Carving Horses - part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

Just before you stop carving, give the model two coats of decorators' emulsion paint. This fills and raises the grain and is then burnished with a wire brush. But it also shows up all sorts of imperfections, and it now looks as if the horse were made of alabastine china. Correct your mistakes and then make a conscious effort to stop before it becomes overworked.

By far the best paint to use is artists’ acrylic resin; I use it straight from the tube for the first two coats, mixing it on the animal. Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Yellow Ochre are the essential colours for Dark Bay, Bay and Chesnut horses. After that, it is necessary to use Black and White for shading and I mix the paint on the plastic lid of a margarine carton. This is the stage at which you can really make the model look like the actual horse you are copying, with all its markings.

Useful tips

• Think three times, measure twice and cut once.
• When there’s a pair (left and right hand) you’ve got to beware.
• Sharp tools are dangerous, blunt tools are very dangerous. (You have to push too hard, and they are still sharp enough to cut your finger when they slip).
• Never hold a tool in one hand and cut towards the other. (There is one exception with the whittling knife).

Tools and techniques

I assume that you know how to use a coping saw and chisel and gouge, but the knife is more unusual and perhaps some advice would be helpful. I use an Xacto No5 handle, and a short, curved No 101 blade. Although the blade is replaceable, I sharpen it and have used the same one for years. The knife is mostly used for paring; hold it with the thumb pressed against the back of the blade. Hold the model in the other hand with the thumbs touching each other, and roll the blade away from the hands always keeping both thumbs together. This gives the necessary power as the blade slides through the wood, and keeps the hands safely out of harms way. Almost all the whittling is done with this paring action.

There are two other movements that are occasionally useful with the knife; in the first, it cuts groove lines down onto the wood, but be careful because this is when it is liable to slip. In the second, the knife hand pushes the blade straight towards the other hand, but its thumb sticks out to act as a stop. This is marginally less dangerous than it looks, but all whittling requires continuous concentration or you will learn the hard way, and your animal will become bloodstock.

I have a collection of old gouges, but one round and one V' gouge of the Xacto series which fit the same handle, are all that is required. Medical scalpels are not strong enough for woodcarving.

Making the harness

The harness is intricate and time consuming, but is essential to show a horse at work. Make sure that it is accurate for that part of the country from which your horse comes, and check the position of each strap with care. Because the horse is made of wood, the leather, blackened with Indian Ink before fitting, can be nailed on with brass panel pins. At this scale the only piece that needs sewing is the collar, stiffened at the front with a piece of copper wire. It is semi-eliptical, but narrower at the ends and in the centre. After marking the positions of the stitches with some pointed callipers, to keep them even, the stitch holes are pierced with an awl. Sewing round the wire is done with two needles on the same thread just as the saddlers did, and the collar grows in your hands.

Then, as in real practice, the collar is slipped over the head upside-down; only, because the ears are not flexible it must be a very tight fit. Metal hames are tapered in the lathe, hammered into shape and then drilled before soldering in any wires. Padding to go under the collar and cart-saddle is made up and rammed into position with Blue-tack. Horse brasses are formed from washers, which are drilled and pinned. Harness buckles are made from copper wire.

These methods could be used just as well at 1:12 or 1:8 scale. In many ways, the larger the scale, the easier the task, but then there is also a need to show more detail if you are to maintain the necessary realism.

Nothing could be much more satisfying than creating a sturdy horse in action, and I wish you joy. I repeat that anyone can do it, and all that is required is patience and dogged determination. As I said with the drawing, don't let criticism put you off, the only criterion is whether you wish to make the effort, and enjoy what you are doing.

<< Back