Replacing horse reins

[dutchboyinohio]

As part of the Teutonic knight group build I created a brief tutorial on how to replace the molded on reins with some better-looking ones (viewtopic.php?f=51&t=6421; see the second post in the thread). I've reposted it here since I figured it could be useful for horses of a variety of eras:

Finally had some time to continue working on these knights. I've actually been focusing on the horses. I had to repair two of them (one leg and one tail). I also tried to change the poses a little by using Paul's idea of bending the heads (great idea, btw), and promptly managed to snap off the first head I tried to change . The silver plastic on these figs seems fairly hard and brittle.

Anyway, I outfitted four more horses with new reins, and here is how I did it:

Tools Used
Nothing unusual here. The spool of wire is from some kind of small motor, great source of thin wire to make the metal rings that will hold the reins. I use a chisel blade to carve the molded-on reins off.


Making a Ring
I wrap the wire around a paper clip and twist it about three times to create a closed loop.




Making the Reins
I use 1/16" (or about 2mm wide) drafting tape and slice it in half lengthwise.




Attaching the Reins
Next, attach the reins to the ring. Just feed through one end and fold it back upon itself. Since I'm using tape, it sticks to itself .



Cut off the ring from the spool and then just make a second wire ring. Here are all the parts:



Drilling Holes
Next, drill two holes in the horses head, as close to the harness as possible. This is where the rings will go.




Attaching the Reins
Now all that's left to do is attach the reins to the horse by glueing the rings into the holes. I glue both rings in, with the reins attached to only one of them. Once the rings are glued, I roughly shape the reins, feed the loose end through the second ring, cut off the excess, and fold the end over on itself.




And voila! Ready to be primed and painted...




The metal rings may look a little too big in such a small scale, but I think these reins look a heck of a lot better than the molded ones. Finally, I fix the reins in place once horse and rider are put together.

I figure I can do about three of these in an hour now, and with more practice I should be able to do more. I hope this brief tutorial is useful

[Dad's Army]

Thanks for this tutorial (looks like I have seen it before )
A simple way to do this.
What kind of drill did you use?
And I think I have to look for a "Dutch" shop who sells drafting tape

[poky]

excellent tutorial, I think scots tape will also work stiffened with super glue

[Paul]

I did something similar here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1525&hilit=celtic+chariot
My pictures are ....... If you get very drunk they do come into focus...promise..I can see them as clear as day at the moment
I did it by making two loops on one piece of wire, basically a horse bit in mini size and then putting it in the nags mouth...your idea is WAY better