Latigo Smith

Yes, I know most people would classify this as overthinking, but I try to keep the exposure of my guns to acids and salts as low as reasonably achievable, to borrow an existing acronym. Also, in my way of thinking, just because people have used something for a long time, that doesn't necessarily mean that it won't cause problems. Case in point is the fact that holsters with chrome-tan suede linings have been used extensively with blued and nickel guns for decades by people thinking that the suede is protecting their fine gun finishes, when it is in fact abrading their finishes and exposing their guns to chromium salts. I do of course use oil on my guns, namely Ballistol, which has a PH of 8-8.5, making it entirely alkaline. For an unlined holster, I wouldn't apply Neatsfoot oil to the interior of the holster, only to the hair side, as the oil will level out through the entire thickness of the leather. But for a lined holster comprised of two layers of veg-tan, SOP is an extra light application on both the inside and outside, since the holster is made of two layers of leather separated by contact cement. I also meant to ask if any of you have used Ballistol to condition a holster before finishing, as the cans of Ballistol list leather conditioning as one of it's uses. I know a lot of people say not to use petroleum products like mineral oil, which is Ballistol's primary ingredient, as a leather conditioner, but I figured someone here has probably used Ballistol to condition a holster.

When I made holsters many years ago, I didn't typically apply any type of oil to them, however as I'm getting back into it, I'm thinking of applying a very, very light coat of 100% pure Neatsfoot oil on both the inside and outside of my lined holsters, not enough to soften the leather any, but just enough to add a touch of moisture to ensure that the leather doesn't crack. My concern lies in the fact that Neatsfoot oil is mostly or entirely comprised of various types of acids, and seeing as how even mild acids can damage a firearm's bluing, I'm hesitant about applying Neatsfoot oil to the inside of a holster for nice gloss blued guns. Yes, I would be applying Resolene to the inside of the holster after applying the oil, but I'd still be a bit concerned about the gun coming into direct contact with the oiled leather as the Resolene is worn over time. Have any of you ever seen this cause a problem for bluing? I know many of you probably make holsters primarily for modern guns with indestructible finishes like Nitron, Tenifer and the like, but any advice would be appreciated. I'd be interested in hearing the opinion of Mr. Lobo, since I know you have applied Neatsfoot Oil to your holsters since the days of brand-new gloss blued guns, therefore I figured you could be able to tell me if you ever saw any issues with nice blued Colts and Smiths in holsters that have been conditioned with Neatsfoot oil. Also, any recommendations for alternatives to Neatsfoot oil that aren't acidic are appreciated. I know some use Extra Virgin Olive Oil, which is relatively PH neutral, and I've also considered using the Bickmore Exotic Conditioner that I use on my boots, although I've never heard of it being used on a holster. Thank you in advance for any advice.

Ah, well that explains why the groove looks too small, it's not even there. It's always very difficult for me to tell whether or not there's a groove when people use those stitching chisel things that seem so popular these days, they appear to create a sort of phantom stitch groove. In any case, I wouldn't worry about the thread diameter, I think it looks great.

Geez, I didn't notice that this thread is from August, sorry to bring back an old one. I guess that's why I shouldn't try to do this sorta stuff at 3:00 in the morning.

I think the 5spi spacing looks excellent, even on this very small holster. The 1 mil thread looks a little big, but not so much is it too big for the holster (despite how tiny this holster and gun are), I think it looks too big for your stitch groove. For reference, I use two stitch groovers, a 60 year old Craftool standard groover for grooves that are parallel to an edge, and an old Gomph gum tool for interior stitch lines, and both cut a roughly .8 mil groove, and I hand sew for both of them using Maine Twisted Waxed Cord in the .035" size, which is only slightly larger than the width of the stitch grooves. This allows me to pull the thread real tight and compress it slightly so it just fills the width of the groove.

With the caveat that I know nothing about 3D printing, I would discourage the use of 3D printed dummy guns, and instead recommend that you buy dummy guns that are cast from the real thing. The 3d printed ones just don't look quite right to my eye.

That's some excellent work, I particularly like the tooled reinforcement piece. I wasn't aware that Smith made a .44 in a 7.5 inch barrel, I've only ever seen your standard 4", 6.5" (6" after '79) and 8-3/8". Was this a gunsmith cut-down custom configuration?

Boy, oh boy, Mr. Johnson, that sure looks like one spiffy heat drying setup. I may have to look into buying one of those at some point. I checked this morning, and given that they're on sale, they're sold out. If someone is going to spend $150 or more on a heat dryer, this seems like the most purpose designed option, and seems a much better setup than the similarly expensive food dehydrator I've seen some guys suggest. One other thing I meant to ask about, which Mr. Johnson's DryBooth reminded me of, is whether or not you guys find that a fan is beneficial in a home-built heat drying cabinet? I was planning on simply drilling holes in the base and the top of the cabinet to allow for a natural chimney effect, but I also considered drilling a hole in the cabinet to inset a 4" desktop fan for some forced airflow. What say all of you?

Thank you all for the advice. Dwight, that's an excellent idea, I might have to seriously consider a festive heat box. Particularly if whatever heat setup I use doesn't quite put out enough heat, lining the box with Christmas lights would bump it up nicely, and I still have some big bulb Christmas lights in storage somewhere. Thank you for the suggestion, I don't believe I'd have ever thought that one up. Billy, the reason I figured that a heat bulb would put out a more concentrated heat pattern is on account of it appears that the sides of the lizard bulbs don't emit any light or heat, it's only the front of the bulb that emits all the heat. Your suggestion of using a piece of sheet metal to deflect and distribute the heat is an excellent one, I do believe I'll do just that if I go with a heat lamp. Thank you.

Thanks for the response and specifications, Dwight. If regular 100 watt incandescent bulbs were still available for sale, that's certainly the setup I would use.

I seriously considered a hairdryer, and looked into this as an option, as they're designed to gently dry damp organic material without burning it. However, the fatal flaw in this approach is that apparently your typical hairdryer is only meant to run continually for 15-20 minutes, and leaving it running for longer than this can cause it to overheat severely. I think for proper stiffening a holster should be heat dried for around 30-40 minutes, which would probably melt down a hairdryer. Heat guns are the same story, they produce more heat than a hairdryer but still shouldn't be run for longer than 20 minutes. I hadn't considered this until just now, but I suppose you could buy two hairdryers and switch them out after 20 minutes, giving the first one a chance to cool while the second one takes over heating the box. This could work very nicely.

I'll be shortly building a heat-drying cabinet for drying wet formed holsters, and I have a question or two about the optimal heat source for such a project. It seems to me that most of the members here who've built heat boxes for holsters have used and recommended standard 100 watt incandescent light bulbs, typically 2-4 of them for a full-size heat box. However, a couple years ago, the hippy tree-hugging types managed to ban the production and/or sale of incandescent light bulbs for some silly environmental reason or another, so this doesn't appear to be an option anymore. In fact, everywhere I looked, there wasn't a single offering of 100 watt incandescent bulbs for sale, only 100 watt equivalent LED, which of course don't produce the necessary heat for this purpose. This led me to consider a reptile heat lamp instead. However, I'm concerned that a heat lamp will yield too much concentrated heat on the leather, as they're designed to heat a small area intensely, rather than the less concentrated radiant heat that a standard incandescent bulb produces. For reference, I'm thinking about building my heat box out of 3/4 inch plywood, and making it roughly 22" wide, 15" deep and 30" tall, but this is just an approximation. I also considered bumping the height up to around 5 feet or so if the heat lamp is too concentrated, just to give a little more distance between the bulb and the leather. As for the exact heat lamp, I found a 150 watt heat lamp with a dimmer switch, which would allow me to fine tune the temperature. I'm not sure if I should use the 60 watt, 75 watt or 150 watt heat bulb for a box of this size, but I'm figuring on the 150 watt bulb, since I can back off the heat with the dimmer switch if it gets too hot. Given that a dedicated heat lamp bulb produces more heat than a regular incandescent bulb of the same wattage, I'm thinking that the 60 or 75 watt heat bulbs might be the closest thing to a 100 watt regular incandescent. I also think that a single 150 watt heat bulb would likely meet or exceed (possibly by a large margin) the heat output of even 4x100 watt regular incandescent bulbs, so I mostly just wanted to be sure that this option wouldn't create so much concentrated heat so as to overheat or cook the leather. Have any of you used reptile heat lamps for a heat drying box, and if so, could you inform me on what wattage heat bulb you used and the approximate dimensions of your heat box? I'd be appreciative for any advice.

Thank you for the assistance and advice, everybody. It's much appreciated.

Alrighty, it sounds like pre-bending is the way to go. Do you find that simply applying pressure with your hands when cementing the layers results in a strong enough bond? This was the only reason I had planned on gluing flat, that I have more confidence in the hold of the contact cement when it's had a little time with some weight applied to it while curing. You use the gun to wet mold the individual layers to the correct curve radius before glue up? That sounds like an excellent way of doing it. Do you leave the gun in the leather while it's drying like when doing final molding or do you just mold it to the proper curve, take the gun out and let it dry?

Thank you very much for the replies, everybody. Chuck, I agree that experimenting with different weights to find what works best is the way to go. I'll probably try to find a decent source for smaller panel-type cuts of Hermann Oak for trial holster purposes. Since I use leather around 4/5oz for shoulder holster straps, and the 8/9 or 9/10oz stuff for unlined holsters, about the only use I'll have for the medium weight stuff would be for the lined holsters, so I'd certainly like to find the ideal weight for it before I invest in multiple sides for lined holsters. ALZilla, I'm sure Mr. Nichols does recommend horsehide, for the reason that he's been fascinated by Seventrees holsters since roughly 1970, and Seventrees used horsehide nearly exclusively for their holsters. I've heard very interesting things about using horsehide for holsters, namely that the flesh side is nearly as smooth as the hair side, and that once a horsehide holster has been wet molded and dried it becomes about as rigid as kydex. I'd be interested to try it out if I could find a source for it. Mr. Tragacanth, I've never considered whether the mineral content of the water used for wet molding could have an effect on the rigidity of the leather, but it very well could. That'd be an interesting test, trying pieces from the same cut of leather using distilled, spring and tap water. Dwight, I was sure this was the case, but I'm very glad to get your opinion on the matter. I'm not really sure what happened there when Mr. Nichols wrote that passage, as he really is quite knowledgeable. That's why I wondered if there was some variable or combination of variables that caused this to be Mr. Nichols firsthand experience making lined holsters, but I'm not sure what that could be. In any case, I do have a few more questions for you about your process for making lined holsters. Do you find that pre-bending the outer layer before glue up as you describe gives you better results than gluing the layers flat and folding the holster afterwards? I had figured on gluing the layers flat and setting one of my granite tooling slabs on it while the contact cement cures, as I thought that weighing it down real good would help to create a stronger bond. But I know that a number of people pre-bend their lined holsters to prevent the liner layer from wrinkling when the holster is folded. Have you found wrinkling to be a problem when cementing the layers flat and bending the holster after the cement is cured? Also, regarding the weight of leather used, in reading some of your various older posts on this subject, I've read that you've used two layers of 4/5oz, 5/6 oz and 6/7 oz. Which of these weights do you find produces the best balance of stiffness and moldability for you?