Chamfron/Shaffron (Jan-Feb 2021)
Introduction
Have you met Royce? He is the best boy. He is a Very Handsome 13ish year old Belgian draft, with a... lets say very large head. His nose is about the size of my head, as you can see. I am currently the Consorts Champion of Horse for the East Kingdom, and as such, I have lots of regalia; two pieces are a metal chaffron (or however you want to spell it. It varies), and a leather demi shaffron. Both were made on the slightly larger side to accommodate a variety of horses, but realistically, both are too small for Royce. They are both too short, and too narrow, especially over the nose. Both are functional technically, at least for photo ops, but not ideal. However, they act as good templates/patterns for me to make one that *will* fit him (and possibly other horses too). So, before my reign is up, I thought it would be a good idea to make Royce something pretty.
I looked through pictures of extant chaffrons, and found a few I really liked. Luckily metal survives the centuries well. Most were highly decorated, and had a spike and/or a plume holder at the forehead. Whats that? Feathers? Yes please! Royce shall be a very fancy pony (but not spiked, because he likes to nuzzle too much, and that sounds like it would be painful to the recipient). In the end, I found some gorgeous examples, but my favorite by far was an example at the MET of a late period Italian piece... The fact that it is a demi/half shaffron means that it should hopefully fit a wider range of horses if needed, and I just thought the engraving and gold work is lovely. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27179
Materials
So... what did I want to make this out of. I am not a metal worker, unless it is wire, so making an actual piece of armor was not going to happen. Its also a little heavy and loud, and can scare some horses (clearly not Royce). The weight also makes it harder to keep in place. I can do leatherwork, but wet molding something for a horse who lives far away is a bit hard. Once it dries, that's about it in my experience. It holds design in lovely ways, but just didn't seem that realistic for this project. It also has the potential to grow mold. So what to do?
Well, last year I purchased some worbla for another project, and thought that would be just great. Its a lightweight thermoplastic that can be easily shaped and painted. You only really need good scissors and a heat gun to use it. I thought this would be the perfect option, so that is what I went with. For accents, I used some of my leatherworking small gold rivets, a large aglet to hold the plume, and ostrich feathers. Strapping was made with leather (yes, even after the mold comment). Even better, the worbla "bends" enough that the strapping can help it mold to a smaller nose if needed (assuming the eyes and ears can be positioned to fit). For comfort, I lined it with wool felt, and some sheepskin around the ears.
Methods
So, to start with, I put the leather chamfron on Royce and took some measurements, and decided where I wanted to enlarge things. I overall kept the eye shape the same, but made the "tabs" about 2 inches longer, and a few inches wider. I also lengthened the area from eyes to ears, and extended the part that goes to the poll (though apparently not nearly enough). Once I drew out the pattern, I cut it out and did preliminary shaping. I however, could not find my heat gun, and resorted to using the flame of my gas stove to do this. Tool using monkeys can find new (old?) tools. Most of the shaping was done using my fingers and playing hot potato, though there may have also been a helmet involved in the shaping (Thanks Evan, even though you don't know about it as of my writing this). Once the initial shape looked good, I waited until I could try it on Royce to see what needed to be done.
The initial fitting went *really* well. It fit almost perfectly to how I envisioned, and could essentially just be connected to his bridle. That being said, as I alluded to earlier, the top really needs to go back another 4 inches or so to be at his pole. However, this might not be as big a deal as it could seem... I had a few options here: 1) Leave as is, and just have long ties. This makes it more likely to fit other horses, *and* it gives Royce and his abundance of hair a place to go. 2) I can rivet a leather piece on, and add a back part to the shaffron like what the extant piece has, and give things a shinier and more complete look. 3) I can do both and just have the fancy piece be removable (I went with 3). I bent and molded some ear guards (by this time I had found my heat gun so it was much easier), and then rivetted them on. I made the holes by heating up a metal stiletto (what you might use with a sewing machine), and shoving it through the plastic and wiggling it around until the holes were big enough. I also rivetted on the plastic for the plume holder (though I had only intended to make the holes. The plastic fused together, so I just went ahead). The rivets were a little long, but since they aren't really structural, and are mostly decorative, I figured this would be fine.
As a note: the extant piece has many rivets. It took me a second to figure out why. There is a linen backing to the shaffron; The rivets are there to hold the linen on, since they didn't have super glue options like we do currently. I decided to incorporate those rivets in smaller numbers just to be decorative.
Once my paint arrived, the real fun could begin! I did a basecoat of the whole thing with metallic silver paint. I then did all the edges in a metallic gold paint. From here, gold racing stripes were added (they make Royce go fast. He clearly needs help there *sarcasm*), and I edged the gold with a bronze/brown metallic paint. I honestly wasn't sure what I wanted for the design in the middle of the stripes; I just wanted something simpler and more regular than the extant piece. I liked the golden leaf that was repeated, so I decided to keep that element. I also chose to use a flower to reference the metal work holding the plume piece. The original had some... swirly looking leaves (acanthus leaves maybe), which I decided to use as an influence for some swirls. With that done, I needed some more accents in the gold... and for simplicity's sake went with more swirls and some dots. Paint job done!
From here I just quickly added a leather attachment point to the top, and secured it to the chamfron with Chicago screws for the time being. I also lined the inside with a layer of heavy *THICK* wool felt to act as padding, and just glued it on.
And back to Royce! I liked how the ear shape works on him. The felt on the inside does change the fit slightly, but not much. You can see the black edge of it around his eyes on the side shots. I wish I had made the top tabs of the chamfron a little wider. I had originally wanted to strap it similar to a halter, but that would cut across the eye. However... I had ideas. If you look at the picture of the back of the extant example I am using as a guide, the part that goes over the pole has a piece of leather riveting it to the main body. There are also leather tabs like this next to the eyes. It isn't uncommon to see metal "pieces" next to the eyes in this area. If you look at the metal chamfron from the regalia that I have, it specifically has this. So, I added worbla pieces there and over the pole like I planned previously (attaching to the leather with Chicago screws to keep the pieces removable for smaller horses), and returned to Royce to see how that would work. Once again, it turned out really well. I just needed to paint things up to make them pretty, add the strapping to stabilize it like a halter, and then add the tie point for around his lower face.
Back at home, I started out with the painting. I did the temple pieces very simply, and decided to paint the top part to have my arms on them. Most people can't see it, but I know its there. Its a very subtle golden horsebow shooting a sewing needle. I also found a fancy silver toned metal bit with Chicago screw backings in my leather kit (bought second hand), that almost perfectly matched the hole placement, and has a flower that matches what I have been drawing...so I decided to use that to secure the pole piece. I added leather tabs to connect the temple pieces to the main part of the chamfron with rivets, and then added the temple pieces with Chicago screws to that. The pole piece was then connected to the temple piece with a leather strip. I only used 1 rivet at the top so it could pivot a little, but used 2 rivets at the temple piece so it wouldn't pivot into his ear. The strap that goes from the temple to the "nose" is riveted to the temple piece, and screwed to the nose piece. In this way there is once again some pivoting action if needed, and it completes the "removable" strip around the edge of the main body. I wasn't sure how I actually wanted to buckle/tie on the chamfron to his face, so I just used a leather thong for the fitting, but actually thought that would work pretty well and left as was. During the fitting, it seemed to work really well. It stayed in place without getting into his eyes, and generally didn't move much. That being said, when his head is fully up, there don't seem to be pressure points. When he puts his head all the way down, weight shifts forward and ends up on his ears. You can see his fluff covering some of the details in the hay shot. Because of this, I decided to add some sheepskin padding by the ears before testing it on him in a riding setting. I just glued it on and held it with binder clips until dry. If need be, I can always set some rivets to hold it on if the glue isn't enough. You can see how the shaffron can be taken apart a bit for a smaller horse if needed here.
Its great that it looks pretty, but I want to make sure it stays on and in place doing more than slowly following me around a paddock begging for the food in my hands. So, I made him run around a bit... At the walk, trot, and canter, it barely moved at all, and didn't seem to be an issue to him. The new sheepskin padding seems to be in the right place, and actually matches his mane surprisingly well. With that... Success!
Final Thoughts
I'm actually really happy with how this turned out. I love the look, and while not period materials, the worbla makes it super light and easy to deal with. I honestly think the leather and rivets are what give the piece most of its insignificant weight. I got to play with some of my non fiber skills (meager and developing that they are), so it was a nice change of pace after K&Q A&S. Now if only the pony wasn't so far away! This took so long since I am only at the barn twice a week, and I can't do fittings without Royce. In the future I want to see how this fits on a wider variety of horses. Something made for a large draft is sized oddly... but hopefully the adjustability will actually come in handy... It will just require tying to the bridle, and not being self supportive in and of itself.
