Exercise sheet tutorial

Every now and then I've come across horses wearing exercise sheets, and the horse I ride wears one when it rains (which it does a lot in the winter). You can get fluorescent ones for the road, and waterproof ones. I thought a waterproof one would be cool, so here's the tutorial.

You will need:
Waterproof material (Amazon is the key!)
Lobster clasps
Jump rings
Felt (sticky backed does the trick really well)

Let's get started:

1. Cut a rough rectangle out of your waterproof material. It doesn't matter if the cutting isn't exactly accurate, but it shouldn't be all over the place (mine is a bit, but it doesn't really matter!)











2. Measure the sheet on your horse. It should be about halfway down your horse's body but if you want you can make it longer.










3. It's quite tricky to see in my rubbish photos, but I have stuck my sticky backed felt onto the back of my sheet. This creates a nice lining and prevents your model being scratched, and it also makes things look nice and realistic.










4. You can't see very well, but I've marked out two lines where the girth goes. Look to the next step about why we do this.

5. Take ribbon, leather lace, leather strips, elastic, anything along those lines and make a little loop like this. The girth (or the girth straps, if it's a dressage saddle) will go through these loops and make sure everything stays on well, otherwise the whole sheet would slide about and get really annoying. 

6. Open a jump ring and put on a lobster clasp, then glue a leather strip to the jump ring. Glue it to the end of the sheet, as this will go underneath the tail. Before you glue it, have a look at the end result so you know what it's supposed to look like; best to get it right first time!

7. Thread a jump ring through a leather strip and glue it. Then glue it on to the other side of the sheet where the tail strap will clip on. Check the fit before gluing, and make sure it is snug but not too tight. If it's too loose the sheet will just slide off the tail end!

8. And you are finished! Get a saddle, put it on and see how it looks. Please comment so I can see how I'm doing, and give me some tips on how I could improve. Ideas for tutorials or if you need any help or anything would be great! See you tomorrow for another tutorial!

Waterproof rug tutorial

Hi! Today I thought. I should make a waterproof rug tutorial. You can use this tutorial to make other rugs, of course, but waterproof ones look really cool and then you can turn out your models in the rain (but I don't recommend that with Breyers).

You will need:
Waterproof material (there is so much on Amazon)
Buckles
Ribbon
Hook and eyes
Pen
Glue gun or some reliable glue
A model horse of any scale (I'm using Schleich)

Let's get started!

1. Take your waterproof material and cut out the pattern in the picture below. Use Word to enlarge it or if you're good at drawing, copy it down on to your material.

2. Cut two lengths of ribbon (depending on your model's scale) and glue the hook part of the hook and eye on the ends of the lengths, making sure the hook faces downwards.

3. Glue the straps on the front of the rug like this: 

4. Take the other part of the hook and eye, measure across the chest with your straps and mark with your pen where you think the eye should be. Ideally it should be snug but not too tight. 

5. Repeat steps two, three and four, but this time with the surcingle straps. Make them on an angle so they cross over like they would on a real rug. 

6. Now for the neck straps! Glue two reasonably long length of ribbon on to the off side of the rug. Then glue the buckles on as in the head collar tutorial - see first post. 

 

7. And you're finished! Please comment below if you don't understand anything or you require more pictures.