My First (Usable) Holster.

[olliesrevenge]

I have been meaning to get this done for quite some time now. I have Particle to thank for posting his video and getting me motivated to finish this. Now that I have actually completed one I feel like the rest will come much easier. Those who know holsters will recognize this as an attempt to clone a Tucker HF1. I had 2 previous attempts at creating a holster but stopped short of completion because of serious design errors that would have rendered them unusable.

This forum rocks, and I couldn't have made this without this site. For what it's worth, here is my scoop on how I did mine.

• Using the techniques described in mattsh's holster design post to create a pattern and build a test model out of cardboard, I came up with a pattern. Using a french curve in the initial drawing helped the lines flow more nicely than I could have done by hand alone. I then traced the pattern out on vellum paper, cut it out, then transferred it to a $15 piece of 8-9 oz leather from the scrap bin at Tandy.
• Since I made this holster from 8-9oz leather lined with 8-9 oz leather from the same piece, I started with 4 pieces cut slightly too large, then cut them to the final shape after gluing them together into a single laminate. Using a tip from the guy at my local Tandy shop, I made sure to glue up the 2 pieces of the main body of the holster while it was in the folded position. Had I glued it up while flat the lining piece would have scrunched up when I tried to fold it.

Question: Had I done something more reasonable like line 6-7oz leather with 4-5oz leather, would I still have to glue it up in the folded position?

• Finished & burnished (with saddle soap and a chunk of canvas) the single thickness edges of the flap piece then glued it to the main body of the holster.
• Stitch grooved the flap piece.
• Dyed the whole thing black with some Fiebings pro oil dye soaked into a piece of wool.
• Ran 5 dpi stitch wheel into stitch groove then drilled the stitch holes w/ dremel tool & 1/16" bit
• Hand stitched the front flap onto the main body & edge stitched the flap piece all w/ one piece of pre waxed thread.
• Glued main body in folded position
• Stitch grooved the rear belt loop area, the re-dyed the groove, then stitch wheeled it, then drilled it out, then hand stitched it.
• Drum sanded all the multi-layer thickness edge areas w/ Dremel & drum sander bit, then re-dyed the sanded down areas, then burnished the edges.
• Cut belt loops w/ Dewalt cordless drill & 5/16" drill bit, and 1 1/2" chisel. Totally messed up the front loop and had to use Dremel tool w/ small drum sander bit to correct the disaster I created with the chisel. After the hard lessons learned on the front loop, rear loop went much better & required no Dremel sanding damage control.
• Re-dyed & burnished belt loops.
• Dunked the whole thing in warm water for about a minute, let it set for about 10 minutes, inserted gun, then made a futile attempt to "bone in" two layers of 8-9oz leather. Next time I'll spend the money for some real leather of the appropriate size and maybe it will turn out better.
• Belted it in around a 5 gal bucket and left it near a wall heater to dry.

The forward rake is too much for my taste but this thing actually carries a G19 pretty nicely.

Comments - suggestions welcome.

Lance