6guns

Ok, I finally got the finances together to get the remaining supplies I needed for my first holster project. Tonight I made a lot of progress on the holster and learned several lessons the hard way. Problems Encountered: 1. Drilling the holes for sewing did not turn out as clean as I would have liked for the holster. The drill bit I used did not make smooth clean holes which I think hurt the appearance after sewing. Does anyone have any tips for drilling these holes that will produce cleaner holes? Is there a better tool than a drill bit to get this done? 2. I had a lot of problems with the groover as I mentioned in my earlier post. I received the new blade from Tandy, but unfortunately I had already done some damage trying to figure out the problem and learning to use the groover. The good news is it still looks good for my first attempt, but definitely screams rookie. 3. I drilled holes too small and learned how easy it is to break needles? I redrilled the holes larger and the sewing went much easier. Tomorrow I am going to get started cleaning up some of the rough edges and then begin staining the holster black. I'll post pictures as soon as I get it all finished up. I can definitely see how things could improve dramatically from the first to my second holster. I have learned so much from my mistakes on this first project. --6guns

Thanks for the tip. I'll put the order in for the blade and some other goodies I still want from Tandy this weekend. I am still having a lot of fun with this project, problems and all.

Tonight's Lesson - The Adjustable Groover Buy crap get crap! Here ends my lesson. One of the few tools I picked up on the cheap was an adjustable groover from Harbor Freight. Wow, it really did not work the way I was expecting. The knife did not remove any material while using it, but rather just pushed a grooved indentation into the leather. Just to confirm, since everything is new to me, it was in fact supposed to remove material? Maybe I was using it wrong, but I don't think so. I even viewed some YouTube footage to make sure of what I was doing. This mistake is definitely going to give my first holster that newbie look. Looks like it is tool upgrade time. --6guns

Well I have finally started my first holster build. For that matter I am starting my first leatherworking project. I have been using the tutorial found on the web site by Shane Whitlock as a guide for this first project. Between Tandy, Ebay, and Harbor Freight (yikes) I have managed to purchase the tools I need to attempt this project. Truth be told I bought more than I needed but some of the auctions on EBAY were too tempting to resist. Last night I just got to the point where I glued the too pieces of leather together. So far it seems as though everything is going as planned. I really appreciate all of the great information found on this forum which helped give me the confidence to jump in with both feet. When I finish up I'll post up pictures of the finished product. Hopefully it will look more like a holster than a leather coaster.