Boriqua

I have a fairly steady hand with an airbrush and my Iwata can get to making very fine lines but ... I wouldnt try those letters with an airbrush without a stencil If I am looking for a sharp edge. Now a stencil is great but its a ton of work so were it my project ... YMMV I have 2 methods. One I would lay in my letter color after my overall color was applied and not be overly concerned with how sharp the edges are. Then I would load up my airbrush with a muddied up color that starts with my letter color and get in there with my airbrush and carefully bridge the letter to the surrounding area. Even if I do that misty fade around an object which people seem to love I never go with just two colors but might use three and up to four to make a fade from the darkest to the lightest. The airbrush free hand is gong to have some feathering at the edges. Use it dont fight it. Bridge your letter color to your background. Second way is I cheat some .. Fiebings and tandy have Acrylic antique/highlighter stuff in a variety of colors. Now before you turn up your nose... here is where you get to play artist. Think about what the different antique colors are going to do to a base color when applied over it. I have used saddle tan dye with medium brown antique and yellow dye with mahogany and a dozen other combinations. Pick the color dye you want as your base letter color and lay it in with a fine brush. I have one since my art school days 25 yrs or more old that looks like it only has 5 bristles. Spend the money once and have them for life is true in this case. Dye your overall color then paint in your letters with a base color. After I let it thoroughly dry I spray the whole sucker with resolene. I then let it dry overnight at least. I want that resolene good and hard. Go in with a slightly dampened sponge and the antique you think is going to be awesome on top, wait a few minutes for it to set up and then with a farily damp sponge wipe it off of all the high spots. The leather is porous so the antique will impart color even to the raised portions unless you sealed it to death with say supersheen or lacquer. But that is cool because we want the color of the antique to mess with the color underneath it some. You will have to do a lot of experimenting but I have come to know fairly well how much resolene to spray on to get what amount of undercoat to show through. I can use the same two colors and make it look a bunch of different ways just by varying how many passes of resolene I spray over a design. Most of the time when I see painted letters they have been sealed to death and so the antique is just in the low spots. Cool if that is what you are looking for but I prefer a bit more organic. I like my leather to still look like leather and I find a bit more mottled more pleasing to me. Truth is though .. be happy for happy accidents and if your not trying to match something just have fun with the colors. Hope that helps .. as stupid and easy as it sounds it took me years to work it all out to my satisfaction and more importantly be able to reproduce the results consistently.

the images disappeared and someone may find them useful so I posted them again

I use the ones with the prongs but I take an end nip and I cut the prongs by about half but leave them sharp. I have found them in brass but the steel ones are available everywhere. I keep a little bag of 6-32 brass screws in 3/8 and 1/2. If its going on a black item I paint it with nail polish. Here is the set up going through three pieces of 8-9 oz leather.

way to think outside the box! sweet

wow that came out amazing!!! Her jaw must have dropped when she saw that. How do you get your veg tan so white. Did you treat it with something or was it just a great piece of leather.

there is always tee nuts and screws too if it fits. I find the 6/32 tee's and 6/32 brass screws perfect for those occasions where I need a snap in super thick leather and you can get them at the local hardware store. alex

I had the itch to do this project for over a year now easy but never got to it. I cut out and dyed pieces 3 months ago and they sat .. well I finally decided to sit down and finish it. There are a bunch more pix here is anyone is interested. http://www.boriqualeather.com/Gallery/index.php/Leather-Holsters/1911-Western-style-Holster-W-studs It was a blast to make but there are some challenges.

I went ahead and cut the strap for Cocked and locked. I figure it will be a little long for hammer down but with hammer down the strap would be behind the hammer so would still be held in place. Should be done with it today. It was fun and I am already thinking about the next one! alex

Nifty solution on the sheath!!

Think something like this but done by a far less talented maker! My gut says hammer down for sunday wear but I am having some trouble with my 1911 inner voice screaming cocked and locked.

I am making a 1911 western style rig. I dont have a buyer but I wanted to make one because I had the itch so I will just put it up on my etsy page. I am using a sam browne button because it feels right but I am stuck on one part I dont get a lot of call for retention straps or thumb breaks but when I do I always build them for a 1911 that would be carried cocked and locked. I have only made one other western style rig for a 1911 and the person who asked for it wanted the retention strap for hammer down. Since the one I am making is more show than go I am torn between making it for hammer back or hammer forward. It changes the length for the retaining strap but I cant figure out how to neatly make it adjustable for either. So what say you .. since its not a holster meant for high speed operators doing tactical rolls should I make the retention strap for hammer down or cocked and locked? Think studs and conchos .. Still the gun is worthless if the hammer isnt back .. Well that is why I am looking for opinions!

Impressive stitching bro!!

Wish I had something like that when I still had my various motorcycles. My wife is probably the only person in the world that can fall asleep on the back of a moving motorcycle. At least she would have had something to hold on to!

You guys are going to make me make a hat arent you!! That came out cool and its a bonus that the leather had some branding marks on it.

LOL .. I'm with Dwight .. I made a scrunchy puzzled face when I read Glock in western holster but that came out sweet looking. Bravo! +10 for breaking the mold!!

If you are going to order some angulus ... try the brick red! Wow what a gorgeous color. Nice and deep and earthy. I have to find it in the big boy bottle!! For water based stuff including resolene, acrylics and water dyes .. I wipe out or pour out any excess and wash the jar. Then I put a couple of drops of dish soap in a clean paint jar and fill the paint jar about half with very hot tap water and just shoot some of that through the brush. Then I take a little straight windex and shoot that through as a follow up. Never had a problem. Good Luck and have fun!!

I have shoot fiebings Pro oil, solvent, angulus and the bright colored tandy water based dyes through both my HF brush and my iwata straight with out diluting without problem. I have also diluted with denatured but it was for color and not because any of those wouldn't flow. Does your compressor have the ability to control? For resolene I have to turn the pressure way up to around 35lbs. I dilute the resolene about 60% water to 40 resolene and strain it. Otherwise it wont flow for more than a couple of minutes. I have had my harbor freight for over a year and have not had any problems. If you use it for resolene clean it immediately after use. Seriously .. not five minutes but right after you set up your project to dry. I bought my iwata because I was doing some stuff with really fine lines and the control from the harbor freight wasnt there for me but it has been a great work horse for under 20 bucks. So long as I clean it it runs like a top and is great for gradients and base color. Thinning acrylics for use is like math for me .. I am good at neither.

Wow ... THANK YOU! That was amazingly generous of you to take time to shoot the photo and its very helpful. It does appear though that while the difference is subtle the Springfield mold has slightly higher more defined shoulders. If you are sticking a rocky tac or springer in a mold made with the softer shoulders like that on the colt mold it would stretch but now that I see it it would make those guns stick a bit at first. I dont think my Rock Island GI had such sharp edges. Do you notice any practical difference? or is that that slight difference not an issue? I certainly dont need to spend another 50 bucks on a new mold if the colt one serves just as well. Dude ... that was so helpful! Thank you Alex

Depending on how bad the flesh side is I have gotten good results with using a glycerin based soap .. Neutrogena at the moment but any of those kind of clear glycerin soaps. I think its something I picked up from a Dwight post as well. After dye and dry I take a little bowl of water and lather up my bar with a sponge and then apply it to my fuzzy side. I take a glass smoother/burnsher about 3 inches wide and pretty forcefully smooth down the leather. It looks great. I make it a habit now to do it to the inside of all my holsters and bags as it evens out the color and gives a nice slick surface and even feels good to the touch. It will not hold up as long as the wax treatment but still .... you should give it a whirl since it has its applications and is cheap and fast to do with nice results.

I have this insane little system that works kinda ... but I will share and perhaps through your experiments you will have hints on how to make it better but here is what I do. I get a fair amount of requests for all sorts of imagery on holsters in addition to doing basket weaves and so on. You are going to lose some detail when you wet mold but you can mitigate how much ... some. I case and carve or stamp my piece. I let it dry completely .. at least 24 hours. I then do all my gluing and stitching. If I am going to dye the carved area I do it now and let it dry. I have a large roasting pan and fill it with water. I take my stitched holster and I give it a quick 1-2 second dunk. I then stick it in a plastic zip lock freezer bag for about 25 minutes. I take it out and with a sponge I wet the back of the holster but not the front carved piece.I go out and punch my belt slots now since the wet leather accommodates the punch nicely at this stage and the slot comes out better than when i used to do it at the end. Getting my punch outside and all takes about 5-10 minutes. I come in and once again pass a sponge with some water on the back. I am not trying to soak it and you will have to play with how much because its impossible to explain. In the end I want my back to be a little more wet and pliable than my front. I then open up the holster with my specialized opening tool. "the handle of my plastic spatula" Being sure to open the back side a little more just by pulling at it more and forming it more with my spatula. I then insert my gun. The front being dryer tends to flex much less and much of the form of the gun happens at the back. I Then do whatever boning I may do on the back side. At this point I am not doing it for aesthetics but just making sure I have as much leather to gun contact as possible on my finished product. I then take my thumbs and press in from the front and back into the trigger guard. Done If it is an intricate carve with some spooning I may go in now that the gun is in it and touch up the spooning and small details. Right or wrong this is what I have come to after working at preserving carving and stamping over many years of trial and error. I am sure it can be improved but it works pretty well.

I wrote last about my issues with the sig Nightmare but it made me take a close look at the colt A1 blue gun I have been using for a few years now and while everyone has managed to break in my holsters that blue gun is a hell of a lot narrower than say my Rock island. I am thinking about taking Dwight's advice and just building up the Colt blue gun but does anyone have the Colt blue gun and the Springfield 1911 blue gun. Is the springfield any beefier? Shoulders up higher? Springfield http://www.blueguns.com/shopexd.asp?id=76 Colt http://www.blueguns.com/shopexd.asp?id=23 I am going to post a comparison again of my Rocky and the colt for anyone that may have advice but hasnt seen the pictures By the way ... off topic but my Rocky commander Tactical was the best $400.00 gun purchase I may have ever made!!

I like that the hobby lobby acrylics can be had in a bazzilion shades so I dont have to spend a lot of time mixing colors. I have to look up the brand but my wife painted some fist sized rocks to look like little lady bugs and put them out front a year ago and even in the tough Arizona climate which is super dry and the sun melts pavement and when it rains it decides to do it all at once those rocks not only haven't run but they dont even look faded! I figure if they can hold up to that they can handle whatever leather thing I am painting. Being able to find them usually at about a buck a bottle is a bonus! Good luck with your continued success.

Cool thank you .. I have to say I am underwhelmed by the cherry stain but it does make a good base for other techniques. I used it with the saddle bags at the link. I then went over top with straight fiebing's mahogany, 50/50 mahogany and some brown very lightly all through an airbrush and it turned out ok but straight from the bottle it is blah. http://boriqualeather.com/Antique%20Cherry%20Saddlebags/ Thank you so much for all the info!!!!

Dude you are like a genius!!!! I use a couple of the ecoflo waterstains ... the black waterstain is awesome. So now I have to see who has it cheaper. Thank you Alex