TexasJack

Yeah, Chuck, I also heard from Cap Maj J. He must have been in one of those moods this week.

OK, found the camera. As you can see, I really roughed out a design on a piece of scrap leather. If you look at the seam after it was inverted, you can see how really, really bad it looks. True, I didn't spend a lot of time trying to get the seam really straight. If I understand the earlier response, I need to wet and rub the seam very flat. Or use a corded welt. (Covering a multitude of sins sounds pretty attractive to me, BTW!) Or, go with a different design. After going this far, I hate to give it up before I understand what I'm doing wrong.

I think you'll find all knifemakers in agreement that the most dangerous power tool in the shop is the buffing wheel. It's amazing how fast it can fling a sharp piece of metal.

Gun stores (and maybe walmart) sell a spray called "Barricade". It smells suspiciously like WD-40 to me, but it does help kill the corrosion cells. (Corrosion is an electrochemical reaction - like a battery.) Use that or WD-40 to clean the tools. Then use wax (as has been suggested earlier). Think of it this way: You put oil on the surface of metal, and then water condenses on it. What does oil do on water? It floats, taking it away from the surface of the metal and allowing the water to corrode it. Wax is solid (at least once the solvent in it evaporates). It is far more likely to stick to the surface than any oil. An 'old-timer' who ran a maintenance shop for a company I once worked for showed me that trick. He used it on band saw tables and his metal lathe. One more thing: With wax, "more" is no always "better". If it's thick, it can flake off. I use it a lot and I've been using the same can of wax for at least 5 years.

Yeah, Sandy and Paul are the absolute best at this craft and definitely the ones to emulate. Nice job on your sheaths - easy to see where the inspiration came from.

Jim! Fantastic job on the tutorial and patterns!!! Wow! Most professional teachers don't have materials this well organized. Also, thanks to Johanna for encouraging this!!

Yeah, I've got to dig out the camera (that I carefully put away somewhere....) The only things I've worked on - like sheaths and holsters - have visible seams. Those who make bags and purses and such no doubt understand the nuances of reversing the seam much more than me. And you make it look easy. So when I saw phone cases selling for $40, I thought, "Why should I spend the money? I should be able to do that." First problem was not having a pattern to start with. But I had seen the ones in the phone store, so I could generate something close. I made a wooden block for a form. (It never bothered me if a little water made it through the plastic cover onto a knife, but I suspect the phone might be hard to dry out.) I dug out a piece of scrap leather to make a prototype and roughed out the design and did a quick job of sewing it. The instant I flipped it, I realized something was missing from my knowledge database. But that's OK. Part of the fun of life is learning new things.

Always enjoy seeing your work, Chuck!

The Stohlman book, "The Art of Hand Sewing Leather" is a 'must-have'. It specifically addresses things like broken thread, running out of thread, etc. Very easy to follow with lots of diagrams. And it has a lot of specific information on making belts.

Thought I'd try a case for a new phone. (My now-dead phone was a flip-type that fit in my pocket.) So I came up with a simple design and built a prototype. The idea was to sew the seams and then reverse the whole thing. But when I flipped it inside out, the seams look terrible. I suspect I'm missing a step and thought I'd ask for some directions. Should I be creasing the seam first?

Sweet!

Very nice looking holster!

Yeah, the gum traganth works pretty good for smoothing it down. I tried one with pig skin, but I found that pig skin tends to 'grab' the gun a bit - not something you want with a holster.

Looks pretty nice to me!

Nice job on the tutorial!

I think you meant "banned". Toluene is a pretty common chemical. As for being "bad", I don't think I'd classify it as such. If you're exposed to any volatile chemicals in high concentration, it's not great for your health. Kalifornia is on a path to ban anything and everything; the fact that something makes their list is not impressive at all. Barge didn't say WHAT they use in place of toluene. Could be just as 'bad' (and, in fact, their warning would seem to indicate that.) There's a certain danger when people see that some Kalifornia listed chemical is no longer in a product, or that it has gone 'green'. A lot of chemicals produced by nature have the potential to be just as toxic as those from petroleum. Reasonable care should ALWAYS be used with dyes, paints, solvents, adhesives, etc. Good ventilation, using gloves, using a good quality mask (esp. for dust) or respirator (for spraying), and cleaning up spills are all good ways to limit exposure. I don't mind if these companies change formulations, as long as the product works as well (or better) as before, and as long as the price doesn't increase significantly.

I've never done this type of holster before and have a couple of first attempts. The IWB holster is for a Ruger LCP. I couldn't find anything that would do what I wanted for an inverted belt clip, so I took a strip of Kydex and heated it to make the turns. The clip needs to move down and forward a bit. Also, need a deeper opening near the trigger. The OWB is for a 1911 and was still drying when I took the photos.

Greetings from Occupied Texas! Now, let's secede! (But not from this board!!) Lot's of fun stuff around here.

Thanks! When the new version went live without the View New button, it was like missing an old friend.

In Texas, Labradors are the most common hunting dogs. They love the water, love retrieving, and can tolerate the weather.

Nice work, as always, Dave!

Happy Birthday, Johanna! I guess we missed the traditional spanking.....

I did one based on Chuck's design and it works great. I probably spent less on materials than you would spend on plans.

A company I worked for put together a film to celebrate their 40th anniversary. They had a lot of great footage from the old days of pipeline construction and such. At the time they showed it to us, the wheels were beginning to fall off and the company would be sold a few years later (after several layoffs and division sell-offs and all the crap that goes with that.) On the way out of the theater, one of the young engineers remarked, "Wow, that would have been a great company to work for!" and one of the old engineers turned around and said, "It was." And on the weekend of the USA's anniversary, I find myself deeply saddened to look at where things are going and realize that the young people will never know how great this country really was. When my son took history in high school just a couple years ago, he showed me his book. WWII was NOT discussed. No stopping the Nazis, no putting an end to the holocaust, no Pearl Harbor, and no brave military personnel sacrificing their lives on the beaches of Normandy and Iwo Jima. The chapter covering the 1940's was, "Life During WWII" and it dealt with women working in factories and recycling scrap metal. If you keep the kids stupid, it will make it easier for them to adjust to the new socialist 'paradise'. By the way, "God bless America" is probably already illegal in California and "America the land of the..." has been optioned to either Nike or China. God Bless Texas. God Save America.

I used to work for a company owned by two brothers. They used to say, "This would be a great business if it wasn't for those damn customers!" It helped us get through those days when nothing you do makes the customer happy. Since you say you've learned a lot from these responses, let me add another: The closer the customer is to you (like a friend or relative) the MORE you need to protect yourself with a good, tight contract. That keeps it 'all business'. Otherwise, chances are pretty good you'll wind up hating each other.