camano ridge

As has been said crappy leather. The Tandy blanks are cut from bellies. Belly leather will stretch and some times you will get kind of a delaminating or loosening of the grain of the top surface giving you the wrinkles. The blanks Springfield Leather sells are Herman Oak cut from backs. These are excellent blanks and I have made many belts using them. They are about the same price or for the quality you could say they are cheaper as they will outlast the tandy ones.

In addition to contacting Crystal get Stohlmans book on figure carving. It is a great book for seeing how lines are laid out and I think there are Dog sketches similar to your picture. When I do a picture like that I make a black and whit copy thenn use a pen to darken the lines i want to cut. Either ust the copy over the leather or use traccing paper or film to trace the picture using dark solid lines for those you want to cut and dotted lines for where you will shape but not cut.

Don't know what happened to the link above for the Blue Gun Store, however this one seems to work. http://037287c.netsolstores.com/thumbstiffenersbreaks.aspx

GWturner, that one looks like it might be home made. If you are looking for some, The Blue gun store http://037287c.netsolstores.com/thumbstiffenersbreaks.aspx has black or stainless, High Desert leather also has black ones. http://www.highdesertleather.com/id74.html

Lou, normaly I put a stainless steel stifiner on the back of the thumb break tab, on this one I buried the stiffiner in the layers of leather. The snap cap passes through the bottom hole of the stiffiner. I get my stainless or black stiffiners form the bluegunstore.com

Great holster and mag holder. Where did you get your Wildebeast?

Josh, great job. If they still had decent westerns on tv that would look right at home on a set.

Thanks, Red cent.

Here is Tundra's web site http://tundraleather.ca/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=4 they are out of Hamilton Ontario.

Depending on the type of stamping or tooling you will be doing if you stamp then wet mold you will loose some defenition in the areas being molded or stretched. If you form it then let it dry if you had a mold under the leather to support it you would have to wet again to try to tool or stamp. I did this on a pocket knife case and it worked well. How ever the front of the pouch was flat and was suppoted by the wood I used to mold the leather around.

I have found that problem with Sheridan also. I was going to try some Wyo Quick slik $4.50 for a small bottle $21.50 for there cheapest shipping.

Yes that is tandy's v gouge the store I was in last week still had some.

Dwight, the balance seems to be pretty good.I agree there is a lot of weight right above the belt. Most of the cylinder sits right above the first blet loop. The loop in the wing seems to hold the grip in toward the body fairly well. The belt loop tunel seems to keep the holster fairly stable. The customer is wearing it wiht a double layered concealed carry belt and says he is very happy with it.

Pounder and Greg Thank you. Greg single action were being used for concealed carry by gamblers, city dwellers and others long before the double action came to be. Becuase of the grip configuration they are a little harder to conceal. THis holster seems to hold the grip in toward the body fairly well.

Resists are usually used to block antiques and Hi Liters. Dyes will usually panatrate. Do a search there are sililar threads on one of them Cyberthraser talks about a liquid latex that you paint on as a resist then peel off. I don't remember the name of the product.

Darrell, I guess I will be the first to thank you for your response. I had seen the other posts and found some of them annoying and just simply ignored them. THis is a great site for those that have experience and answers to share and for those wanting to learn and having questions answered. We have other people that frequent these forums that own businesses shuch as Sewing machine sales etc. Those peolpe do not hide who they are not do they tout it. THey offer there knowledge in answering questions in their field of expertise. I believe anyone who wants to participate in that manner is welcome on these forums.

http://sxindustries.com/ http://www.standardrivet.com/

How many square foot is the side?

Chris Andres (Slick bald) is a member of these forums and is on here from tim to time.His cost is $45.00 plus shipping (not sure if the price increase has caught up with him). He is like Bluegunstore and others he may have a few on hand but mostly orders from Rings when you order from him. He also sells Denex replicas and has holster paterns and clicked holster blanks.

The Osborne combo is primarily a trim knife. The description says that it can be used to open seams and cut your carpet. I would not buy it as a head knife. As to the two round knives the difference apears to be primarly blade size. I have several round knives, one of them is pretty much the same as the second Osborne it works well. If you buy a new Osborne prepare to sharpen it. As to cutting a digit my recomendation is don't put anything infront of the blade you don't want to cut

Johny Cash doing an impersanation of Rooster Cogburn.

Charles, I understand what you are trying to do, basicaly get the best bang for your buck. However I will not tell you not to buy that knife it's not my place. However I will offer some advice and what you do with it is up to you. If you are thinking of buying that skinner and using it as a round knife there are some concerns to consider. First off the material. 1090 is a good knife steel, 4340 not so good. 4340 is carburized bearing steel. It has very little carbon and is hardened by carburizing. Not something that can easily be done in an atmospheric or blower type forge like many knife makers use. I would wonder about the accuracy of the RC rating. I have no verification of this yet however they look like they are possibly Pakastani. The shape of the blade is another consideration. I have a skinner blade in my shop almost the same shape it would not work well as a round knife. the heel of the blade would need to be further out away from the handle inorder to use the point for cutting. To show what I mean here is a picture of a round knife made by Leather Wranglers. You can see it is similar in shape however the point is out away from the handle giving the manuverability you would need.

Charles if you can get a custom made head knife for $50 - 75.00 made by an experienced knife maker that knows heat treating and it includes handle material mouted on the knife go for it. You can buy a ready made one for that price because most of the work is done by machine and automation. There is no way that i could make a custom made knife for that price unless my labor was about $2.00 an hour. THe metal and handle material would be 10 - 15 dollars minumum. If it is being made by stock removal there would be 1 - 2 hours grinding shaping then the heat treating anealing tempering process (depending on the type of metal used can take a couple of days) then after heat treating you have to clean up the blade do any final grinding buffing final bevel about another 2 hours. Then sharpening and honing the edge at least 30 - 60 minutes. Before sharpening you need to mount and shape the handle material about an hour. There is a lot of work there for $50.00.

When you say J2 I believe you are refering to 420 J2. 420 J2 stainless steel is a low-carbon steel that is used to make surgical instruments and other cutting tools like knives and daggers. It has a very high-tensile strength and is resistant to chemicals such as water, nitric acid, petroleum products, steam, vinegar and ammonia, among others. The steel can be hardened to 56 HRC Rockwell. D2 is a tool steel with some stainless characteristics. It can be hardened up to 60-62 RC. I use D2 frequently for making hunting knives. I have not used 420 J2. I think you will find 52 - 56 to be on the soft side. Although it will sharpen easily it will also dull fairly quickly. I think 56 - 58 is a better hardness. If you are looking to have a knfe made instead of buying a quality knife rather then worring about types of steel you are better off to find a knife maker that is familiar with making head or round knives and let them make it out of steel they are familiar with. They will know the proper heat treating methods and hardness range. Here is a picture of a hunting knife I recently made with D2

Here is the reference I was using http://www.bowstock.co.uk/acatalog/Pricking_irons.html