How-to: traditional scale reins

Often people just glue the reins to the bits, but I don't. I make all reins removable, so I can change them with ease - just like I make bridle cheekpieces so that the bits can be changed.

Even reins can be hard to make rightly. I've made them probably hundred pieces or a lot more - I'm not interested to count the number - and still I occasionally think I don't have enough reins to choose from for a certain setup. So I often make a bunch more of reins. Yes, I  make reins in batches! And I want to tell you HOW I make a set of reins. So here we go.

MATERIALS
- leather lace (bought or homemade) in width 3-5 mm
- metal wire (0.4 mm)
- glue which works for leather (I use Pattex contact glue OR some fast-drying and ugly-smelling glues by various brands)

TOOLS
- a rubber cutting mat with a centimetre grid pattern
- a craft knife
- (a thinning knife called Safety Beveler)
- a narrow-tipped tool to apply glue (you can make this yourself)
- a piece of trash, like a glue tube package's plastic, to put glue on
- two jewellery needlenose pliers
- jewellery sidecutters
- jewellery round pliers
- protection clothes such as working gloves and safety goggles - you don't want a piece of metal wire to fly into your eye!

Notices:
- I don't make my tutorials for kids. If a kid wants to follow my tutorials, 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 how-to/tutorial/whatever describes how I make plain reins in simple (and hopefully durable) design. I explain adding buckles separately, if you want to include such detail in the bight (which is the part where the both reins usually connect).

The leather type
Good rein leather is soft, durable, not too thin and not too thick. It should be able to get cut into narrow strips without still feeling thick or fragile. The leather should also be "heavy" and loose enough so that the reins hang naturally and nicely when they aren't in a doll's hands or waxed into a "held" position. The lace also should not be too stiff or paper-like, if it is, that makes it difficult to control it and position naturally. If the lace is almost paper-thin and still feels stiff and is difficult to position and control, it's not good. Yet if it's too flexible, fuzzy, and just stretches if you try to fasten it to the doll's hands, it's not good neither. 

The actual tutorial:

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Have your work space, tools and supplies ready for rein making? Nice. Now stare at that screen and see how I explain a simple thing as complicately as possible.

I make my leather lace by myself, but you can also use some pre-made alias bough leather lace to make reins (or anything else). The lace's width should be between 3 and 5 millimetres. I have some amount of lace in stock all the time, so when I get an inspiration, I just grab some lace and start making things.

Have your cutting mat. Take some leather lace that is 5 mm (half centimetre) wide or slightly narrower (3 mm lace works too, but for casual reins you survive well with the 5 mm). Put the lace on the mat to see how long it is. The piece should be longer than 20 cm. My laces vary in length because they're cut from various leather pieces which can be whatever shape and size. Here we have one roughly 26 cm long strip. (The leather is fuzzy. Reaaaaallly fuzzy. Be smart and use something better instead, like something with smoother flesh side.)

Take a craft knife (X-Acto or something else).

My favorite knife to cut lace. The hoof-shaped blade is so much more powerful and easy to use compared to the common pointy type blades.

Cut the ends of the strip to be even and square.

Ends trimmed to the square shape.

Now cut the strip to be 17 cm long.

Get your glue. If it's something you don't need to hurry with, put a blurt of it to a waste piece, like glue package plastic what I use for that purpose. My glue is Pattex contact glue. When it's fresh, it's white, and it needs to be applied on both surfaces and let to set for 15-45 minutes. After that it had gone transparent and the surfaces are ready to get splatted together. You can use whatever glue you want or have, if it works for leather; I simply prefer this contact glue as it allows leisured working and doesn't smell at all. So, all fellow migraine-prone tackmakers, this is your dream glue. (Okay, back to the tutorial...)

I really don't know if there's an English variation of this, what comes to text... Or if this glue can even be purchased outside the Northern Europe.

Have your glue applying tool. It can be a toothpick or a wire thingy you can make in seconds. (I have a little collection of these...)

Here's how to make one - just cut it shorter.

Use a ballpoint pen to mark 2 cm to both ends of the leather strip. That mark is the place you put the "tab" of the lace when it goes against the strip later. Ballpoint marks aren't necessary with these reins (as you see, I don't use them that often), but I recommend it still, to get the length exactly how you want in the end.

Use the gluing tool to apply quite a thick layer of glue to the end of the strip. Just the end; about 1/4 from the ballpoint mark. Repeat to the other end.

Of course I had to use light colored lace for a tutorial that has white glue. Very clear to see. Sarcasm.

Twofold it. This way the glue goes on both surfaces that go against each other later. (Repeat to the other end.)

Because this is contact glue, I open it and let it set for more than 15 minutes.

Again, so easy to see that glue! Well, if you stare at it carefully.

When the glue had turned from white to transparent (and slightly dark), the glue areas can be splatted against each other. Now you should have 1 cm long fold.

The glue is ready to get against the opposite.

As you can see, each end takes 1 cm twofold.

The length of the fold isn't that exact most of the time; at least I can easily see the right length of the tab without measuring it separately. (That dark blue/grey rein ended up being super super super narrow... Which means it definitely isn't for rough use, unlike the brown and light ones.)

Now you should have about 15 cm long piece. (Okay, here it seems to be less than 15 - it's the leather's thickness what causes that.)

Take a craft knife and cut both ends split as evenly as you can. Don't cut the parts entirely apart yet, leave some uncut in the midway!

Be careful with this step. I have very less reins who have exactly equally wide halves after cutting the end split, no matter how well I try.

A loooong and unusually big X-chromosome. Very rare to see and is useful for model horse hobby.

Now get or make one jumpring and two hooks. (My hooks are just rings with a 5 mm extra wire before they've been attached to something.) To make these you need round pliers and sidecutters. Make sure the rings/loops are wide enough for the straps.

When I make a hook that needs to be in a certain length, I make a loop, straighten the rest (excess) of the wire, use the round pliers' cube-like roots to mark where to cut, then cut it. I grab from the wire's midway with the round pliers and bend from the loop end to avoid hurting my fingers. Done. This way the hook part stays long (deep) enough and doesn't escape that easily when it's in use. I usually don't bend these before they've became a part of a piece, but either way works.

Yes, I have a lot of jumprings in stock...

...and hooks in at least three different partitions in my boxes.

When you have the jumpring and hooks, open them. Do this by holding them with two needle-nose pliers and moving sideways, so you don't ruin the shape.

Now smuggle the jumpring through one of the leather loops. Repeat with another of the same end. Use the needlenose pliers to hold the ring and also close it with them.

I like to press the ring slightly flat (hold the ring with one plier and carefully press the seam side with another) so it gets oval shaped. This is optional.

Now smuggle a hook to one loop of the leather strip. Close it with pliers. Repeat to the other loop. (I personally am so perfectionistic that I want these to be symmetric. In my reins the hook seams face down when they're in use. In this unfinished stage the seams should face opposite directions from each other. This no way affects how they work - I'm just this perfecionistic!)

Take the round pliers and bend the hooks' wires towards the flesh sides. This way, when the reins are in use, the hooks go against the horse.

Now take the craft knife and cut the midway of the leather strip split.

Your reins are now done!

Yes. The lace I used for this tutorial looks very rough and it IS thick and fuzzy. But the technique in my rein-making stays the same no matter what kind of leather it is. Sometimes you can also thin the tabs from the ends, but honestly, it's not possible with all types of leather. Check my bridle and rein page from another blog to see what kind of reins is possible to make with this technique. I don't often use this thick and fuzzy leather for reins for these obvious reasons, but I simply had to test that while also getting an idea to capture the process. 

Here are reins similar to as shown in the tutorial in their first time in use.

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EXTRAS

How to add a tongue buckle to the bight
I take a tongue buckle and a D-ring. I twofold the right rein's bight end and cut a slot with a knife. Then I put the metal parts there (D-ring first) and I smuggle the buckle there so that the buckle's tongue goes through the slot. Apply glue (and let it set if it's the contact glue).

How to attach a tongue buckle so that it works correctly. I drew this in 2016 and translated only now.

Bight buckles.

If I want to use a hook buckle, I put the D-ring first; the hook goes there so that it's hook part faces to same direction with the lace's top side. Hook buckles aren't as nice as the tongue buckles, but are practical since they don't need much extra space (tab length) compared to tongue buckles and their keepers.

A hook buckle.

To the left rein's bight end I punch five holes with a 0.3 or 0.5 metal-tipped mechanical pencil. The holes should take about 1 cm from the strap end. (Overall the strap end should take roughly as much length as the buckle piece does.)

When I buckle the bight, I put the tongue through the third (middle) hole.

You can also put a sliding buckle there, of course. It's really simple, but please make sure the buckle doesn't become too loose. If it is, then just make a slightly smaller one and replace the old one with that.

I don't know if there's a general rule to which side of the rein has the buckle and which not, but this is how I do that. (Though I have noticed that most rein bights seem to go like I do them.)


No metal in the bight?
I sometimes just tie the bight, usually before I cut the lace or anything - so with tied bighted reins this is the first step.

Varying lengths: 
I measure the rein length by one rein's length. So 15 cm reins have two 15 cm strips attached together by the bight.

To measure how much lace one rein takes, I think like finished length + 2 cm extra (one cm for one end). So each folded part takes roughly 1 cm.

How long reins can be? Depending from the horse or pony, and the rider (yes!), reins can vary from 10 cm to 25 cm. Average okay lengths are 15-18 cm.

In dressage, the bridong rein is shorter (15 cm), wider and has a buckle in the bight. The curb rein then is longer (18 cm), narrower and has no buckle in the bight, but it can be sewn (or tied?). Sometimes the curb rein can be a lot longer than the bridong rein. Why? Because it should be able to go loose while the rider still has enough rein in hands. It's not meant to be active all the time. (This is my logic and based on old books and common sense. People are free to disagree with me.)

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So this is how I make my reins.