DIY: How to Repair a Riding Crop

Levi is essentially a giant toddler… Or a giant golden retriever… Whatever analogy you prefer, he likes to play with things by putting them in his mouth.

Levi loves playing with crops. #blmmustang #horsesofinstagram #funnyhorse

A post shared by Olivia @ DIY Horse Ownership (@diyhorseownership) on Oct 4, 2017 at 9:47am PDT

Crops are especially fun for him. If I hand him my crop, he’ll walk around with it for a while flinging and bouncing it about. Given that, I sometimes run in to some crop damage. I got the maroon crop seen above at a random sale so I don’t even know where to order another one easily and I love the color. When Levi broke the loop on it, I decided to fix it instead of replacing it.

Luckily for me, the waxed string which holds the loop on the crop was unbroken – although pulled out of place. This meant I didn’t have to buy more. If your string is broken, you can buy more on Amazon or at a local crafts store in either the jewelry or leather crafting section. Just search or ask for waxed string or waxed thread. The only other things you need are a pair of scissors and some (optional) super glue.

Step 1: Twist the waxed string to loosen it. Then start unlooping it from the crop itself.

Step 1

Step 2: Continue loosening and unlooping the string until it’s all off the crop. The remaining bit of leather loop will come off as well. If your leather loop is damaged, you can also replace it at this point (crafts stores sell leather pieces if you need one). Because my loop was torn on the one side I trimmed the intact side so it would be even.

Step 2

Step 3: If you are reusing your old string, this part will be easier explain than if you’re doing it from fresh. You need a few inches of string folded over on itself laid flat along the crop. Then start spiraling the rest of the string around the crop and the flat bit of string to cover them. You can do this a bit loosely and then spin the threads to tighten it up as you go. (don’t worry about the little tail sticking out, you can cut that off later.

Step 3

Step 4: Keep spiraling until you’re about half way. Then place your leather loop onto the crop.

Step 4

Step 5: Continue spiraling the thread over the leather loop. You can spiral loosely (as seen below) at first and then spin the threads down to tighten them.

Step 5

Step 6: Continue spiraling to the tip of the crop. Because I had to cut the thinner parts of the original loop off, this end was now much thicker than the original. I wrapped the string to the tip and then back down again to double it up and strengthen it a bit.

Step 6

Step 7: Add super glue to secure both the ends of the string. This last step isn’t really “proper.” The proper way to finish this is to tuck the ends of the string back through the spiraled part before your tighten it and then you won’t need glue. However, because I was reusing my old string and it was already spiralized, getting the spirals loose enough to slip the string under was difficult. I also figured Levi was likely to chew on the damned thing again, so I might as well add some extra binding force.

Step 7

Step 8: Let the glue dry, trim any extra string, and you’re done.

Step 8

I was very tempted to just buy a new crop, but I figured I’d at least try to fix it and if I hated the results, buy a new one then. This repair ended up being really easy and it looks pretty good. I don’t think I’ll get offered a job making crops anytime soon, but it looks good enough to me. From a distance, no one will ever know.