29 October 2005
Winter Projects
It's probably tempting fate to start thinking i will have time over winter, but here goes:
I got a bargain at Clitheroe Auction sales a fortnight ago, when both I and Derrick, a friend, wanted a pair of old beat-up cheap 22 inch hames to renovate and use on our Fell ponies' work collars. There was just one lot listed, with no measurements. It was for 2 pairs of hames; no details of size or condition. Plenty of collars were listed, of all ages, and a few with hames on them, but we both have collars, so just needed hames - besides, we are both mean. Derrick said he'd pay up to £25 for a pair and that was about my top limit too.
The sale room was closed once the sale began (so as to prevent items vanishing unexpectedly - you all know what I mean) so because the lot in question didn't arrive before that time I couldn't measure the hames before I bid. I just had to hope I'd see what size they were when they came under the hammer.
I bought a few bits and bobs just to get my eye in; 10 brass buckles, a pony bridle for a friend's Shetland. (That meant the auctioneer knew I was a bidder and saw my bidding number clearly!) Bidding was pretty mean and everything went quite cheaply. Quality made its money: full sets of used black patent gig harness - two pleasant sets - sold around £750 and a good pair of driving lamps £250. Asian harnesses were going for £90 (I thought that expensive! especially given the typical quality), but oddments made almost nothing and I bought a part set of Shires English harness, around 20 years old, for £95 which I thought a much better deal.
When eventually the hames came up, the auctioneer started them at £5. They were rusty and tatty and the hame billets looked very sad, but one pair had both its trace buckles and the other was an old trade set with a ring instead of a buckle to connect the traces. The auctioneer offered £5 again. I looked away and listened, and he had to drop the opening figure to £3, and even started to say "Looks like nobody wants..." so I bid. Someone else tentatively offered £4 so I raised it to £5. And there wasn't another bid.
I collected all my purchases later in the morning and took the two very dirty pairs of hames to the car where I laid the measuring tape on them and lo and behold, both pairs were 22"!
When I got them home, I laid them on Ruby's work collar and both sets match it for shape. Keeping one set and doing it up will save me having to try to keep her brass plated show hames smart and unscuffed. I've been scrubbing the acquisitions with the wire-brush drill attachment today, and the set I've decided to keep look, though relatively coarse in design, as though they were once silver plated. I think I have a strip of leather, and buckles, to make a couple of hame straps, but the hame pulls will be webbing... I used webbing pulls years ago with Rosie, Ruby's great aunt, to pull some seriously large logs with this collar (before I had the hames sandblasted and brass plated and fitted them with proper leather pulls and brass buckles). I know I can trust the webbing so I will use some again.
Tomorrow's job is to paint that clean bright steel with Hammerite - gold or bronze to go with the browny-green leather of the work collar and its fawn wool lining. Might have to ask daughter to go and buy gold or bronze paint for me ... yes they're only work hames, but why not make a nice picture while I'm at it? I'll be looking at them every working day after all! and doesn't "Big Red" Ruby deserve to look delicious?
Then there's the repainting of some chips in the black enamel on the show lamps (last done over about 20 years ago, so not a big deal) and of the lamp brackets, and of the spacers on the show gig that widened the shafts at splinter bar and shaft tail, and of the renovated swingletree to replace the original show one that is FAR too narrow for Ruby's big ribcage ... roll on, rainy winter weekends.....