SandSquid

No pelts were saved, the local Conservation Officer took the entire carcasses "back to The State labs for testing".

Been up here in New Hampshire at the old family homestead getting ready to bring my eldest daughter to Norwich University in VT this Sunday... The In-Laws, and their neighbors, even the town paper has been lamenting over the packs of coyotes running rampant in the area, killing livestock and forcing families out of their own yards for fear of the packs. MANY of the area's famiy dogs and cats have gone missing this spring. Every night you can hear the roving packs calling, and working their way down out of the densely wooded surrounding foothills into the sparsely populated farming area. most of the locals are pretty aged and afraid to shoot towards their herd, and just blast over their heads to run them off.... but every now and then you can hear a shotgun blastand a 'Yote yelping his last.. So, I just happen to have my (scoped) T/C Contender ( chambered .44 Spcl../Mag.) with me, because I take it everywhere I can legally, and ran into the local Conservation Officer at the local breakfast/coffee-shop, so I asked him if I needed a permit to hunt 'Yotes, He said: since I'm Active Duty military, and on leave, I'm free to kill and many of the 'Yotes I can. A few nights ago I successfully called in a small pack we heard up the road right into the 2 acres field behind the house, and I with my T/C, my FIL with his 12Ga. and my daughter with a .22lr, took 5 out of the 7 in the pack... wounded a 6th but I wasn't going after it. even if I was well armed This particular group still had blood on their muzzles from what we found out a few minutes later, was the dairy goats they slaughtered about a mile away... The herds owner has lost at least half of his stock in the past 3 months and was quite happy to to show us and the Conservation Officer digital pictures off his game camera of several of these, now very dead 'Yotes. Today the farmer came by with a nice (ca. 2 pound) block of a lovely soft goat cheese wrapped in fresh basil, as a token of his thanks. My In-Laws have a few old hens out in the coop that stopped laying, so we are going to use them to try and bait-in another pack or two before we leave back out for TN.

When I left NH to move to TN and officially became a "Damned Yankee" I had to leave a lot behind in the barn of my in-laws'. Sadly much of it has either been pilfered or purged in various "cleaning parties", but rooting around the oldest barn I found a nice little bench-top anvil, perhaps twenty pounds... Quite a bit of oxidation and some light rust but no major blooms. (Sadly my big 200#'er gone though.) I would very much like to get it usable again for setting rivets, snaps and shoeing small furry rodents. So I'm thinking to take a wire-wheel to the sides, and then work the faces down clean and flat with some diamond lapping plates... perhaps Emory paper on the horn? I'm pretty sure I have a partial can of POR-15 left to use on the sides that were japanned. Being as I will be officially unemployed on the 23rd, I'll have much more time than funds... Any advice or suggestions?

Done!

NICE! I especially like the retention strap placement, very clean.

Picked up the buckles and finally broke down and purchased my first bag punch to cut the slots for the prong hole in the strap. It is much easier and cleaner than punching two holes and cutting out the leaethr in between them, which is what I had been doing. A little bit more sewing and this baby is ready to roll on out of here!

My wife'sboss was lamenting that he needed something tough and protective but"simple" to carry his iPad around the job site. He's the Site SafetySupervisor on the construction site of a large factory being built here in Memphis.. He needs tohave his iPad with him at all times to be able to access email, data, forms andtake pictures... She jokingly said that I could probably make him a "Man Bag" like theone I carry around and he jumped on the idea and we got to designing, and thisis what I've come up with so far… the material cut out: the tooling of the front face: Stitching together the fron and back to the gusset: Tooling the flap: Painted and a coat of resolene: The Shoulder strap attachment: The Shoulder strap: Off to Tandy to go buy some Bridle Buckels so this can be delivered tomorrow, and I can get paid friday!

As the title states, I'm looking for a pattern to make a holster for my T/C Contender.Did many, many searches and found oodles of pictures byt no cutting patterns. Hell, I even called Will Ghormley to see if he had anything close... No joy. In all my searches I've seem the Bianchi #101 Holster as about perfect for my needs, but I'd hate to buy one just to cut it open to use as a pattern... any pointers to patterns, or advice?

that effect is what cause me to have to buy a third pelt, but it's what I wanted. I have three tails, and face, but I'm still undecided about puting one of them on or not.

OK, well.... I got to cutting and pinning and sewing. What a P.I.T.A it was keeping all that fur out of the seams! But I got it done: and when it's turned out, it looks exactly the way I wanted it to. the top/front: the side:

Got teh two new pelts in... Cudos for the speedy delivery. The beagle aproves: Sadly, there are quite a few holes in the pelts: Granted these were #2 Qulaity, but I never expected, not have I ever recieved flaws this bad in a #2 quality pelt.

Just ordered two more skunk pelts, so I'll have plenty of extra. Now I just need to wait until it gets here.

Well, sadly everything did not continue to work itself out, once I started working on the fur portions... When I started laying out the cutting-pattern and looking at the stripes in the fur itself, I could not find a way to get the three pieces cut out of the two pelts and have it look appealing to me. I could have "made it work" with what I had, but it would not have been what I wanted, so I resolved to myself, that I'm just going to have to buy a third pelt to make it the way I want it. I did get the crown and what will become the right side cut out, and I'm very pleased with them. I'm just going to have to go back to glacierwear and get one more pelt to finish the right side the way I want.

So, I acquired two #1 Quality,3-XL, open skinned, heavy Northern skunk pelts and a Classic Fur Hat pattern from http://www.glacierwear.com Found the proper size pattern. Photo-copied the pattern and cut out my templates: Cut out the liner sides and top. After I stitched the liner sides together, I tacked the top in place: Sewed it all up nice and snug w/ my REX industrial walking foot sewing machine. (Luke will note the latest vendor of that particular machine ;-) I must admit, it is the first time I've used it on leather with _any_ degree of success. I'm thinking I should get some of those special square profile leather needles some-day... The liner fits my noggin really well. I'm able to slip my index finger between my forehead and the liner and it's "just snug". Hopefully everything will continue to work itself out, once I start work on the fur outer portions...?

One of my best buds lives in Three Oaks, TN... just a few miles North! But, I need to take my eldest daughter up to college that week. It's going to be a LONG ride to Norwich University up in Northfield, VT ;-(

My wife is very sensitive to mold/mildew and we use clove oil on the most stubborn (dark damp) areas of the house to keep it at bay. I prefer to use grapeseed oil as a carrier.

We use Dharma's dye's for the tie-dyeing here at Camp and have shirts 5+ years old that are still vibrant.

Be sure to post up some pictures.. sounds great. My wife and I have matching holsters for our 1911's. Hers is left handed and mine is right handed, so we walk together with out weapons "outboard" ;-)

That depends upon your local Laws and Ordinances and if you are a LEO, your Department Regulations. OFF DUTY, or as a private citizen, I can legally carry an impact weapon, after taking a State Certified 4 hour class) but as a L.E.O. according to my department regulations, could not carry a sap, or a collapsible or steel baton. Only a hickory baton. Heck I cannot eve have a "T" handle on my wooden baton. Even my flashlight must be under a certain dimension and cannot be made of metal! The last military Command I worked L.E. at, we could not even wear "drop down" or "thigh" holster because the C.O. deemed they were "too intimidating". But I digress.

Nice work... A word of caution in that the basket weave can leave a rather "distinctive" impression; should you ever be brought up in charges of excessive force. The black&blue welt can be directly matched to your sap, and you work for a department that prohibits them, well I'm just saying your union attorney may not represent you. _IF_ I were to make one, hypothetically speaking of course: The handle area would be three layers thick and the head is 5 layers thick, or 7 layers for an exceptionally heavily weighty head. The center layers are simply bolster/spacer to a to provide a hollow place for the spring steel band in the handle, and a cavity in the head for the lead/shot.

the head is weighted, and there is typically a spring steel band running the length internally to give it rigidity and "snap".

You definitely want to the terminus of the "handle" to flare back out a bit. the leather can easily slide out of the gloved hand, or if the hands are slippery from fish slime, etc.. If I were to make my own, I would use #9 chilled lead shot in the head, and would like a noose style wrist loop with a single attachment point, for added retention during heavy rolls.

Many of brands of duty pants are still made with sap pockets, though these days they say they are for a baton or flashlight. Looks exactly like the one I never carried while on duty. Perfect for calming down those flopping fish in the bottom of the boat.

Well this is the last week of summer camp, and I can say it has been a great experience. While teaching archery full time to > 2,000 campers kept me quite busy, I was able to squeeze in some very basic leather-working for (as guess) 400 campers. I really have no idea, except I went through more than 500 leather bracelets. It was quite popular but my primary responsibility here is as the Archery Coach, I just could not offer it to everybody, and the "Craft Person" was crazy busy with ceramic, braiding, painting, etc... With the prices of the leather bracelet and mystery braid blanks, this never would have been possible if it weren't for the kind donations of material we received, and I am deeply grateful for your generosity and every little bit and scrap got put to use, the kids saw to that!

You can always save it as a public file on a Google Drive. (First 5 Gig is free ;-) https://drive.google.com/start?authuser=0#home