I am looking for some ideas on how best to store my harness. My two goals are A) To keep it organized, and B) To keep it from getting too terribly dusty and/or moldy.
Ideas, thoughts, suggestions?
Possible necessary information:
The proper word escapes me at the moment, but the harness does not have a collar, rather it is a ?. I do a little bit of carriage pleasure driving with an Amish-made carriage that is similar to a Meadowbrook.
Thanks!
[QUOTE=pattnic;2683432]
I am looking for some ideas on how best to store my harness. My two goals are A) To keep it organized, and B) To keep it from getting too terribly dusty and/or moldy.
Ideas, thoughts, suggestions? [/QUOTE] Is it in regular use or do you mean to store away??
If the former its best all hung up in a well ventilated dry tack room.
If the latter then clean it and put it in an old continental quilt cover and put away in a blanket box in your house where its going to be dry.
The proper word escapes me at the moment, but the harness does not have a collar, rather it is a ?.
erm…do you mean it has a breast collar?? rather than a full collar
[QUOTE=Thomas_1;2683447]
erm…do you mean it has a breast collar?? rather than a full collar[/QUOTE]
YES!!! I was having a stupid blonde moment and could not for the life of me think of the word “breast collar”! Thanks, Thomas!
Thank-you also for the suggestions - I don’t use the harness terribly often, but often enough that I don’t want to store it at home (an hour from the barn). The “tack room” is quite dusty - there are plans to fully enclose the “tack room,” but until then, I don’t want to let the harness just hang and collect dust.
Put it inside a quilt cover then and then hang it up in the tack room
Where can I find such a cover?
I have my harness in a trunk, it stays clean, and no mice or such can get at it…
[QUOTE=pattnic;2683525]
Where can I find such a cover?[/QUOTE] Don’t you know what a continental quilt cover is??
I presumed everyone had those on their beds??
Does this have a different name in America???
Help someone please??? I think I need a translator
pattnic -
Thomas is talking about a typical bed quilt.
A big duffle bag – the kind you can find at the Army-Navy stores – will work, too, if you are looking for a cloth container that is light, portable, and secure when you want to move the harness from place to place.
Or you can use a medium-sized airline suitcase (the kind that rolls along on wheels) to pack the harness in if you want a container that is still light and portable without having to be carried.
I thought Thomas was describing what we in the U.S. call a duvet- a washable cover that buttons (or zips) over your good comforter/quilt to keep it clean. Oddly enough, duvet would be a French word, wouldn’t it? 
yes same as a duvet.
Quilt is the English word … rather to be more precise its etymology is Latin and through Anglo normal to quilt.
Duvet is french in origin though we also call them that.
I store mine in a garment bag such as you would take on an airplane. I found a wooden hanger and drilled holes to mount strings. I used the belt hook provided on the hanger to hang the bridle, and various other pieces are mounted by the strings. The pockets on the front are most useful to store the rolled up reins and such. Keeps it well organized, easy to move around from tack room to aisleway, dust free and I use a desicant bag to help control mold and/or mildew.
Is there a reason you don’t want to use a harness bag for storage? I have a harness similar to yours and keep it in a harness bag … I use a separate harness bag for storing parts of my parade saddle as all the velcro tabs, etc. keep everything quite organized. I can either hang it or place it flat inside a trunk when necessary.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I have just “inherited” the harness from the man I rode and drove with back home, where we had always just hung up the harness in the tack room. It didn’t get dusty the way the “tack room” does here, so it was never a problem.
Honestly, I had no idea there was a such thing as a harness bag… when we went to shows, we moved the harness from the tack room and then hung it up in the trailer tack room, so we never had a bag.
Now that I know that Thomas meant a duvet cover, that is very helpful!
You all have given me some very good ideas to work with - I really appreciate it!
Not that expensive … here are a few:
http://www.horsecart.com/tack.html (mine is similar to this)
http://www.drivingessentials.com/Harness_Bags.htm
www.smuckersharness.com/sale.html
http://www.ehorseequipment.com/detail.asp?id=7394 (I have an old one like this - if you get creative, you can tie everything up inside)
What about harness boxes? For the draft show harness everyone has big carpet lined boxes, rather like coffins stood on end. Each set of harness has its own box. I’d like to make a box for my breast collar harness, draft size it would be a bit much to stuff in and out of a bag. Has anyone seen boxes made for breast collar harnesses? I know it would be really simple, just a matter of figuring out where to put the pegs. If someone else has already invented the mouse trap I’ll just copy their design though.
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