K-Man

Contact BruceGibson, he's a member here. He has available/sells a tape/dvd by Dusty Johnson on holster and sheath making that will give you the basics. It even includes some patterns. Bruce's website is www.gibsonprorodeo.com, if you can't find him here.

For those who may want a custom head knife, or at least a better quality knife than is offered through most sources, we are going to be offering them. There will be two different styles. One will be a blade approximately 4 1/2" wide and the other will have what I call a 3/4 wide blade. The steel is 3/32" thick and it will be a full tang cut. The knives will be made from 440 and will be heat treated. They will have micarta as grip/handle material. The price will be $125-$150 (I'm waiting for the final price from the knifemaker) + shipping. We will also offer other features to further customize the knife. You can have bolsters added, fancy pins, different grip/handle material, and even damascus steel. You can have the tang of the knife hidden, you can have file work done on a full tang. Feel free to contact me for a quote for any added features you may be interested in. Here's a couple of pics of the one I started and the knifemaker finished up. This one has layered bolsters (diamond cut), fancy pin, and sanbar stag. I would encourage anyone who's interested in getting such a knife to do some research on the pricing. There was a advertisement in the most recent edition of the LCSJ for Dozier Knives offering the same. It looks like there were some custom style knives available at the IFOLG show. I'll be more than happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the knives that we will offer. The turnaround time, from date of order to shipping of the knife, will be approximately 2-4 weeks.

Talk to Bruce Gibson, a member here. He has a video/dvd by Dusty Johnson that's titled, Holsters and Knife Sheaths. It shows techniques that will give you the basics in the making of the holsters. IMO it's much easier to translate what's shown in the video than tryiing to read through some of the instruction books.

Got a link?

Here's a couple of pics of the newly recovered seat on my HD: We replaced the leather with the belting leather offered at Hermann Oak. It's highly moisture resistant. In this instance we used genuine shark for the exotic skin. It provides just enough friction on the seat itself and the sides to keep you in place. We're going to be offering this style of seat covering, to include a variety of genuine exotic skins. The next phase will be to change out the saddle bags - we'll be working on those next week. Those will also have the shark on them. We're nearly finished with the fork wraps.

Cecil: Welcome. I'm not all that far from you over in Plant City, just west of Lakeland. Feel free to come over and take a look around our shop. We're at the shop Monday-Saturday. Send me a pm here or an email at leathercraft at hotmail dot com and I can give you directions.

If you're near a trophy shop with a laser engraver, have them scan your signature and laser it onto the strap. They can put it in a non-obtrusive spot for you, and make it pretty small without losing any detail. I've done sigs of the customer on wallets that way before. Even did a whole guitar strap that was drawn out (literally) by the customer and then laser engraved it all onto the strap.

I have the 618 in my shop and it gets a lot of usage on a wide variety of items. I certainly have not regretted getting it, and I've had it for over a year now.

We've recently bought a Harley Davidson motorcyle and are wanting to add some accessories to it. One of those is the tank panel. In addition, we've been asked by a local HD dealership to provide some display samples to put on their showroom bikes. Does anyone have patterns for the HD bikes that I can get the basic size and shape from? Thanks.

Just dampen both the inside and outside of the holster with water on the "fold" and this will give you the opportunity to flatten the holster down a bit. Some glue will help keep the two pieces from moving about while you punch your holes for the stitching.

Are you molding the holster before you glue and stitch or after?

Nice looking rig. Where did you get the shark?

HD = hard drive? You've been riding the wrong machine for way too long, my friend. I've been riding it every chance I get over the last few days. It rides very smooth, hardly any vibration. Got soaked in the rain yesterday - that was after a 10% chance of rain forecast. Yep, I've decided we've got to do something different with the saddle bags. They're kind of plain looking right now. Want to get rid of the HD logo on the tank, too - looks kind of cheesy to me. So we'll slowly do upgrades/changes over the next few months. Going to take the current seat and use it as a test model to do a new seat cover. Have a couple of ideas in that respect, and one in particular to deal with concealed carry.

Went out this past weekend and took the plunge on an HD. Ended up picking up a 2004 Dyna Low Rider with 8500 miles on it, and a bunch of after-market add-ons (especially like them pipes). Here's a couple of pics: I find myself chomping at the bit to get out of the shop and take a ride. ;D So if you all happen to call the shop and catch the voice mail...well...you get the picture. 8-) I'll be back...eventually....

A friend of mine passed away a couple of months ago, and we're putting some of the leathercraft items up for sale. The first is a very lightly used BOSS, with the normal accessory pack. It's approximately 2.5-3 years old. I would estimate that he made a total of 25-30 knife sheaths with it. Has hardly been used at all in the last year alone. The price is $850 + actual shipping. If interested, please feel free to contact me through PM here, or by email (leathercraft at hotmail dot com), or by phone at our shop (813-601-0504). We're at the shop Monday-Saturday, 9:00 am - 6:00 pm (eastern time).

Hmmm....well....uh....it's hard to say. Let me relate a little of what my experience has been. We started out with the custom motorcycle stuff. Timing was good - was the only one within miles of here that did it - did quality stuff. Got beat to the ground by the mass production vendors. Then got dragged into the holster business by a friend. I was the maker and he was the technical expert. We worked together in that role for a little over a year until I bought him out. As stated above, you have to, have to, have to be knowledgeable about the product you're making. You have to be able to make a reasonably high quality product in order to be able to sell it. Do not, do not, do not compromise in that respect. Enthusiasm/genuine interest in what you're doing/making translates into additional sales. Marketing/advertising can be a real gamble. You ideally want to target the customers you're trying to sell to, but that doesn't alway guarantee success. For example, we advertise in a periodical that goes out to 15,000 law enforcement officers each month. How many orders have I gotten from that? 0. Don't know why, can't explain it, it's just what the facts are. So you live and learn. Word of mouth by your customers is going to be your biggest avenue of advertising. It will make you or break you. A little bit of diversity in what you make lends to the bottom line as well (helps break the monotony of it all, too). There's a realistic limit to that though. I'd like to be able to make other things - some of which has been portrayed by other members here on the forum - but I just do not have the time to do it. So it's a compromise of sorts. Once in a great while, I'll sit down and do something that I want to do for myself or do something for a customer way outside of what I normally do. Do some research (as you're doing here) with respect to what part of the industry, i.e., horse tack, pet supplies, is going to bring you the greatest opportunity for success. You have to look around at what's available to you in your immediate geographical area, as well as beyond that. You have to be willing to do the "cold calling" type of sales in order to publicize your product. Attend any trade shows available to your specific facet. The use of a website is essential to the advertising of your product. Keep it as simple and direct as you can. Don't make people click through umpteen pages to find the essentials of what you make/sell. Keep it as informative as you can without getting really verbose. Provide the best quality photos that you can. The pics of your products is the first look people have of you. If the pic is of poor quality, then the association is going to be that the product is of poor quality, too. You want to obtain the best possible equipment that you can afford. As Art pointed out, in essence, it's really how the user makes the equipment perform that gives you the quality product. A good case in point for us happened a couple of years ago. We were asked to make some stuff for a young girl who was into the Star Wars reenactment stuff, and her and her family were going to the Star Wars convention in Indianapolis. At the time, we had some machines that some would consider lesser quality in comparison to others out there. Long story, short here is that we made the best possible items we could and the young girl ended up winning first place in the children's division of the costume contest and beat out a number of others. I'd recommend getting involved with any type of business training classes you can (if you don't have that experience). This was all pretty much new to me when we started 4.5 years ago, so nearly all of it I've learned along the way. The more information/resources you have to draw from, the better off you'll be. A lot of cities/counties have basic business courses you can sign up for. I think some people in this industry aspire to have their own business, but have no real plan or goals on where to go, and how to get there, once they take that step. If you want to garner success, you've got to have some type of plan on how and where you want to go next, both short term and long term. It can, and most likely will, be slow going at first. But if you pay attention to what's going on around you with respect to the particular facet of the industry you go into, it will pay off. I started out working out of a converted closet in our home. We moved into a 1,000 sq foot shop a year ago. I'm busting at the seams now. We have been very fortunate at what our success has been over these few years. I personally do not want to go much larger than what we are currently, because I want to keep it small. Best of luck to you, and I suspect you're in for a wild ride!

Put them on leather. I've done that before - laser engraved it. Works like a charm. Detail is every bit as good as a traditional card.

Here's a couple of pics of some stuff I've done recently: (That's genuine beaver tail on the wrap-around strap.)

Luke: I'm looking for someone to do the hammer thongs for the cowboy holsters. Don't necessarily need anything fancy - one color would work in most instances. Would like to have the option though of choosing a multi-colored version. Johanna: Sent ya an email.

Luke: I'm looking for someone who can make a basic hammer thong strap for the cowboy holsters. Doesn't have to be exceptionally fancy - can even be one color versus multi-color. Would like to have the opton though of choosing a multi-color version. Would like a short tassle on it as well.

Anyone know someone who can do some horsehair braiding for some holsters?

Hi Mark: I'm fairly familiar with where you're at. Used to live in Huachuca City - went to elementary school there and over in Tombstone (the town "Too Tough To Die" - and to dead to live :biggrin: ). Lived up the road in Benson for a time. Made many visits to Cochise's Stronghold just outside of St. David. Was on Ft. Huachuca many times. Lots of good folks here to learn from, so don't hesitate to ask any questions.

I cannot speak for any saddlemakers, but I know there are quite a few of the small holster shops that don't bother with it. I agree that you would expect common sense to be considered, i.e., you get on a horse, there's the potential to get hurt in some fashion. But you would have thought the same thing about the coffee being hot that you get from a restaurant.... With the vast number of frivilous lawsuits in the world today, why would someone go without it? In my opinion, to not have the coverage is too great of a risk. In most instances, one substantial award by a jury in a product liability case would wipe out most businesses.

Go2Tex: You're correct - homeowner's insurance normally won't cover the business side of the house. In fact, some homeowner's insurance companies will drop you if they find out there's a business being operated from the house, even though it may be legitimate to do so. You'll need to determine how much coverage you want. Most businesses that are renting/leasing space have a minimum amount of liability coverage required, i.e., 100k, 200k, etc. Under that policy, some of the factors considered by the underwriter for the premium will be amount of shop space, value of equipment/cost to replace (single item vs total), what you're making/offering, retail cost of the goods, total amount of sales, risk of injury (both to you when making it and by the end user). If you have fire extinguishers and a security alarm system in place, that normally will provide for a lower premium. If you add employees, that may or may not affect the premium. The premium for employees is normally based on the salary and amount of work/hours they are being paid/performing. Most insurance companies will run an annual audit on you to make sure you're staying within the parameters of the policy. You won't be in trouble if you go outside of it, i.e., make more money than projected, they'll just adjust your premium accordingly. But if you signifcantly underestimate your gross sales, and they determine you did that in order to receive a lower premium, then you're probably going to be in the hot seat over it. They most often rely on your tax return as their audit mechanism. There are some underwriter's who will want to limit what you can make/offer. For example, a couple of the one's our agent talked to did not want to cover any saddle work. I basically told my agent that while I probably would not do any type of saddle work, I didn't want to be limited on what I could do/offer. In our instance, some of the underwriter's freaked as soon as they heard the word, gun (holsters) and basically hung up on our agent. We've added other aspects to the retail side of our business over the last year, which I anticipated would cause a premium increase, but that did not materialize. The only parameter(s) placed on us was that the total sales amount for these items could not equal more than 20% of our gross sales. For example, if we have $25,000 in gross sales, we can only have $5,000 worth of sales for those items. One reason for a limit such as this may be the perceived elevated risk of the items being sold. My recommendation would be to get as much coverage as you can afford, based on the amount of work you want, and will be able, to do. For example, we are required to have a minimum of $300k in coverage at the building where our shop is located. We opted to get $500k worth of coverage for literally just a few dollars more. As a side note, our premium dropped $200 this year in comparison to what we paid last year. (That doesn't happen very often does it?)

The dies are made a couple of different ways. One is where they're inset into wood. This style generally uses a thinner cutting material, and they also tend to rust easier/quicker. They also are more difficult to work with in trying to get the leather out of the die itself and sometimes are limited on how heavy/thick of a piece of leather you can cut from. The other is the steel rule die. These generally are about 1.25" in height, are "open top" and incorporate one or two braces for strength/durability. Most places do charge a $$ amount per linear inch for the total circumference of the die. In addition, there may be an added charge for the complexity of the die, i.e., how many bends/turns are being made. It can add up in a big hurry. I've found Tippmann to have some of the best prices and turnaround available in the making of the dies. The Tippmann clickers are both air driven. In essence, there's an air bladder in the bottom half of the machine, which fills with air when you depress the two buttons on the upper portion of the machine. This causes the bottom half of the machine to raise up. (The leather and the die have been placed between the top and bottom portions of the machine.) The pressure created then causes the die to cut out the shape from the leather. If you do a fair amount of the same kind of item, i.e., holsters, etc., wherein you're doing the same pattern repeatedly, then investment in a clicker and dies is essential and critical IMO. You get an accurate, consistent cut each and every time. This saves having to take the time to trace the pattern, cut out the pattern, and then hope you've got everything to line up correctly when you've got it assembled. By having the same pattern size, it saves in the clean up, i.e., slicking edges, etc., on the back end of the assembling of the item. In short, you end up with a much more professional looking item in a shorter period of time, so you're bottom-line profit has just improved. I've had the 15-ton for over 3 years and the 7-ton for over a year. I would estimate that we've clicked out approximately 4000+ items, so they've long paid for themselves in saved time. For someone just starting out, the 7-ton would probably work best. If there's any way that you can afford the 15-ton, both in cost and the space to put it in, I would recommend doing that.