Mongo

I like the CS Osborne bissonnette edgers. I have from size 0 to size 4. I use the #2 the most.

+1 on sanding it. Once you knock it down with sandpaper, you can try to burnish it.

Terry, I just mixed blocks of what appeared to be equal amounts of parrafin and bees' wax. I just eyeballed it. I only made about a one pound block of it. As my last step in finishing a holster or gun belt, I rub a small amount of this mixture on the welt and the edges and then I do a final burnish with a clean piece of canvas by hand. What really helps my edges is using a good bissonette edger and then I will work down to 600 grit sand paper. My next step is the burnisher with damp edges and glycerin soap. The glycerin soap the Hydepounder mentioned really helps with dampened edges and my wool felt burnishing wheel (kept at low speed). I prefer a sanding drum to a belt sander for my welts.

You're pounding a large punch through a thick piece of leather. I had a similar problem with a small Tandy oval belt hole punch - I went back to an older punch. Here are some ideas to try: 1. If it's only cracking on the ends, try punching those out with a regular round punch and then use the oblong punch to do the sides 2. Make sure your oblong punch is as sharp as you can get it. My Tandy Al Stohlman punch needed a lot of sharpening before it worked well. 3. Dampen the leather a little and see it cuts better. 4. Don't try punching through both layers at once. Get through the first layer, remove that and then go through the hole to finish cutting out the back side. Just some ideas. If all else fails, I'm very happy with the right size round punch and I cut out the sides with an exacto knife.

This is a very professionally done piece.

Like katsass, I place my makers mark on the back of an item.

Mike, I make holsters and gun belts for cowboy action shooters. My gun belts are 8-9oz with a 4-5oz lining. For a plain or a simple border stamped 2 ½ ranger style belt I charge $145 dollars. If you want a more elaborate design, or conchos, the price goes up. I haven’t carved anything in years. I can’t keep up with demand now (working on leather part time). If I carved as well as Bob Park does, I could charge hundreds more and easily sell it. I think Bob is correct. You are “casting pearls before swine”. I feel with the quality of your carving, if you set up as a vender at some big SASS cowboy action shooting event, you would have no problem selling your work for what it’s worth. Cowboy shooters have plenty of money and they don’t mind spending it.

+1 on the Cobra class 4. I love mine and it is easier to use than my Tippman ever was.

A good $500 dollar machine is a rare item. That is why you have not received many responses to your post. You might find a used Tippman Boss for $700. I bought a new one for $1200, I wish I would have waited until I had the money for a power machine. I still have the Tippman, but I now use a Cobra class 4 (a copy of the Juki 441) from the Leather Machine Company. It was much more expensive, but it is worth every dime. There are other copies of the Juki 441 offered by other companies. If I were able to start all over again I would have hand stitched and saved my money until I could have afforded what I'm using now.

A fine brass or bronze wire brush might work. They use to sell them a shoe stores to clean suede shoes like the old Hush Puppies. I still have a couple and I have used them successfully on some of my wife's shoes.

I'm a full time high school history teacher. Many of the people I work with are anti-gun. They don't understand why I make gun leather and do cowboy action shooting every weekend. In Tennessee it's legal to bring firearms into school for educational purposes. I take real pleasure in bringing in guns as often as possible for history class. We've even fired my flintlock and percussion Hawken's rifle on the football field. I'm greeted with horrified looks every time a bring a rifle case into the teachers' lounge. Those looks make my day!

Wizcraft, You list some great things to check. I've had stitching problems caused by thread under my top spool and thread that had slipped out of a tensioning disk. On my latest machine, I was constantly having problems until I repositioned my whole thread stand assembly. It was originally on such an angle that my top thread never would spool off consistently.

It sounds like your on the right track playing with the your tension adjustments. Here are some other ideas you may check. No one told me this stuff when I first started using a leather sewing machine, so I don’t mean to be insulting if these seem way too obvious. Are you using one size smaller thread (than your top thread) on your bobbin? This can really help draw the bobbin thread up into the stitching hole. Change your needle. If your machine has been working fine up until now, putting in a new needle can magically cure all kinds of problems. Clean and oil where the bobbin shuttle rotates in the machine. Check how the thread is wound in your bobbin. It can get jammed up and not spool off consistently. If all else fails, call Steve at the Leather Machine Company (Cobra Sewing Machines). He will be glad to help you even if your using a different brand of machine.

I bought a Boss at first and I could never get it to run dependably. It required constant adjustment when I changed leather thicknesses. I don't mean to bash Tippman. I may be at fault with my problems with the Boss. Early last fall I bought a Cobra class 4 and I have never looked back. The learning curve on this machine was almost nil. I was able to produce quality products almost at once. I did have to call Steve once or twice, but he hand-held me through some minor adjustments and I was off and running.

When using a sewing machine, many of us backstitch 3 or 4 stitches to our desired starting point and then put the machine in the forward stitching position. This effectively backstitches the start of your sewing. Another method is to leave long enough threads on top and bottom and then use a pair of needles and a saddle stitch to finish the start. I just backstitch with my machine to my starting point. I've always trimmed my threads short and then pushed what remained back into the hole. Because I am now using nylon thread, I'm going to start melting the end of the thread before I push it into the hole.

There are also some offers on ebay under "leather tools".

Ken, Most of my work is stuff for SASS, mostly gun belts and holsters. As mentioned in several of the other replies, getting an exact measurement of where the gun belt will be worn is always the best. If you can't get that measurement, have his family measure a pants belt he wears regularly from the most comfortable hole to where the buckle tongue touches the inside of the buckle. The old rule of thumb for making Western gunbelts is to make the belt 4" longer than the pants' belt measurement. Your estimated length should be from the center hole of the billet to where the buckle tongue touches the inside of the buckle. Traditionally, on a Ranger style gun belt, the billet with the belt holes has 5 holes spaced about 3/4" inch apart. To help make sure my belts fit, I use 7 holes in my billets and I space them an inch apart. I also use an oval hole punch instead of a round one. This method gives me a 7" range and customers are fine if the belt is one space off from fitting perfectly. Just my 2 cents on the topic.

Frank, Do you have a Ruger OMV that you can use to wet fit the holster? If so, you can build up the frame and cylinder of the gun with some layers of plastic wrap and you'll get pretty close to a perfect fit. The cylinder of a Blackhawk is a little bigger than a OMV. My patterns are for lined holsters and I don't think that they would work well for an unlined holster with no welt. You could even use a Colt, Colt clone or a Ruger NMV for wet fitting if you wrapped it enough. A Ruger NMV is just a hair bigger than Colt or Colt clone; the same pattern works for both, but I still like to wet fit it with the gun thats going in it. The OMV is a little bigger than the NMV and the Blackhawk has a slightly bigger cylinder than the OMV. I think you were on the right path when you mention enlarging your Ruger OMV pattern. My Blackhawk pattern and OMV pattern are identical except that the Blackhawk pattern is a hair over 1/4" wider right under where the trigger guard rests. Widen your OMV pattern up near the top of the holster pocket to accommodate the wider cylinder of the Blackhawk and I think your holster will turn out fine. I should mention one other thing. I make the bottom part of my holster pocket big enough that the holster does not rub on the front sight. If your OMV holster touches the front sight, you need to widen up that part too to accommodate the slightly larger sight on a Blackhawk.

I make a lot of cowboy action holsters for both OMV and Blackhawks. My holsters are 8 – 9 oz with a 6 – 7 oz lining. My pattern for OMV and Blackhawks are very similar. I make patterns using legal size file folders. I just measured both file folder patterns. On the Blackhawk pattern horizontally across the top of the holster pocket, right below where the trigger guard would rest is 4 ¾”. Horizontally near the bottom of the holster pocket, before it starts to curve is 3 ¼”. Vertically the holster is 8 ¼” from the lip of the holster pocket to the bottom. This pattern is for a revolver with a 5 ½” barrel. The only difference there was from my OMV pattern is that the Blackhawk pattern was a little wider across under the trigger guard. On these patterns, I place a stitching grove 3/16” from the edge, except for the welt. On the welt edge I place a stitching grove 5/16” from the edge to allow for sanding of the welt. I wet fit all my holsters to the actual gun.

I did what RBD mentioned in his post. I laid a small drill press on its side. I used a small sanding drum for holster welts and then I made a burnishing wheel from 1 1/2" stacked felt circles on a long threaded bolt for burnishing. I used this method for a couple of years. A few months ago I bought another small drill press for $49 from Harbor Freight. I didn't fully assemble it. I just stuck the head in a cardboard box. Not having the steel pipe in the way gave me a lot more room when sanding and burnishing. One of these days I'm going to get it out of the box and build a decent stand for it, but it sure works very well. I found the felt disks on Amazon and just stuck a bolt through them.

Paxton, I use to get all my leather from the local Leather Factory store (owned by Tandy), but I would have to spend hours going through their stuff to find decent leather. I have also purchased good leather from a big saddle shop here in Chattanooga, but I have to also pick through it to get what I want. The best suggestion I have gotten for smoother backsides came from a top leather guy (Chuck Burrows) from www.cascity.com . What he does is order his stuff from Wickett and Craig, but to insure that he gets a smoother backside, he orders a thicker piece than what he needs and has them split it to the thickness he wants. Chuck states that the backsides he gets by ordering this way are almost always perfectly smooth. I'm pretty sure that they split it for free. Another trick I have used is to sand the backside with very fine sandpaper (sometimes as fine as 600 grit). This helps make it pretty smooth. This doesn't work if the leather is too furry to start with, though. After I put Stain Sheen on the backside, I buff it pretty good with a clean cloth and this seems to burnish it pretty smooth.

I line almost all of my belts, but I don't dye the back of belts. When I occasionally do an unlined belt I try to not use leather that is "fuzzy" on the back side. I apply a light coat of neatsfoot oil and let it dry overnight. This will darken up the leather a little. After that I give it two coats of Tandy's satin sheen (made by Feibings). After it dries well, I buff it with a soft cloth like a piece of white T shirt. I mostly do gunbelts for cowboy action shooters and I finish the backs of my lined belts the same way. Here in the South on a hot day it's very likely that someone will sweat through their gunbelt during a shoot. Not dyeing the back really helps stop dye from bleeding on to clothes. Just my 2 cents worth on the subject.

Hobby! This is an addiction. The holsters you include links to are functional, but they are no where near as nice as something you could make yourself if you get good at this. I started like you did in the late 1970s with a few tools and some belt blanks. I got out of it for a while, but since I started cowboy action shooting 7 years ago, I have jumped back into it with both feet. I wasn’t willing to pay hundreds for a top of the line gun rig when I knew I could make one just as good myself. I made a set of holsters for myself and soon I was making more for other cowboy shooters. Last year I spent thousands on a new leather sewing machine, new tools, leather, dye, and other accessories, but I also sold a couple of thousand dollars worth of holsters and gun belts to other cowboy action shooters. Leather and supplies are not cheap, but it is a great feeling to see other people using stuff that you made and wanting to buy more.

Look on the cascity.com website forum and go to the leather workers section. There are several examples of different type of spur straps. I remember a recent thread with pictures of dove wing spur straps.

Weaver Leather sells an Osborne tool to round leather straps. The tool has a number of different hole sizes. Check their website to see if it's what you need.