paris3200

Very classy looking. Nice job. How is the beaver tail to work with?

I just placed an order for T-nuts and screws on Friday. I ended up getting the screws from Mcmaster-Carr and the t-nuts from Albany County Fasteners. I looked but was unable to find a one stop shop. Albany County Fasteners did have free shipping so that helped. Red Cent I just realized that you're not too far down the road from me. I'm in East Bend, NC.

AcornBiter, That is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Don't worry about being too critical. I really thought I had beveled all the lines but by looking at the pictures I can clearly see I haven't. I understand what you are saying about beveling according to which vine is on top. I was struggling to determine which one that was. Do I fade-out by walking the beveler back? I did a second piece last night just to play around with beveling. After watching some videos on youtube I started to hold the beveler so it was almost spring loaded to be slightly above the leather. I was able to get cleaner bevels, but still not clean. I assume that beveling deeper is done by hitting harder. I'm going to keep practicing. I will give that a try. I will give that a try as well. I did not use a modeling tool. To be honest, I got a little rushed to finish because the kids were waking up and the vines didn't get enough attention.

This is my first practice piece after getting a Barry King swivel knife and tools. This is the third tooling I've done. I would love some critiques. A couple of things I noticed myself. Beveling needs to be smoother. I tried walking and tapping, but sometimes the tool didn't want to slide easily. Not sure if it needs to be deeper as well. Bevel cuts need to be smoother on the vines. I think I need to work on making them one continuous cut. I stopped and readjusted a few times and not sure that was a good idea. Bar grounding is hard! It looks terrible. Vines in general need work. I was going off memory of what I had read. I need to review before attempting again. I also struggled with which side to bevel. I got lost in all the lines. I need to get some tracing film. I used parchment paper and I wasn't able to see the leather. This led to some screwups in layout. Everything considered I am pretty happy. I really enjoyed this. I'm thinking of picking up either Cary Schwarz's or Keith Valley's tooling video. Anyone like to recommend one or the other?

Beautiful work. Nice pistol as well.

Thanks everyone for the responses. I haven't had time to get out to the leather shop recently. Next time I do I will try and get pictures of my slots. I'm curious, why you don't touch the front of the slots?

I'm currently in the process of working out pricing. Part of that is calculating how much labor I have in a piece. Based on my numbers, 10 hours seems like an extremely long time for a holster, even if you are hand sewing.

I've gotten back into making holsters after a hiatus. I'm fairly happy with the holsters I'm turning out except for the belt slots. Currently, I'm satisfied with cutting out. I'm using a round punch and a chisel. Upgrading to a custom punch is on my list. I'm not happy with the finishing. It seems no matter what I do they look terrible. I've tried edging them with a #2 edge beveler, dying and then burnishing the best I can with a small dowel wrapped in canvas. They turn out just looking bad. How do you guys do it? I've thought about just cutting them and leaving them natural.

The Evaporust worked great.

Thanks everyone for the information. I have done electrolysis in the past for some woodworking tools. However I really didn't want to drag all of that out just for the compass. I just placed the scratch compass in Evaporust. I will try and remember to post pictures when it comes out.

I've got a CS Osborne scratch compass that is rusty. I would like to get it cleaned up and back in usable condition. Any tips on how to do that?

I'm working on a new belt. This will be the first time I have ever done any stamping. I've come up with a simple pattern that I like. However I am having the hardest time getting it to line up. I saw on reddit that a guy used pencil lines when laying out his patterns. I gave that a try on a test piece, but I didn't measure right and got off. Plus the pencil lines showed up after dying. Not sure if I was suppose to try and erase them or not. Any ideas on how I can layout the pattern so everything will line up top to bottom?

Thanks for the replies. That is what I needed to know.

I'm getting ready to start on my first holster with a thumb break for 1911. Never made one before, but every one I've seen has a metal plate on it. What is the purpose of the plate? Also any tips related to the the thumb break would be appreciated.

Stunning work! Very classic looking.

Looks good. What is the tube at the fold line for?

Very nice. Did you create the pattern yourself? I'm looking to make a saddle bag similar to the bag brooks challenge tool roll, but have no experience with bags at all.

Very nice looking holster. I would label that a success.

Thanks everyone for the kind words. I didn't time sewing the belt. I do know that the holster took 50 minutes to sew. The wife has declared that she needs a new belt. I will try to remember to time that one. I don't sew the whole thing in one sitting, so it is easy to lose track of total time.

Finished this rig up recently for my brother. Was the first time I've done any leatherwork in about a year. Everything was made with 7/8 oz Herman Oak leather. Everything was hand sewn. Let me know what you think.

Overall I think you've got a great start on a website. I actually ran across your site a few days ago and was pleased with what I saw. Just a few things I noticed. As previously mentioned the top menu text color is very hard to see. In general all your links are hard to see. I don't know anything about iWeb, but it seems likely you can change the color with a simple css fix. You also have your footer text the same color as your hyperlinks. This gives the impression that your footer is a link when it isn't. On the creation page your second paragraph is formatted rather strangely. Looks like you have an extra line break where it isn't needed. On the methods page, under stropping, the first sentence isn't capitalized. This is more of opinion than anything, but the shadows on the front bag images are too strong and hard. I think if you softened the shadows slightly it would look a lot better. I just checked the image and the shadows aren't on the actual image, so I don't have any idea where they are coming from.

It is work like this that really makes me to want to try carving and stamping again. I've gotten very frustrated every time I've tried in the past. Absolutely beautiful work.

They both look good. I really like the pancake. Nice job on the molding.

Not sure about a class, but Zack White leather in Ramseur, NC sales sewing machines. They might be able to offer some help. Depending on where you are in NC it might only be a few hours drive for you.