekpieces to it. Because this is the right side's cheekpiece, the strap should have the trimmed side against the mat. (If it's not a strap with triangular trimming, like seen in the noseband.)

Now put that crownpiece's free end through the right side's browband loop similarly as you did with the throatlatch. Move the ring so that it goes between the throatlatch and the crown. I call those rings  'separators'.

Next take two jumprings and put them to that exact crownpiece. Put the rest of the crown to the other end of the browband. Buckle the other short cheekpiece to this.

Then, buckle a bit cheekpiece to the 10 cm long crownpiece, similarly as you did with the noseband cheek. Put the strap through the right side's browband loop, through the rings in the noseband crownpiece and on top of it. The rings will keep it there.

Buckle the other bit cheekpiece to it's crown.

Second we put the noseband's buckle end through the right side's short cheekpiece. Try to force the strap's metal keeper to go through the loop as well.

Put the strap end through the left side's cheek loop.

The bridle is DONE!

This is what it looks like on the horse:

You can also add some extra keepers - jumprings - to the cheekpieces. They're not necessary, but make the bridle look a little bit more finished. (I think leather keepers could look much better, but I hate making them... And I'm not the only one.)

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MAKING THE METAL PARTS

About the bits, I have already made two tutorials, one for a plain snaffle and one for a moving curb. Also hooks have been talked about.

But the buckles... I make them by grabbing a wire with my needlenose pliers' jaw tips and bending the wire around (and under) it tightly, from forward-right-back at me and again forward. I slide the buckle off from the pliers and clip the excess wire off, so it's complete now. Almost. I leave the tongue long for a while yet. To prepare the buckle for use, I grab from it's left half with one pliers and the tongue with another, and carefully lift the tongue upwards to open it. When the buckle is glued to the strap, I snip the tongue shorter to keep it useable.

A D-ring I make by twisting wire around the round pliers' tips, not too close to the very tip though. Then I take needlenose pliers and flatten the seam side by "biting" it with the pliers. Ideally the ring's flat side should be the same length as the leather lace they get used with.

Bit hook is a loop with 5 mm straight extra wire in it. It gets bent by holding from near the loop and pressing the wire outwards (on the top side of the strap) so that the hook part remains short but deep enough to keep the bit in it. The bit hook's loop should be so large that they can't get through any kind of free-sliding keepers if there are some used in the cheekpieces.

I can add extra rings as keepers to the straps, like throatlatches and cheeks, if needed. They're not absolutely necessary but make the bridle look a bit more neat.

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THE BROWBAND

I have various ways to make browbands, and I'm still figuring out the best way to do them. Usually they're one of the first parts of a bridle I glue, since I don't like making browbands and they can be masters in misbehaving - but they still are a crucial part in the average English bridles, so I will tell how to make one. There are three different ways (how I do them)! But the most important thing I can say is that the finished browband should be 5 cm, 5,5 cm or 6 cm long. 5,5 cm (5 cm and 5 millimetres) is what I found out to be a good intermediate length for these, since the 6 cm can be way too long for smaller heads - while I have had a slightly less than 5 cm browband to strangle the horse's head (which wasn't even big) so that the rest of the bridle misbehaved...

I mass-produce browbands, and I actually like to make them these days.

One way to make a browband is to check the finished length and add 2 cm extra (tabs) to each end, which means that you have to put 4 cm extra to the actual finished length. For 5 cm, cut 9 cm, for 5,5 cm cut 9,5 cm and for 6 cm cut 10 cm. This way you have enough surface for glue, and also enough space to leave unglued, so the crownpieces can easily slide through the browband loops. This is a difficult system and I recommend using a ballpoint pen to carefully mark where to add glue. The grid pattern rubber mat is excellent for this thing.

The second way is to double the finished length, so a 5,5 cm needs 11 cm piece. This is the best way to get a completely even browband, unless you can skive the tabs very very thin. I usually measure the midway of the lace and mark a dot there, so I know where to put glue. I also bend the tabs to check where the loops come, so I can make sure I don't add glue to the parts that have to stay separated.

And the third way is quite similar to the first one, but has less of the cut length. It's the cut length + 3 cm. I mark 3 cm to each end, and the goal is to leave more than 1 cm in the midway unglued (look at the photos). This way the gap in each loop becomes roughly loose enough for the split crownpieces (which are roughly 3 mm wide) but are not too wide. 

Mark 3 cm from each end.

...and put glue to the mark and the end so that each glue surface is slightly less than 1 cm long. This way, the fold in the browband becomes 1 cm 5 mm long.

Browbands are difficult, and it's best to just learn the lengths first. When this is fine, you can start to play with different types of paddings and decorations.

Satin lace is nice.

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THE FLASH ATTACHMENT

Not all nosebands have or need to have a flash attachment, but they may add more detail and options to the bridle's usage, so I like to make them to most sets these days. I use a short piece of lace and fast-drying glue for this. 

So. The first step is to have the noseband's padding marked. Then we measure the midway of this and mark it as well.

Padding marked.

Mid-mark is where the flash attachment goes at.

You can decide which side you want the buckle and strap ends go in the finished product, but it can be hard to control that. I have difficulty with it as well. Here it's done so that the first glue goes to the noseband's flesh side while the buckle lies pointing to the left or up. 

Next take the glue.

Put some glue to the mark and splat a lace's end on it. You can trim it later, so the important thing now is to get it glued nicely and symmetrically.

Here's what that looks like when the noseband itself is the topside up.

Next we glue the actual loop itself. To make sure I get that wide enough, I place an extra lace piece there and put glue on the noseband's topside. Try not to put glue to the extra lace, and make sure you don't pull the loop too tightly, otherwise it's difficult to get the extra lace off.

The extra lace is on the right.

Here's what the loop looks like with the extra lace removed and upside down.

Now just cut the rest of the lace off. You now have a noseband with an attachment for the flash noseband.

Another way to make a flash attachment is to glue a piece of lace on the noseband's underside and to fold that lace on itself again. I have done this, but I think it's too fragile as that, so making that stay more securely is another reason for padding. 

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EXTRAS

Putting the bridle on, adjusting correctly
I use needlenose pliers and tweezers to hold straps and buckles, since fingers may be too clumsy for that. Usually I first use the tweezers to put the strap through a buckle and then use the pliers to hold the latter, while fastening the strap with fingers. It's sometimes okay to use cotton gloves during tacking up, but it's usually too clumsy for bridles... And in the case of bits, I don't want the glove's fibers to affect the glue what I use to attach bits. 

I start bridling by placing the crownpiece over the ears and buckling the throatlatch. Make sure it doesn't get too snug; with real horses, you should be able to fit a fist through the throatlatch when it's buckled, and to demonstrate that in models, I could use a fingertip. (Yes, we can go that extreme.) The average Breyer rider doll probably has way too small hands for that.

Then I buckle the noseband, use tweezers to hold the strap end and put it through the buckle. When it's there, I hold the noseband at it's place (right under the cheekbone) and try to find a good but not too snug adjustment to the buckle. The noseband cheeks may be adjusted too low or up, which means that I unbuckle them both and test different adjusting degrees. I try to buckle both sides symmetrically and so that the noseband couldn't easily slide much under the cheekbones.

At this point I check symmetry and fix the browband's level, it should sit close but not touching the ears and look symmetric when viewed from front. This can be a total trouble to set with a model that has their forelock flying on the other ear's root. I like to slide the throatlatch so that the buckle goes near the browband loop when it's closed.

Then the bit cheeks... I start it by choosing bits, putting them to the bit hooks and splatting the mouthpieces against the model's mouthlines. They should sit much higher than the plastic lip corners, and my bits make that possible. Then I adjust the straps so that the crownpieces don't clearly stick to the sides when looked at from the front or above. (Always check every angle!)

Bit symmetry check.

Depending from the bits and bridle type, I can add a curb strap there.

Really there is a lot MORE what comes to bridle fitting, but I am sure I can't write them all. Otherwise we needed a book.


How to add bits
When I make bridles, bits aren't a default part in them; I make just a bridle, not a bridle with permanently attached bits. They are detachable. Attaching bits isn't really a complicated process. You simply figure out what part in it goes to the cheekpiece's hook and put it there, then put the mouthpiece to the mouthline clearly behind the mouth corner. This can be difficult to make to look believable and realistic when you have the most common type of mouthpiece in model horse bits, but it may be a bit easier with a bridle that has a flash or drop noseband.

In my "opinion", which is actually a fact, most modellers place the bits way too low and don't take into account what happens when the rider pulls the reins - the bit shall move and sometimes rotate, which means that it slides higher in the mouth. Every hobbyist should seriously pay attention to this, because it's a little but distinctive, yet important, detail. The bit can climb just as high as where it hits the first molar teeth of the horse, and this point seems to be clearly behind the lip corners. The lip corners are soft, and it's just not realistic to expect that the bit stays in a neutral position or height when you have a contact  - or a heavy contact - to it.

Knowing this is yet more important when your model uses a curb bit or an elevator, like the three-ring gag bit. It is really VERY important. Those bits, if any, will never stay neutral if you have heavier contact. Whether it's okay to have that much contact or not is an another topic then, though. But anyway, my point is to say that you should always pay a lot of attention to the bit's place and position, because it matters a lot. 

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EXAMPLES
Although the measurements will vary a little or a lot, the basic technique stays always the same. My todays bridles are very similar to what I did in 2017, when I wrote the first recipe; I simply retouched it and eventually wrote new recipes to make it work better, mostly just to fix measurements.

This was probably the first bridle I made from the saddle leather lace. It's quite rough, but I think it's a good example to go with this tutorial since that is what the cheekpiece lengths look like in actual use.

Same as above.

Brown casual bridle. I made this bridle to fit smaller warmbloods, but it's still 'quite' large for them.

A simple but a really useable bridle, who had served well.

A pony bridle... Made an entirely new recipe just because of this. The measurements got rough because not all pony models have as small face as this mare does.

I have yet some tutorials or whatever to call those coming, just because of documenting how I make tack.