Josh Ashman

Mike, It sounds like your hammer thongs work very well. Nice job on your holster for the S&W, the arrowhead inlay, native symbols and finish all combine very well for a cool look. Best regards, Josh

katsass, I like an open toe holster as well but as near as I can tell the ones John Wayne had made were closed toe so I went that way. Closed toe are fine too, if the holster flows and fits right it's hard to go wrong. For my hammer thongs I run a 1/4" lace with beveled edges through the holster body and tie an overhand knot with one side over the other side. Pull the knot up tight to the holster, twist the loop side several turns until the length is about right and put the end over the hammer. It's not fancy or tricky but it works well enough. Reaper, Thanks for the compliment, I hope you're right about my customer. Good luck and have fun playing with "cowboy" rigs. I sure think they're fun to make. Best regards to you both, Josh

Here's my take on a classic. My customer ordered it in left hand for his new model Ruger vaquaro. The "copy" Colt in the pictures is mine. Anyway, I hope he likes it, I was very pleased with how it turned out, what do you all think? Thanks, Josh

Thankyou, I appreciate the positive feedback. Having spent hours working on it Itend to focus on the things I wish I'd done better but it is better than thefirst one. If I can manage to keep improving with each one I might get itfigured out some day. Tim, we're 7 miles north of Stockton. probably about an hour and a halfnortheast of Neosho. Thanks again, Josh

Thanks Bruce, when I get some spare time I'll have to look it up. Sandy, Denise, if I find anything else out about the saddle I'll let you all know. I guess the day they gave it to him turned into a big story day and Gramps had a fine time reliving his younger days. I do know he got the saddle in a three way trade, a Winchester 30-30 from Gramps to his younger brother for what they called a fancy Mexican saddle which was then traded for the Hamley to an outfitter who was working on Cedar Mountian near Cedar City Ut.

"Gramp's" is a friends dad who's in his mid eighties. He traded for this Hamley saddle back in the fifties and used it until he quit riding about 20 years ago. It suffered from bad neglect until his kids asked me to clean it up for his birthday. It's too beat up to be used without major repairs and it's quite small so i got it looking good and now it sits in his front room.