Cutter restoration

Restored by Pete Keyes of Winnipeg. Great job and a labour of love.

Cutter History;

Well it was sold to by a local fellow. He was an elderly gentleman at the time, which was about 15 years ago, I,am pretty sure he has since passed away. I can,t remember his name but he was a Shriner and was huge into driving. He had four abreast horse draw chariots that he did at shriner events. The sleigh was out behind his arena just sitting there rotting. He was referred to me by a friend that had seen the sleigh.

  At the time I had Blazer, the best horse anybody could ever own, he could do anything, ride and drive. He was literally " BOMB" proof, if somebody would loose their confidence just put them on Blazer and all was good. Unfortunately Blazer got sick, eventually passed away and never did pull the Sleigh. 

 I have some pic,s of the before and after of the cutter rebuild, the paint is sprayed automotive acrylic enamel paint. The pictures show it all and I have doubles.

 There is a very interesting story behind the snowball catcher, that is the metal ornament that sits at the front of the sleigh. The original one was pretty much toast. One summer day a couple of years after the sleigh had been rebuilt, an elderly man, 75 or 80 and I might add Jewish descent, appeared at my door. He had been directed to my house by a friend that new I was into sleighs, horses and Buggies etc. The gentleman was actually trying to sell me a buggy he had as an ornament in his back yard pool area, this guy was a real character, he invited me to his house. Well, the buggy came complete with a full size horse, plastic, and a female manikin sitting in the buggy partially dressed with one breast exposed. So the reason I went to his house was he claimed to have a snowball fence for my cutter. Sure enough we make our way to the basement storage and he pulls out a MINTY snowball fence ,$120 later, identical to the one I desperately needed and could never find.

A little more, Cutter History;

  The original purchase price was only $200 that does,nt seem much but when you see the original pictures it was pretty delapitated and actually he only wanted the 200 because he had just paid that for the brand new shafts.

  I new I needed Brass Bells. This is important when pulling down the road, as you probably no it is a warning of your approach and in the old days Sleighs were actually identified by the sounds of  there bells. I picked those up from a horse friend for $90 which was what he supposedly had paid at an auction sale.