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VERY hard to believe. If I hadn't been searching all day myself I wouldn't believe you. I had to see it (or rather...not see it) with my own eyes to believe it. I found the SIG 3.3" version even...which is odd because I'm pretty sure the normal officer 3.5" is much more common. But no joy. It's a closed toe holster, so just using a commander wouldn't work. Thought of that, but customer wants closed. But that is genius with the chopped commander though. The grip would be a tad long still for an officer, but that doesn't matter for holster making. That's exactly what I'll do, thanks.

I refuse to believe that a 3.5" "officer" size 1911 mold gun doesn't exist...yet I see them nowhere no matter how hard I search. Do any of you know where I'd get one for holster molding?

Fair enough, I guess "waterproof" is a bad term. I guess a better way to say it is that I need to accomplish whatever water resistance finishing normally gives, but want to do so while changing the aesthetics as little as possible (or at least a lot less than atom wax does). I'll have to look into dubbin. Thanks!

Currently I lave Atom Wax. It's ok stuff, but honestly I have some really high quality leather around right now, and I'm finding that the aesthetic look of my leather is actually better before I finish! The more matte look really looks great, and the atom wax makes it more shiny and sometimes can darken it quite a bit. I'd love to just leave them unfinished...they look much better. But, then the tooling leather is still gonna soak up moisture, and we can't have that. So I've got to do a surface finish if nothing more that for protection purposes alone. Does anyone have any recommendations for a finishing product that will change the appearance as little as possible, just waterproof the leather so that it's not gonna soak up any water it touches any more?

Thanks everyone for the input. This has helped immensely. I'll be ordering and trying a few different things, I may end up using different methods for different situations. Before I was having trouble figuring out any really good ways to do it, now the trouble is that I have a bunch of good ways to choose from. That's a good trouble to have. Thanks!

I like it. Any tips for how to get a consistent depth? Or is it just a "more you do it the better you'll get" type thing?

I've been making a few magazine pouches and I'm trying to figure out what to do about the backs of the snaps. They're right where you slide the magazine in, and I feel like they should be covered. The front is just 1 layer of leather, so no sandwiching between layers. Do you just glue a piece of fabric or felt? Are there super thin tooling leathers out there that work for that? Do you glue, or do you make it wide enough to sew in?