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Making a PercheronThere are of course, many ways to "make beautiful things." We chose to make a 1:4 scale model of a Percheron draught horse. In fact, we made two, to complement a tipping cart c1920 and a single furrow plough c1850 in the same scale. My Wife and I are practised model makers and in retirement we have worked together to produce a number of interesting artefacts. She concentrates on the horses and I on the vehicles and implements. This is entirely a leisure activity, and therefore free from any commercial restraints on time, or on the constructional techniques. Object To construct a model horse with a flesh like finish, to complement other scale models. The finished display was to be in a "working" gait, complete with appropriate harness, a driver and a cart or a plough. However, these complementary models do not form any part of this article. Introduction The 1:4 scale was chosen for two reasons:
The Percheron breed was chosen as an attractive and popular draught animal with an appealing dapple-grey colouring. Percherons may of course be other colours, but as a subject for modelmaking the dapple-grey colouring has, we feel, a number of attractions and advantages. These notes are written as an illustration of one way of making a model horse. They describe the method and order in which we constructed our model to suit our needs. The Percheron model, in 1:4 scale, was an extension of our experience gained a time ago when constructing a grey carriage horse in 1:3 scale. Hence, we believe the techniques we are about to describe could be altered or adapted to suit other scale model horses. For this project we settled on a farming theme and the Percheron draught breed fitted our requirements admirably. Construction principles and materials The basic construction centred on the use of 1/2 inch thick, good quality, multilaminate birch plywood. This plywood was used to form the mode1's skeleton, the bodypiece, and for making the legs. The useof good quality plywood, with the legs securely attached by means of nuts and bolts,gave a very rigid framework upon which the body shape could be developed. This shape and form was built up using plated wire, Papier mache, self hardening (S.H) modelling clay, quilt batting (wadding), and craft felt. Acrylic paint was used to give the final colouring. Pre-construction requirements The prerequisite of any intricate construction projects is, of course, adequate information; none more so than the construction of this Percheron model, so it was back to basics for the information. Initially we had to find our subject matter in full size, i.e. one quality example of a PERCHERON draught horse. During a visit to the British Percheron Horse Society Annual show in the East of England we found exactly what we were looking for; the champion Stallion of the Show. And, what a magnificent animal he was; dapple-grey and standing 16-hands. We immediately knew we had found our model. The next requirement was to take as many photographs as possible while our subject matter was in the open show ring. My wife being the photographer, charmed the champion's owner to allow her to start taking the necessary shots. It is important to get the end and side elevation views at right angles to the subject to avoid perspective distortion. We were to find later, that a plan view from above would have been very useful. We thought we might get one by riding in the cart or wagon at a later stage; we didn't! The elevation views turned out to be of prime importance for developing the drawings and subsequent patterns. We found the rule to be to take as many photographs as possible and whenever possible. We took close-ups of hooves, fetlocks, knees, hocks, hips, shoulders, withers, neck, mane, eyes, ears, nose, lips, rump and tail, in fact everything. We took a large number of shots while we could, as we thought we might not get another chance to see this fine animal. We found additional information could be gleaned from books on horse anatomy and that anatomical detail was the key to giving the finished model that vital authentic appearance.
The working drawings The next stage was to produce a set of working drawings from the photographic and textbook information that we had acquired. "We do it our way," that is, we developed our drawings in the time honoured way using paper and pencil. The Scale of 1:4 fitted our requirement admirably. The horse measure of "hands" (4 inches) gave our 16-hand champion a height of just 16 inches! The starting point for the drawing was a ground line near the bottom edge of the paper and a parallel line 16 inches above. From the side elevation photographs we developed a rectangular box which gave the "height" in horse language, that is the height at the withers, and the length of the model. The overall height depended on choice of head position. By referring to the elevation photographs, we found it possible to scale, by simple proportion, using percentage factors, other dimensions from our datum of 16 inches, and thus produced a scaled paper copy from the photographs. From the scale drawing we were then able to make basic patterns. Our choice of the model's gait was to give a "working" display with a head up, forward look. You can see that the patterns were basic shapes, which meant that the wooden parts had to be worked upon to give shape and form to the model. Back to the drawing board. We sketched in such detail as, tail position, head style, head detail, eyes, ears and so on. We worked on the drawing to give shape and form. We thought it would be easier to alter that, than it would be to rework the near finished model. It was at this point that we found the photographs to be of great use, though we used them again when building up the detail on the model. top |
