November 12, 2009. Two years ago, I went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show and picked up some precious stones (amoung them sapphires, rubies and emeralds), and that fall the 2007 TSII Tack Lottery was held. One year ago, I purchased an engraver's vise, some gravers and some Argentium (AgGe)[silver plus germanium]. What do all these events have in common? Jackie's bridle of course!, which I am now calling the Emerald City -- and I hope you can figure out why. :)
Jackie deserves the greatest praise. Waiting for custom model tack orders is always a slow business, and with this particular tack shop, the wait can stretch out to forever. What with the economy changing, my husband's job becoming strenuous, our canoe purchase and all the time that took, and other matters, it has taken me two years and 3 months to start this bridle.
A large part of my hesitation was centered around the leap of finally 'going real:' of actual engraving, expensive metals and genuine gemstones. The new skill combined with the new materials, and in my imagination grew into an obstacle characterized by the requirement of perfection -- and the habit of avoidance was well and truly set. "Gotta learn to engrave first." Two years is in fact typical for truly life-changing pieces of tack. It's not my record (that is held by the Olensky 8-Hitch, at 7+ years), but it's probably unusual for the early 21st Century. At this point all I can do is hope she likes it... because, released at last, I'm having a ball!
This page and the Sneak Peeks page feature 7 pictures of my progress on this great order. At this point, it's only a headstall and curbstrap, as shown below: reins are still to come. After the reins, intended to be black braided sinew with black and white buttons and silver tubes, there is a matching Breastcollar to be built -- and then a Western Show Halter, which I am planning to do with sapphires. The silver pieces you see here, (above) two buckles, two plates and a central concho, are intended for the Breastcollar. I have complained long and loud about the difficulties of photographing silver, and the reason is: (drumroll) it's hard!! The beautiful Argentium material, touted as non-tarnishing, and the engraving which brings out intense white light reflections, tends to overexpose the shot no matter how much experience I get. A close-up is below.
Learning to haft, sharpen and use new tools was not so hard; even learning to engrave, itself, was nothing out of the ordinary: it's similar to tooling and leather carving. Learning to engrave took me two weeks. This is the same amount of time it took me for the first flush of learning to braid rawhide buttons, back in 1995. While it seems a great luxury in the short term, it is time well spent in the long run. (I have been wanting to engrave silver for what seems like forever.) What seemed difficult at the start became easier as I practiced, engraving scrap silver and old copper. The graver kept slipping off the metal, something slowly cured by adequate sharpening and careful holding. When I switched from a square graver to a flat, things improved in a hurry. I am using the smallest vise the company sells. In the event only two gravers have done the lion's share of the work, both of them flats. Engraving is done by clamping the piece in the vise, which is turned by the left hand; the right hand holds the graver, and strives to stay still.
But to translate this new-old skill to the one-ninth scale world I live in -- well now, that's what took all the time! My vision was at once both overambitious and under-informed. I thought I could do all sorts of curls, scrolls, even prongs for jewels -- heh!, I couldn't get that small, it turned out. All my ideas about pushing up prongs or using rims or bezels had to take a back seat. How could I have forgotten what I so often preach: simplification before complication? The engraving designs themselves have to be simplified, or they don't work -- can't be grasped by the eye. The worst was to discover I could not distinguish between the top and the bottom (face and pointback) of the little emeralds: that was quite a blow. Even using a magnifying glass, the difficulty of gluing in these jewels was quite frustrating to me. (For one thing, I kept losing them. It is a miracle I kept finding them.) Not to mention that I thought I wouldn't have to use glue at all! You know me and glue: I'm allergic to it, I hate it, and here I was having to depend on it to do the job in a situation where literally nothing else will work.
But that's model tack for you.
The gemstone in the center of the large concho is laboratory grown and flawless. The smaller stones are all genuine natural emeralds. I wound up using clear nail polish, the same coating used against tarnishing, as a matrix for holding the stones. While it filled in the facets to a degree, it served admirably in fixing and protecting. The color was not impacted, thank heaven -- and there is still some faceting to be seen. Engraving the recessed surface reflects back as much light as possible, and countersinking -- setting the stones as far below level as possible -- did the rest. This part definitely called for skill in stretching metal on small scales, and fitting leather to metal. So far, I am pleased with how they came out.
More pictures, two portraits and a laid out shot, are on our Sneak Peeks page.
(BEN-sum-uh) (TIM-uh-roo). My eBay name is timaru-star-ii. This page updated every two to three months, approximately. Normal email answering time is 3-4 days.