Coblentz Collar Shop Hand Crafted Draft Horse Collars, horsecollar, drafthorsetack, leatherwork

We visit Coblentz Collar Shop in Millersburg, Ohio The Coblentz family has been making horse collars since 1975 when Robert Coblentz made them by hand. Today, his son Marion and his staff of crafts people produce a wide variety of horse and pony collars. Marion shows us all the critical parts that are assembled to make a perfect collar. Watch as his crafts people cut the leather to the perfect pattern, size for different size collars. A press cuts pieces from a large library of patterns to fit any size draft horse. Pieces are held in place with staples and then stitched together. Holes are punched and the laces are stitched by hand. The edges are hand trimmed. Next the rims are attached which is very tricky. After most of the sewing assembly, the collars are stuffed with straw. The straw is forced through the wet leather tubes to fill the collar. After that, the main cavity of the collar is filled with straw. The straw in these steps is cut to work best for each particular use. Long straw and fin