Horsehair matting ...

[decorum]

Does anyone know of a good source of horse hair in mat form in the U.K?

It's easy to source in non mat form, but I'm coming up empty on finding a U.K source of matted hair (or whatever the correct technical name is, felted horse hair? ).

Project it's needed for is renovating a bicycle mattress saddle.


Or, if you have experience of the subject matter, is DIY matting / felting horse hair with uniformity reasonably easy to achieve?




Thank you in advance .

 

[Macaroon]

Hi decorum, horsehair can be felted as a protein fibre like wool or any other, but is very tough. It takes a long time to absorb water and takes an awful lot of work to get it to felt...........I think you'll be sourcing your matting from overseas as I know of nowhere in the uk to get it; if there is anywhere it'll be very specialised and therefore very expensive...............I do know somebody who would give you chapter and verse on the subject but she's wandering around in South America this year..........................Sorry it's not more positive, atb mac

 

[decorum]

Sorry it's not more positive,

My thanks. Don't be concerned about not being positive, if nothing else you've helped confirm my suspicions I'm usually quite good a finding 'stuff' and was drawing a blank on local supplies ~ if possible I prefer to make use of local economy and increase the radius if and as needed. All my search hits were coming up as long distance and I thought I might be missing something ~ it wouldn't have surprised me in the least that I couldn't find any because I wasn't using the traditional name of 'tiddlyflomph'* or some-such in the search (it wouldn't be the first time a traditional name for something left me wondering what the old-timers were on :yikes. Anyway, thanks for putting me out of my misery .




* No that's not the traditional name, I've just made it up ~ and yes, I did check to see whether it's a known term for 'something else' .

 

[Mesquite]

Any good Phil?

I know you can get bigger sheets of it as it's used in upholstery. That was the first search I found for it

Edit:

Here's bigger sheets as well as needled matting

 

[decorum]

Cheers Steve, if nothing else you've given me an inroads in my search .

Here's bigger sheets as well as needled matting

Brooks stock / sell almost every part of the I might conceivably need for the refurbishment ~ except the organic bits . Might still be worth a call