chiefjason

Had a guy contact me about a holster. Just to be on the safe side I asked him what style 1911 he had. There are different frames and slides out there. The guy got mad that I did not know what gun he had, got a bit nasty in his response, and did the email equivalent of storming off. Then there are the guys that know what gun they have, but are wrong. It taught me to ask an annoying amount of questions. My last addition to the box of holsters was a guy that bought 2 identical holsters in 2 different colors. Then tried to cancel because he wanted retention straps. Then told me he just wanted to see what color he liked and would be returning one. I had already started the first two. Sent that guy packing with instructions to just not look at my store again. Sorry, custom holsters are not Amazon holsters. I'll take one back if there is a problem but I'm not making them for you to plan on returning them. And dang it's getting hard to keep up with everything. And even if you can keep up with it mentally, you can't afford to have every option on the market. I bet I've got 6 different P365's in the garage. Same with the Shield.

I'm with these guys. ^^^

Set the inside rivet on a flat, or as flat as possible, object. When I set capped rivets inside a holster for a strap I hammer them flat on an anvil. Not had an issue yet. Or put the cup on the back of the belt and hammer the inside with the flat side of the setter.

I've given a lot of it away. A buddies son is getting into knife making so I sent him away with a trunk load of leather to make knife sheaths. Apparently my scraps are nicer than what he orders online . Sent about 30 lbs to a boy scout troop along with some tools I've upgraded or bought in lots that I don't need. I keep enough around for patterns, roughing out stuff, and welts. But once it starts pilling up I start looking to give it away. If you are looking at making stuff start offering longer belts to use the panels. Not sure why you would limit your length to 55". Gotta be some big folks out there looking for belts.

The 3 companies that made 629 molds are all out of the business. So if you find one you are looking for a used one. And they are hard to come by. And no one ever made a 7.5" PC mold The main difference in the PC is that dang extended cylinder release. It really becomes a hassle when you have a strap on the holster. And that scope makes a huge difference. A scope is not a scope is not a scope. Unless you have the exact scope with the exact mounts you are just guessing at the spacing. And that's a bad plan. If he is local your only real option is to work out a way to use his gun. You will either need to figure out what the legalities of that are, or take whatever chance you want to take. Here in NC I just have them bring the gun to me. If they don't want to leave it I try to have everything ready to get it molded, dried, and glued. If they are OK leaving it I've got all the time in the world.

Where are you in SC? I'm about ready to try and get rid of more of my scrap veg tan. The pile is getting too big.

N frames are the hardest ones to find it seems. Took me years to find one. Then I found Boise and grabbed a couple. Then they closed. I put a buddy of mine in contact with them. He owns a foundry in NC. But I don't think anything came of it. Which sucks for holster makers. It's a niche market but no one is in that market any longer.

I use 3-4 coats and it seems to come up pretty even. Which doesn't matter for me since my wax/oil mix that I add later just messes that up. But I like the look.

The glue will be fine. I've started gluing my belts down while curing them over a large pot. You don't have to fully wrap them while gluing But the slight curve cuts down on some of the stress on the leather IMO. Particularly getting wrinkles on the inside layer.

IMO, right now demand is up, supply is down, and it's driving quality down across the board. It probably has something to do with rushing cattle to market to stabilize demand there and that trickles down into the leather supply side. Helping lower the quality of available sides as well. I need to measure some of my sides. I get them leveled to 8 oz for some of my work. They just feel softer, less dense, and mold easier than normal. The feel is just off on some of them.

Adding oil back to leather is one thing, and a good idea. Adding oil to dry leather is a fools errand. Once it gets brittle it's pretty much game over. Adding oil to good leather to lengthen it's useful life is a very different thing than trying to rehab dry, brittle leather IMO. I've bought pre cut straps when I was in a hurry. Had some crack and the supplier replaced them for me. Somehow you managed to get both bad issues on one belt. Brittle leather on the front and soft belly leather on the back.

I'm selfish? I should be glad the world has people willing to meddle in the affairs of others to keep them safe, right? To paraphrase an Englishman, there is no tyranny greater than that done to you for your own good. And I could make quite an argument that most of that gun violence is perpetrated in areas that are controlled by people who have effectively disarmed their citizens. Abuse of democracy? That's laughable after calling riots peaceful protests all summer. And now it's coming to light the FBI was involved in what happened on Jan 6th, which probably explains why large numbers of those folks were allowed in to the capital. Assuming that's probably what you are talking about. Would hate to allow both sides of the political spectrum to have equal rights. Can't have that can we? There are a handful of western countries where disarming has gone bad more slowly for the populace. Then again, you brits are starting to jail people for their opinions and let rapists walk free with no consequence so maybe that's changing for you. But there are lots of countries where disarming the populace has led to more death by orders of magnitude. And the political ideologies that require disarmament tend to always be drawn to that type of mass violence to force their position on those that don't want it. Guns are great equalizers. Where are you going to turn when you can't vote in a Gov you want? Why does a vote even matter if there are no consequences for ignoring it? At some point, it actually is a bulwark to tyranny. And it's a better bulwark than harsh words, which is all the disarmed have. I'll take my chance with any dangers associated with gun ownership. Because I know the dangers associated with being disarmed can be exponentially worse. Freedom does not equate safety. There is a danger to it. And clearly that danger isn't for everyone.

As long as you realize that all, and I mean ALL sales of firearms at gun shows by a licensed FFL dealer HAVE to go through the NICS background check and 4473 paperwork. I know a guy that lost his business because he got audited after a gunshow and his A&D books were not up to day on Tuesday after the show. He was able to account for all the guns. Just didn't have it all written down when the ATF asked to see it and he lost his business because of it. If you are talking about sales not going through NICS with a 4473 then you are ONLY talking about private sales. And regulating what people do with their own property becomes a very different set of issues. There are laws in place in most cases making it illegal to sell to a prohibited person. Gun shows are not the free for all the media wants you to believe. Most guns involved in crimes are stolen, not bought legally or bought privately at gun shows. They are bought on the street.

Feel free to have murders by knives and impact weapons to sustain your moral superiority. The rates that people murder each other tend to be rather stable. While folks cry about the how. Do you really think the people impacted care about the how? Is it somehow more morally just in your eyes to be stabbed to death rather than to be shot? How about the increases in rapes and sexual assaults that citizens can do nothing about to protect themselves? The UK dramatically lowered gun homicides by attempting to remove them, but they did not remove homicides. And there is so much of that drivel that is nonsense it's hard to know where to start. But let's start with this. The Bill of Rights was mostly written by the Anti Federalists. Those that wanted to explicitly give power to the citizens and enumerate certain rights because they did not trust Government to protect them. So why would the 2A give the Gov a right to anything if it was written by people that did not trust the Gov? Why would the 2A be the ONLY right in the Bill of Rights that does not apply to the individual citizen? And why would the 2A be the only collective right instead of individual right? It does empower the states to form militias. And it also empowers the people to keep and bear arms. It does not empower the federal gov in any way, shape, or form to do anything. And I'm getting no hits on a shooting in Alabama in the last couple days matching your description. You got a link? Or you just winging it?

They were claiming brand integrity. What it amounted to was that Glock wants to control, and ebay lets them control, where the word "Glock" appears in the listing title. I'm not kidding. I had the firearms models listed at the beginning of my titles. When you have a store the entire title does not show with the listing on the store page. So putting the model first allows the customer to browse easier. They wanted it at the end and after the word "compatible with." Doing that completely hid the model information from my listings on my page unless you clicked on them. It still helped in search. But in reality Glock made it more difficult for customers to find holsters that worked with their products with apparently zero understanding that we both benefit from my holster sales. I make money and their customers get to carry their firearm. But they are so dead set on controlling everything about the name Glock that they demanded to control the titles of my listings. Even though I made zero claims about who was making the holster other than it being handmade by me. It was a fun 3 weeks dealing Glock legal. I have some wonderfully snarky emails in response explaining just how ignorant and ridiculous I thought their position was.

If you dig into the issue it's kind of convoluted. And then they just went overboard in response. They were allowing things to sell on their platform that actually were against their terms. No one is hand making magazines and actual firearms accessories like lights and such. Apparently they ignored it. Then some consumer group got wind of it and made a fuss about it. That's when they got stupid and overreacted by banning things they actually built categories for. Most of the stuff they banned is just stupid woketarianism and SJW feel good BS with zero grounding in reality. I'm not fooling myself thinking a lot of management would prefer anyone like me not be there. And they may move on that at some point. Etsy is also responsible for most of my sales now that I'm off ebay for different reasons. And doing this on the side I just don't have time to deal with my own website. I've barely got time to deal with what I have now. So I'll take a small bit of pleasure in using their platform to sell things that they hate and doing my best to help arm the country. If I had to stop doing business for those reasons I wouldn't be in business at all. I have lots of businesses that support the 2A, since I'm using them to make holsters. But probably more of them that I have to use don't. And if you think building your own site would free you from that, you are in for an expensive lesson in providing all the hardware yourself, or having to go through Amazon web services or using a business that uses AWS. You can't be online and get away from it, you just have to push through it and deal with it when you can't avoid it. BTW, fun fact. Glock had my store shut down on ebay. How's that for 2A friendly?

I've never folded an edge on a lined holster. Just treated the edge like the rest of the edges on the holster. And a lined holster is glued flesh to flesh so the grain side is showing on both sides of the laminated piece. If he's trying to glue grain to grain he is folding the edge over on itself to do that. It sounds like he's trying to roll the edge over for some reason. Maybe something is getting lost in the conversation. But if he's rolling over the edge and trying to glue it back down, there will likely be issues unless there is a lot of prep work done in that area. And even then I think it's a bad idea, or at least overcomplicating the holster.

Why are you folding it at all? That's the stress that's delaminating your holster I bet. Edge, sand, burnish, dye, burnish again, then wax to fill in any small voids. You can make the raw edge look nice. No need to fold the leather and use the grain as the edge. Or if you are dead set on doing that then skive it very thin. Do not glue the 2 pieces. Cut that side longer and fold the single skived piece of leather over. Still not the best plan IMO, but better than trying to fold over 2 glued pieces of leather.

Are you folding one piece of leather and gluing? Hard to tell, but that descriptions sounds like it. If so, the folding is putting more strain on the glue. Personally I would Cut the two piece of leather for the front. Glue them Trim, sand and edge them groove, awl, and stitch them To the broken awl part, just use a small drill bit. You are going a long way to drill a hole with the worst possible tool anyway. If you like, drill it smaller than you need then widen it with a hand awl. The thread will lay differently in awled vs drilled holes. But an awl in an electric drill is just a poor drill bit anyway.

I've had issue when I try to use cement that's started to cure. When it gets thick and gummy it's time to thin it out or toss it. I second hammering the edges. Since I've started paying attention to the glue and hammering the glued areas I'm not having any more issues.

Here is the response I got after a very terse response to the initial non answer I received. All of my holster listings are still up. Hello, Thanks for checking in about this. As of May 25, 2021, we will no longer accommodate any gun parts or accessories that attach to a firearm, including, but not limited to: Slings Grips Scopes Stocks These kinds of items will be prohibited, regardless of whether or not they are permanently attached to or alter the functionality or lethality of the firearm. Holsters, racks, cases and other storage accessories that are not physically attached to a firearm may still be sold as long as they otherwise meet Etsy’s policies. Best, Ian Etsy Marketplace Integrity

Switch to Pro Oil dye and never look back.

Almost everything put on leather will change the color. That's the cost of sealing. M&G doesn't do much though. Slightly darker and shinier.

Been using mop and glo then atom wax for 10 years. Not sure why folks think it's either or. The AW gives a nice shine to it since the M&G comes out a bit dull for my taste. And resolene comes out looking like shiny plastic. Denatured alcohol would likely strip the wax off too.

I'm molding level 8oz hides for my fronts and using 8-10 oz on the back. I'm not telling you not to go thinner. I'm telling you that you don't have to go thinner. And honestly, I see a lot out there that I feel are too thin for the application. And IMO, 3-4 oz is too thin for anything but micro compacts and mag holders. Heck, I use 5-6 oz for mag holders.