Fun with Sliders

Much coolness!

So, having passed my sliderettes and gone on to sliders, I passed them on the first try, too!  They passed last Monday, so I started in on my fullered shoes.  I know, I know...what the hell's a fuller??  Well, if you look at a normal mass produced horseshoe, they have grooves on each of the sides that the holes sit in.  Those grooves are fullers.  In other words, my shoes now have to have grooves for the holes to sit in rather than just having the holes flush with the surface of the shoe.  Yes, there's special tools used to make fullered shoes. 

I worked all week on my fullered shoes, because I wanted to get them right and because the metal used is slightly thicker than what I was previously using.  And because I had to turn in a full set of four, a pair each of fronts and hinds.  The first shoe I worked on I had to scrap because the fuller was too far to the inside and it wouldn't have nailed on.  Wait, wait, I know...what do you mean 'too far to the inside'?  Well if the holes are too far toward the inside edge of the shoe, they won't drive into the hoof wall.  They'll drive into the sensitive part of the foot and then all kinds of problems ensue.  The horse's foot will bleed, it hurts the horse, and it could potentially form an abscess.  Nails don't go into the sole or the white line, they go in the hoof wall.  So the nail holes have to be far enough to the outside of the shoe that it nails into the wall, but not so far out that the shoe is unstable because there's not enough metal left to hold the nail in the shoe.  Tricky, huh?  Yes, even in making shoes there's a catch.  lol!  But back to fullered shoes.  I finished the full set today and they passed first try.  So now, my next shoes to make are a full set of aluminum fullered shoes.  Tomorrow's task...

The other cool thing that happened was that on Friday, we had two horses come in that needed slider plates put on.  One horse already had sliders on, so that one turned into a reset.  The other needed a pair made, and that was the horse I was working on.  Park got the reset.  Just luck of the draw, by the way, and not engineered that way.  Though it was guaranteed that we were the ones to work on those two horses, since we're the only two that were here that could even make sliders.  Anyone else that could make them was off at a forging and shoeing competition down in Texas.  From what I hear, they're doing pretty damn good, too.  Alberto has been placing first and second and Jonothan got a third place.  I'm not there because I'm not terribly fast at either forging or shoeing.  I place quality over quantity.

So!  It looked like I was going to have to push the envelope of my forging skills and knock out a pair of sliders as fast as I possibly could.  Then we measured the horse's feet.  5 1/2 inches on the diagonal.  Double that to 11 inches, then add 1 1/2 inches to account for the fact that it was sliders, and that was the length of steel needed to make a shoe that fit.  Wait a minute...that makes 12 1/2 inches...I used 12 1/2 inches of steel for the pair I made that passed...

Yep, you guessed it.  My pair of sliders got slightly widened and put on a horse!  All by myself.  Coolness!  Of course, now I have to make another pair of sliders as display pieces, but that's not a big deal.  The big deal is that I got to put my own handmade shoes on a horse all by myself!  And I did a good job, too, imho.  Yes, photos are following, further down in this posting.  *grin*

First, this is the pair of sliders I made.  Yes, the ones that went on the horse, so I don't actually have them anymore.  But like I said, I'll make another pair to show off.  And remember what I was saying about the nail holes and notice how far out to the sides of the shoes they are.  That's where the hoof wall actually sits with respect to the shoes.

This is a slider compared to a sliderette.  The slider is the fat one on the left.  Notice the shape is the same, just the widths are different.  Sliders make nice flat surface for reining horses to slide on when they make that sliding stop.  The toe is also either rolled or rockered so that it doesn't dig into the ground like a blunt surface would.  Probably the toe of the sliderette is also supposed to be either rolled or rockered, but I'm not certain and they didn't tell me to make it that way so I didn't.

This is the actual shoe on the foot.  If you look close, you'll see the trailer of the shoe extending past the heel of the foot.  Yes, it's supposed to look like that.  I believe we discussed that in a previous blog, but this is what it looks like.  The horse was very good about letting me put the sliders on, except for leaning on me some.  With all his heavy muscls developed from sliding, his butt was somewhat heavy...

Now, some of you have asked what it looks like when I'm shoeing the horse and how I hold the foot.  While this isn't the best picture of that, it does serve to somewhat illustrate how I hold a hind foot to work on it while at the same time showing off the slider I put on that particular foot.  If you look close, you'll see that my left elbow is actually hooked over the top of the horse's hock and his lower leg is running down the side of my left hip with his fetlock tucked into my crotch.  Yes, this is the most comfortable position to work in.  The horse's leg is supported by my legs quite well, which leaves both my hands free to work on the foot.  My legs are together down to the knee, so my thighs make a stable platform, while having my feet spread and pigeon-toed in gives me secure footing.  Go ahead and try out the position yourself and let me know how long you can stand crouched down and pigeon-toed before your legs start to shake.  Trust me, I can stand for a lot longer now than when I started.

By comparison, this is how I work on a front foot.  The position is similar, but the foot is gripped beteen my thighs.  Holding on to the toe of the foot gives me a stable platform for working.  And it's also the best point of control if the horse starts to pull the foot away.  This was a different horse on a different day, by the way.  But the concept is the same for every horse.  Again with the closed thighs and pigeon-toed stance.  This one is a better example of just how bent over I am when working, though, as on the other photo I was done with the foot and just showing it off.  This one, I was actually working on the foot at the time the photo was taken.

These are the fullered shoes.  The photo's not the best, but you can somewhat tell that there's grooves in the sides where the nail holes are located.  The top pair are fronts and the bottom pair are hinds.  Fancy, huh?

And this is a comparison between a basic front shoe and a fullered front shoe.  The basic is on the left.  The astute observer might notice that the basic shoe has three holes while the fullered shoe has four.  Why?  I don't know.  That's just how I was instructed to make it.  But looking at it from the perspective of someone that has to put it on a horse, four nail holes are better.  Why?  Because in order to affix a shoe firmly to a foot, you have to use three nails.  Now, you could use the shoe that has only three holes, but what if you quick the horse?  When that happens, you can't use the same hole again because you've just made the horse bleed.  If you have only three holes, you're shit out of luck, now aren't you?  But if you have four holes, you've got a spare.  And it also gives you choices.  What it the hoof is badly broken out just where one of those nails is supposed to go?  With four holes, you've got a back up plan in case one of the nails just won't nail on for whatever reason.

Anyway, I think this edition has run a tad long.  But there was so much to talk about!  As usual, if there's any questions or requests, feel free to put them in comments.  I do check, honest.  =)

This is me, signing off.