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Thanks cousin jack

John, no apologies necesary. I’ll clarify myself further, When wagons like those were in use , teamsters used what appeared to be single harness on the 2 horses in the shaves.

I have always been facinated by the different styles/methods of harnessing horses.

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John, guess i should amend that to read, “as scott pointed out ,they still do occasionally;)

Could you post a pic of the Scandinavin harness in team mode?

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The english tended to use single horses more than teams. So when they needed a team they put on an other set of shaves rather than adapt harness. As scott pointed out they still do

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The buyers dropped hardwood pulp down here to $28/ ton, not worth taking out of the woods

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Thanks folks,

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What’s a wagon shoe ???

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Whats the terrain like ? Is it possible to just lay the skid roads out string straight?(Yeah,I know, dream on lol) Cross hauling the ends on the corners is also an option.

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@OldKat 20417 wrote:

BTW: This particular book did not mention the New England D Ring harness by name, and although it has been a couple of years since I last looked at it; I do think it had something that strikes me (best I can remember it) as a similar design, which was called a “Boston Backer” harness. By any chance is this the same design?

I think that the “Boston Backer” is called a “side backer ” now
Another thing that I have noticed is that years ago folks tended to use the Dring without the back pad especially in southern New england.

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Understanding Harness by Barb Lee. Heard of it but never seen a copy so i don’t know how good it is.

Once you get past fitting the collar and hames it is kind of hard to compare D ring to the other styles of harness because of the difference in the way they work.

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@Robert MoonShadow 19758 wrote:

Anyone have Les Barden’s contact info? I want to purchase the video/dvd on making the D-ring harness for my local harness guy to study & use for making a set for my donkeys…
Thanks!

Robert, his phone No. is listed in the Equipment Fabrication section under the thread Barden Cart.

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No they don’t. I had the opportunity to work with 2 Amish crews. They had 5 teams working. 3 teams with one crew, 2 teams with the other. The horses all had come from the same farm. The western style harness’ had been made in the same shop, and the steel wheeled log carts had been built by the same man. The crew with the 2 teams were constantly having sore necks on their horses, they had pulling collars and deer hair pads. Pads were cleaned daily. The other 3 teams had standard farm collars with the black vinyl covered pads and never had any trouble.

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Yes, I have. I made up some straps that snapped into the top of the cheek piece so that I could get better adjustment on the bit. Used them for a couple of years on the team I had at the time.

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Was it warmer than normal there? It sounds a little like too much heat?

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In the summer I just used an overhead picket line. Just set the horses back in the woods where they are surrounded by trees. So that there is shade all day long.

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I used to build what I called “baler twine barns”. 🙂 Just a tarp strung over some poles cut on site. I tied the poles into the trees and hung the tarp over them. I never had to worry about high winds but they did stand up to some fairly heavy snow loads occaisionly. When the job was done I could cut the twine, drop the poles on the ground so that nothing was left connected to the trees, fold up the tarp and use it on the next job

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