It may be tempting fate but we seem to be ahead of ourselves with the Christmas planning so a little modeling time this afternoon - refining the details on the horses:
I am focussing on two aspects of the horses heads - the fist is to drill a hole through the sides of the mouth and inserting a length of plastic rod -it will be cut to length in due course - which will act as a post to fix the two part of the horses bit onto. I cannot recall where i got this tip from but it makes fitting the bit a lot easier as well as providing a more secure fixing. The challenging part is grilling the hole squarely through the mouth to avoid a cock-sided bit.
the second jot is to refine or replace the buckles on the harness. most are fine but on some horse Ii have remade the bridles or the detail is a bit fuzzy. For this I have made three little tools from some scrap brass. The third is an inbetween size and on the other end of the small one.
These can be pressed into putty to form the inner part of the buckle, forming both the inner part of the buckle itself and the leather strap, when semi-set, the putty is trimmed to form the buckle. Here is a photo of the three indentations in some putty:
i have found that cutting the semi-cured putty gives a nice, sharp cut and will slightly close the gap between the 'leather' in the buckle and the putty which forms the buckle..
Peter