Shooter McGavin

100 shipped for the 4 stragglers?

Yep I usually do a test piece for each new dye I use. Just wetting the dauber with this was enough to run me out of the room. I also dyed this one outside, which in Cleveland is pretty cold recently lol. I love that they make a big deal about it being low VOC.

Basic leather pancake holster for a .357 Magnum Coonan. Tried the Fiebings Lether Colors dye for the first time. Stuff smells awful but I really like the depth it gives the leather. Typically I use the Professional Oil dyes which just makes everything one sold color. Anyone else tried this product line and have anything to add?

Flawed Sizing

Probably not going to be any black in the bag, but thats what dye is for?

Call up Springfield and talk to one of the girls. A couple weeks ago they had large ostrich "scraps" available for a reasonable price. They dont always list everything they have on their website. Plus I bought this one time and it had some nice usable pieces in it along with some trash. http://springfieldleather.com/26223/Pieces%2COstrich-Asst.-2-lbs/

Harbor Freight 6 ton benchtop press with 1" thick 40 durometer rubber top and bottom sandwiched between two 1/4" thick plates. Its easy to press too hard though which compresses the leather too much for any real detail work. I mostly just use it to press the leather lightly and still do the detail work by hand. The press just halps me locate the lines and whatnot plus saves a ton of wear and tear on my thumbs.

Is he trying to put a commander sized Colt into the Kimber holster? Because if so, the Commander is a tad longer than the Kimber.

I would never put a thumb break on an IWB holster, but thats just me.

I use the 6 ton Harbor Freight press, 2 pieces of 1/4" plate, and 2 pieces of 1" thick 40A rubber. I dont think it makes my holsters and better or nicer but it does save the thumbs when doing large quantities of holsters as it helps to find all of the lines for you.

Looks like a chunk of lizard skin. Good job!

Im in for an EMP, a 3" 1911, a 1911 Officer, and a 1911 Commander when you get to doing them.

Just to clarify, Im talking about the CAR-11 piece that clamps to the shaft and has a bearing that the thread take up lever rides on. The first time it broke was when tightening it to the shaft after replacing the needle shaft gear, the second time was when the needle shaft gear broke again, jammed up the rack gear, and I tried to gorilla the arm up. Cant remember what the 3rd break was, by then I was so frustrated I couldnt think. So now I have a warehouse full of extra parts just to avoid the downtime I was experiencing.

I've broken the lifter arm 3 times, the rack gear once, and the quadrant gear twice. I've dulled a bunch of needles, but never broke one.

I like the tippmann boss because it gives me ultimate control over the placement of every single stitch. I dislike it due to parts breakage and the seemingly constant fiddling required to keep the tensions good. I dont have the space and power in the basement workshop to get something like the cowboy or cobra.

Man do I really like those, especially the darker ones.

Looks good! Its always fun trying to lay out the stitch and cut lines for that style of inlay lol.

I can get you some real elephant if you prefer that.

I dig it.

I've never done a flat back holster but do you need some sort of sight channel?

So I bought a slew of the caiman tails that Springfield Leather was selling. A few of them came with the back legs attached. I thought that they had an awesome pattern so offered a couple up for builds. Heres what the tail itself looks like, the color is Antique Cognac Heres a close up of the leg Heres the holster, a dual snapcake for a Beretta 92FS Also, a couple more random recent builds. I havemnt been taking as many pictures lately because the changes they made to P-bucket are awful and I hate using it. Time to find an alternative. Thanks for looking!

Sweet!

I poke the t-nuts through the back side. I used to sandwich them and then stripped one out. No more t-nut sandwiches for me.

The last black I bought from them had some weird colored glaze on it that dissolved when it got wet. Might have been just an oddity though because I dont recall any of the other legs doing that on me. It wasnt a big deal since it was trim on a black holster but had it been a two tone it would have possibly ruined it. If you get one, hit it with a wet sponge and make sure the color doesnt come off.

Nice. Is that the brown leg from Springfield?