JLSleather

I don't "count" some things: thread ... $20 per MILE basically. So, I can't be bothered (really) to figure out "per inch" - which is what you'd have to do to be accurate. How much thread is in a belt? Well, that depends on how many rows of stitching, and what SIZE belt, and how thick, and how many stitches per inch (8 per inch takes more thread than 6 per inch, for example). dye... how much dye on a belt? Again, WHAT SIZE belt? How wide? How dark is the color desired? All that changes the amount. You can count it, but its easier to count AFTER you do it. Like if you have a 4 oz bottle of dye, and when you're done you have 2.5 oz left, that's simple math based on what the dye cost. Traveling to get materials, or "do a show"? That's simple enough... either record the mileage, or fill the tank before the trip and again after the trip and you'll know exactly what the fuel cost was. Shipping figures in. I can order ONE side (which I HAVE done) and pay $30 shipping. Or I can order 10 and pay $60. Split that over the 10 and that's 80% less shipping than buying individual, though the material is the SAME. I APPRECIATE you "gotten skill under my belt " before looking to market stuff. SADLY, these days that's the exception rather than the rule. Every day I see leather belts listed at $60-100 apiece, clearly made by people who looked up what OTHERS were charging and stuck that same price on theirs, though the quality is clearly not the same. Not my place to price somebody ELSE'S work, but good to see somebody AT LEAST CONSIDER quality first!

Thassa nice color for that sprucetop! And who don't like a 12-string?@!

Its always good to look for ways to improve. But that isn't as bad as you seem to think

Sadly, that's not so far out of normal these days. That's about $10/foot, which is normal for the convenience of buying smaller cuts (instead of multiple full hides). I haven't used it in a while, but if you have a Tandy that close, I've made some (I think) acceptable projects with Tandy's "live oak" tooling leather, which I believe is still available in double shoulders. Carves and dyes just fine. Your pic small enough I can't claim those are bites (though they may be), but I have seen some leather almost look like it had some type of finish - looked a bit like that when you try to color it. There's a 'deglazer' that might work, but it seems much easier (and better) to just get leather that doesn't do that. Maybe use that leather on the inside of something?

Not "actually" web site stuff, but I started putting some on instagram (and it links to my site). I generally view that social "stuff" (deliberately using a nicer word) as the noise made by those whose work can't carry itself ... the hype that supports the "quality". You know - like Dr Phil.. prolly a nice guy, but without his advertisers he's got nuthin Now, normally when I see some guy with questionable morals and lacking any real skills beyond knowing how to post pics somewhere, I just go on about my business and disregard it. Kaint fix stupid, right? But that one guy really did git under my skin a bit. Not just using my designs, but doing it badly and claiming the designs were his. And since 30,000 -ish holsters are displayed with my designs, seems like at least ONE of the posts should be me If yer using wordpress, there's a plug-in fer that seems to work okay. Called simply "instagram feed" if ya care to check it out. Or, go straight to the source, see how my designs were intended to look https://www.instagram.com/jlsleather/

I have colloquial snippets? I'm fixina go look that up ... Oh, phew! Snippets do not require medical attention

Well, that might be generous, but I felt okay 'bout this one thankya, thankya

Ya dun good, Kid. Agin. Couple things I mighta dun differnt, but then it aint my show! Overall I think it looks purdy darn good - including the bar grounderin'.

I generally put a rubber washer on teh screw ... acts a bit like a lock washer by keeping pressure on the screw. For slings, I include instruction about using a drop er two of thread locker after installing, and check periodically.

'preciatecha fellas

The Bond Arms bullpup with some contrast - black shark skin and stout red thread. I must get some thread to match the grips on this pistol ...

Oh, incidentally, I'm making pretty much all of my holsters these days with double-layer backs ... as in 2 layers of 4 oz instead of a single layer of 8. Keeps the sweat guard firmer for longer.

Seems to be a bit of a trend.. spend a bunch of money on a machine, store it, then sell it for less than paid A lot of that lately ...

That IS the point. Show a guy how to, then he does his own. Not sure what difficulty you had, but the method you describe is often used to make holsters WITHOUT any pattern at all. My friend Robert made holsters for 10 years before ever using a "pattern". It does look like you have MORE than enough room behind the trigger guard.. don't know if that's method or the leather maybe soaked to the point of "walking" on you. (?). By the way, stitchin' looks pretty good, but the whole holster is BACKWARDS Same pattern, rightey, usen' up a tad o' croc was left over from something ... good while back.

Yup. "back in the day" we used to have software installed and running LOCALLY, so everything was tested and working BEFORE it went live. These days I have neither the equipment for that or the space to set that up.

Thanks -- I'll consider that

Not sure due to translation stuff, but I guess it's sorta the same thing.. open source, blahblah... downside being that somebody is always fixing what isn't broken. Nice to have somebody SAY .. when you install this upgrade, yer other stuff may not work any more! But, they don't ... I miss the days of buy the disk , use the software... but I think those days might be gone for good.... Trend is to convince you they're doig you a "favor" with auto (and constant) updates ...

Well, the stress isn't SO bad.. once it's set up the way it should go, not much to maintain it. Just would have been nice 'heads up' on that latest wordpress update ... And the "bill" isn't much, for most sites a leather guy would need. Your own site can be done for $150-200 plus card processing fees, which are likely 3% +/- a bit. I'm a PayPal user, ends up being more like 7%, translates to 3.5% for their processing, which I consider acceptable trade-off for the shipping label service. Nice idea would be... 2, 3, 4 ... leather people all sell from the same site. Not really a consignment thing, just a bit of collaboration. And the next thing you know, there's another Cutesy, or ... similar. Again, with cutesy - I never did care for the idea of appearing with a bunch of cheap junk (ACRES of cheap junk). But the straw is that every so often I shut that off, then when I turn it back on it's a matter of time before I'm bringing THEM business. For a fee. So - translate that ... I'm PAYING them for the 'privilege' of ADVERTISING THEM. So, just let that trail off.... (the fees are just bumped up to just north of 8%, and their recreation has become changing the rules just to change the rules). BUT, if a guy just wants a place to list some 'stuff', cutesy is relatively cheap and easy to use, so ... each his own.

Heavy lifting? What would that be? What's yer site? Cutesy does a nice job of painless USPS shipping labels (which is the big issue) and their handling of pdf downloadables is effortless for the most part. But I've always had issues with them. Most of 'em I just ignored, but for a while every year I'm shutting that down because I'm bringing THEM way more 'business' than they're bringing ME. And then of course there are numerous social diseases people will assume I'm supporting by endorsing cutesy. Did I say diseases? I should say social issues, maybe. Several other similar businesses have contacted me at various times, but they all leave something that makes it not worth going. I really like the idea of just having somebody ELSE do that, but just can't make sense of it. I'm quite big on the idea of EITHER doing the work, OR paying someone to do it for me... BUT NOT BOTH. I don't intend to pay somebody for web "stuff", then I still have to provide images, the 'theme' of the site, pricing, general flow of the site. So I would be paying somebody.. for what? To upload my stuff?@! But I'm like that anyway.. why I don't have ANY employees. Somehow, they self-decide that they can use my stuff to do their own designing and social poop, and expect that while they do all that I should be paying them ANYWAY for not doing what I agreed to pay them to do

DOH!

Sweet. Does it come in colors?