Boriqua

Rebuilding my web site and running across some older projects. Not great but I figure it might inspire someone elses creativity and I have learned so much here that I want to try and share something that might help someone else out. For one .. I think my stitching is much improved since this holster just by reading 1000 articles on stitching around here and then getting insane about it! Sheesh I didnt know there was that much to know about stitching! I wanted the cross to look like it was moving forward on a battle standard and not just plopped there. This was a request but I get alot of "open" requests meaning people just say .. I want something to do with the templars.. and thats it I am left to my own devices. I have been lucky .. so far everyone has been happy with my take on things.

Its scarlet from Maine thread. Have been using their thread for a couple of years now and am a fan. Thank you guys for your positive feedback ... here is the funny thing ... you know when you were a kid and there was a word that made you giggle like an idiot. Well one of those words for me was "yak" I dont know why but it did and here I am in my 50's and I still smile when I say the word "YAK" lol.. there it made me laugh again. So using YAK was a bunch of fun!!!!! YAK YAK YAK ... bwhahahahaa.

very very cool!

So I figured I would post something a little different from what I usually do. It my "3 evils" bracelet. yak bone beads, copper studs, black leather and waxed thread and some hoodoo thrown in for free

You can always give it a shot of resolene but you should try a test piece first because I have never had a problem with acrylics running once they have dried. You may not have to add anything. Alex

Because of your post I had to go check and ...your right! I have tools from the 90's and they are nice and defined with clean cuts but the x511 I bought a few months ago is mushy and doesnt look like it was finished. More like a bad casting. Works ok but after using the new one I dont even want to touch it. While my older ones are far and away better than my x 511 the pro stamp still is cleaner and finer than even those. Still ... 18 bucks is a little steep.

This weekend I decided to take a trip out to Tandy and just wanted to see if there really was a big difference between their pro stamps and the regular ol stamps I have used from them for years. So I bought the 2844 basket weave since I already had a x511. Oh my goodness ... I dont think I can ever go back. Its a bit of money at 18 bucks but WOW. Think VHS vs 1080P. It was so very well defined and CRISP. Even made it easier to use because it lined up so nice. So now I have to replace my tried and true x511. Maybe with my next sale. To far out. Well worth it. Alex

Dude !! that is AMAZING! Did you do all that stamping with just the stamp you show on your photobucket page!? Did you make them for yourself or someone else. I still dont own any nice leather pieces and I make leather stuff every day.

My mental health is worth far more than 80 bucks and your issue would have me insane. Im with all the rest .. refund his money and make him go away and sleep easy. I wasnt always that way but as I get older I just want to live as problem free as possible. I saw someone on a youtube channel suggest applying denatured alcohol to finished holsters to aid in break in. he said be generous! I dont know but I would prefer if people didnt add alcohol to my finished product. I wonder if that is what may have caused the problem. You will never know so dont sweat it.

Im going to go ahead and make it even more complicated! When selecting the leather for a particular project it isnt just about what weight leather to use but again what you want that finished product to look and feel like. I think it would be almost impossible to load up a fairly sizable bag made of 4-5 ounce or even 3-4 oz leather and have that bag have a catastrophic failure. When I started I always seemed to go with far heavier weight leather than needed and although those bags are still around 20+ years later part of the reason is they were so damn heavy I didnt use them much. but if I make a tool roll for a motorcycle I dont like it when they sag so I go 6/7 shoulder or back and it will maintain the shape I made it for years to come. Its not that 4/5 wouldnt hold what you can get in one of those bags I just hate the way soggy bags look on a bike. So back to my original thought .. There are other things besides weight to consider. In my experience leather of the same weight that comes from the shoulders and back have a stiffer denser hand than similar weight sides. So if I want a softer type bag I will buy sides. I have some 5/6 sides that molds "ok" but for certain styles of bags its the perfect balance of stiff and soft but mostly soft. If I take 4/5 or 5/6 ounce shoulder I can usually get a nice clean hard mold from it that I dont from that side material. Then you have a whole host of other types of leather. Latigo Harness ... yadda .. For your messenger bag if it is going to be about 12 inches wide and you want it a little on the soft side I would go 5/6 ounce. your other projects no more than 4/5. Being a student if funds are tight .. you can certainly get away just fine with using the 4/5 for your messenger bag with a nice soft flip over strapped top this way you can get one side on sale and use it for everything.

I like the Maine Thread size .030 with a size 4 harness needle and 6-7 stitches per inch in that range. For inlay stuff where i have to make alot of tight turns 7 stitches per inch. but wallet interiors I still use 6 I use a pricking wheel but pricking iron or wheel will get you there. For smaller stuff ... which I dont generally do, like watch straps, which I might do, I would go to .020 and 8-9 spi wheel. If you write maine thread they send you a nifty card with all their sizes and colors which was free when I got mine a year or so ago. I have had nothing but great service from them https://www.mainethread.com/ In comparison I generally use .040 for holsters with a size 0 needle and 6spi and .045 with a "0" needle if I want to sew something and make a statement with the thread but when I go to .045 I have to switch awls and I go to 5spi. But once you get the card from them you will be able to make up your mind.

The pic you posted isnt very large but from what I can see it looks like perhaps the leather wasnt cased properly. It lead to you not getting a good deep clean cut with the swivel knife and so the letters edges got a little mushy when you went in with the beveler. If my edges on a carving get soft like that I know I didnt carve deep enough and it is usually the result of messing up on the casing. I also dont own a letter set since I cant seem to find a letter set I like. LW Leather has many fonts so I will probably end up buying one of theirs. In the mean time whenever I am asked to do initials or lettering I actually like to do a reverse so that the surrounding area is smooth and my letters are carved in. I dont do a lot of lettering and discourage people who ask for it so I dont hold this example out as being great but just another way for you to think about doing lettering. I go through the fonts in my office program until I pick one that feels right, I size it on the computer and then transfer it to tracing film and then mark it on to cased leather then with my wide swivel blade I carve it in. This one was for a female marine and I wanted something a little swoopy. If you did it in reverse you could have run your basketweave up to the area you now have depressed and left that high instead and then went to town carving in your initials. Just a thought?

just wow!!!! So how long did you work on that piece? You really dotted the i's and crossed the t's and that takes time. Flawless

I dig what you are saying about the back stitch being under the belt which I would certainly prefer aesthetically but here was my thinking. I wanted to encapsulate the belt slot with the strongest part of the stitch which is the unbroken line of stitching. so I head down the inside but then up and around so my stitch goes completely around the slot. I figure the points that will see the most pulling tugging stretching and rubbing will be at the belt slot so I wanted it virginal so I gave up a yard in aesthetic and figured my back stitch would be out of harms way just below the joint.

I make no bones about it ... it was influenced by your design! Hey If I am going to incorporate new ideas into my leather work I am going to copy ones from holsters I respect and admire. Im no fool! I have used your commander pattern as is and have made it with the bottom just a scootch wider. You are MORE than generous to have offered up those patterns for free and anyone that hasnt gotten one yet is foolish not to check them out. Your one of the people who make this site awesome and I have in turn given away some of my own hard earned patterns to others here to try. I never used to put a stitch line to the inside of the belt slot or encapsulate the belt slot in any way. I figured the glue and stitch along the mold would suffice but I had an instance where I did a lined holster and you just dont get the kind of bond smooth side to smooth side even if you sand that you do when gluing flesh to flesh and after wet mold I could see the layers had shifted some. A tiny amount but they were no longer even in the belt slot and it bothered me. A few minutes sanding and it was fixed but now I had a bug in my head and looked around to see how others were handling it. I have been a builder guy for my entire adult life and after looking at tons of pictures I saw how and why you did what you did in your pattern I said .. Wala ... got it. So I did a couple from your pattern as is and now I want to get back to my pattern ... version 2. here is one from a few years back Its a little wider from end of ear to end of ear which I found for some of the heavier guns displaces the weight some. I find that my wider American brothers have liked the slightly wider profile too. So the white lizard is the first shot of combining what I garnered from your design but now putting back in some of the width and curviness of my original patterns. I think i have one more refinement in my next one but I will see how it works out before I mention it. Thank you again for being so generous with your knowledge and I hope to be able to provide as much for anyone else here. Alex

If you have never seen pink frogs ... you my friend have never lived! I believe snapcake is the appropriate term but I am no expert. Its a pancake holster with snaps. Snapcake

My first attempt at a snapcake holster. This one has some pink frog skin.

Dont post in this section often because I am still trying to get from "average" to "show off" worthy. Not there yet but I'll keep try'in! White Lizard w white stitching. Yea maybe not for everyone !

That is amazing! I love braiding. I dont know why I dont do it more often. What a nice job!

Sweet! I have to try one of the many triangle basketweave stamps. I was afraid to pick one up and I know the one I want but I might not be smart enough to figure out how to use it! Nice job!

I still have the other half of the hacksaw blade and was thinking about making one with a one sided bevel especially after finally seeing leathertoolz vid on it but I have had terrible luck using other one sided grinds. I haven’t tried anything this thin but I have tried them on other knives and hated them... but .. since I have nothing to lose but one half of a broken hacksaw blade why not. so if its says "bimetal" bad?

You can just carve out a divot around where you are going to set the snap and you dont have to skive down the entire Tab. Ian has a video where he does a coin inlay and with a safety beveler just thins out the circle where the coin goes. I have done that when I set snaps in really thick leather. The other solution is what 25b suggested when he said he put a divot at the pull point. You could get a longer post on a straight line 24 cap and then just add an indication on the cap on pull direction. It wont have all the wording but you can certainly mark it and make it look professional with just a dot.

I dig what you are saying ... I just figure if I put a snap on a gun holster or knife sheath and you dont know which way you are supposed to pull it to open ... ya probably shouldn’t be trusted with pointy things or things that go bang!! LOL but I am sure there are a whole host of applications where it might be a good idea to provide a little direction.

If you already have posts and caps it saves a few bucks by just buying the pull dot socket and stud. I buy the parts separately from Scovill. http://www.scovill.com/products/ I dont care for the text printed on the pull dot cap so I just use line 24 plain caps and and posts and just buy a bag each of the sockets and studs for the pull dot.