The design for this stitching pony was based on a commercially-available model that had been pointed out to me. Based on some investigation of what's out there in Stitching-Pony Land, it seems that there are a couple predominant designs; ones like this with curved arms and integrated jaws and then a somewhat cruder-looking version using straight arms with large jaws often separately attached. The latter design is probably somewhat simpler to manufacture and may have some subtle advantage over the curved design that isn't evident to this leather-stitching neophyte but the curved-arm design definitely looks cooler; Case closed.

I made up the plan by shamelessly copying web-based images of wooden ponies. There actually seems to be a pretty consistent design approach with a few variations in size, securing method, etc. At the low end lurks unfinished nailed-together flat-board models but I trust this one should be a bit less embarrassing to use.

I dived into the specification document for wood type and eventually found this requirement:

3.7.14a Wood Species: Whatever wood you want.

Well, that left me plenty of latitude so I prowled around the shop avoiding anything too fancy or too plain or too small or too cracked and ended up settling on Cherry. I had a number of imperfect scraps but I figured I could cut enough good bits out of these two pieces for the pony.

Following wood selection, the cut-to-size process swung into gear using the usual methods and photographically sampled here;

5 blanks for the 5 pieces, ready for some shaping.

The jaws were cut to shape on the bandsaw, following pencilled-on lines for the curves.

The brown wood block on the right is taped to the jaw and serves a couple purposes;
First: Provide a convenient handle and
Second: Ensure the jaw remains perfectly vertical going through the saw.

Bandsaw cuts are never smooth so a remediation process follows wherever one cares about surface finish. That often ends up being sanding (although I've done scraping, planing and filing where appropriate as well). After the machines were through with them, I followed up with hand sanding to 220 grit to get to a decent-looking surface.

The oddly-shaped middle piece which I've designated the brace was marked up with pencil and then shaped with a few cuts on the band saw.

And then of course the cut surfaces were smoothed with filing and sanding.

Using the vise as an alignment tool, the brace was glued to the inside of the fixed jaw

The base was cut out of a 4 x 12" piece as seen here. It doesn't need a huge amount of strength and can be quite thin; It's around 8 mm at the thickest part and the rest is tapered to be more comfortable to sit on.

Edges and corners of the base were rounded on the belt sander to avoid puncturing upholstery or people.

The moveable jaw will hinge on a 3/16"-diameter steel pin. I would need to drill for the pin but there isn't much leeway going through 3" of 1/2"-thick wood. So I spent a while making sure the wood was exactly in line with the drill bit - that thin wedge helps in one dimension.

By the way - that's a transfer punch in the drill press for this calibration. It's one of a range of diameters that nominally get used for marking the centers of holes but useful for an eclectic selection of random tasks like this one here.

Calibration paid off and the hole was nicely aligned.

The last step was to do finish sanding on all the pieces. The edges and corners were rounded where appropriate and this shot shows the riser getting its turn.

With all the pieces done it was time for a test assembly.

Everything went together as expected but I took the opportunity for a Preliminary Customer Acceptance Test and was informed that there would be no ECOs. Wohoo!

So then it's on to finishing.

Of course it needed to come apart for finishing and this shot conveniently shows all the pieces.

In addition to what can be seen here, there are of course two threaded inserts as well but they will remain embedded in the wood of the fixed jaw.

I used my usual Minwax Fast-Dry Poly although it should be noted that it does not in fact dry particularly fast.

The first coat went on with a sponge brush along with the tiny blue-handled job on the bench for tight spots.

The pieces have their first coat of varnish installed in this shot.

The two pieces in the foreground are test articles for checking adhesive performance for when it comes to gluing on the jaw padding.

The pony received three coats of varnish with the usual steel-wool roughing between coats.

Once the varnishing was done I used one of the test articles to check mounting the leather. I had planned to use a latex adhesive and that seemed to work fine but the wrap around the end was looser than I wanted (despite using a custom-cut end clamp).

The too-round leather wrap was solved by easing the inside corners. In this shot I'm carving a small v-shaped tough where the leather wraps around the corners of the jaw. That should allow for closer-to-90° corners.

Here the liner is ready to go for the first jaw.

These shots show the liner going into place. To apply pressure on the end where I want a nice 90° corner, I used a stretchy plastic wrap. Then to hold the leather against the non-flat faces of the jaw, some dense foam was added to each side before clamping.

Lining the jaws was the last bit of "woodwork", so that just left final assembly;

Done