Horsing Around

 Horse Trading and Harnessing

Comparing HO scale harnessed horses and adding duct tape reins. 

After finishing construction of the Berkshire Valley Models Buggy (right) I needed to add a horse. But the horse that Berkshire Valley offers (left) is rather heavily harnessed for such a light buggy. So I looked around at other HO scale harnessed horses.

It wasn't until after I ordered horses from Knuckelduster Miniatures that I noticed that their horses are identical to Berkshire Valley's horses! (They do come in two poses though). So choices are limited. Taking a look at the Jordan Highway Miniatures (out of biz sadly) horses (left) I noticed that they are more lightly harnessed. So I swapped out the horses with the Highway Miniatures Delivery Wagon since heavier harnessed horses would work better with that.

So I painted up the Jordan horse and attached it to the buggy. But after the previous blog post, the lack of reins bothered me. I considered different materials for the reins (thread?, tiny brass or styrene bar?) But as I was repairing a black leather seat with black duct tape it occurred to me this might make for great reins material.

I laid a piece if duct tape on a piece of glass and sliced off a very thin piece.

And stuck it on. The bottom and sides of the duct tape is white, so a little touch-up paint is required. But I really like the leathery look of the duct tape. Note to self: start with the driver and work towards the horse. Its easier to trim the reins at the nose of the horse rather than inside the buggy.

It was a little tricky installing the reins. But it took me longer to write this blog post than it took to install the reins, so... yeah. But I'm pleased with the results. We'll see how this holds up long term.

It occurred to me that duct tape might be a viable way to add harnesses to ho scale farm horses like these from Woodland Scenics. Then we can press these guys into service! (Except for the pony of course - I'm not heartless!)

Then there are also some well done draft horses available on Shapeways. I'll probably give these a try at some point.

So there are some good options out these these days for a variety of harnessed horses.

Yes sir! A good variety of horses these days!

Dandy