MADMAX22

If you line it line it with vegtan leather. If you line it with chrome tan leather it can have negative effects on the older style guns. The chromium salts arent so great for them ecspecially the blued guns. Ofcourse people shouldnt store there guns in the holster anyways but many of them do. There are techniques to smooth out the inside. Gum tag works, I personally just use the snoseal or similar that I use on the outside. It smooths out the inside as well. A common approach for some is to use two thinner pieces of leather, flesh to flesh and make it that way. Say two pieces of 5oz which doubles up to a good 10oz thickness and you get smooth on both sides. Katsass makes his this way.

Love it, took a little while to get use to it which wasnt that hard considering it came pretty much ready to go. To be perfectly honest I still think there is something about handstitching considering the looks of it and the precision you can get in certain situations but having this machine has really allowed me to take on tasks that I just normally wouldnt have time for in my current situation.

Its just wickett and craig brown harness leather. Well dark brown. The only thing I did was oil it with a light coat then applied some sno-seal, a light coat. The harness leather comes with the top coat pretty much already done. Just finish the edges.

Hey Nick I picked up one of the cowboy 4500, works great. On the belt they are just round holes. I think its just the pic that makes them look a little oblong.

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments.

Well have not posted anything in a while due to being under water for a little bit so figured I would show the few things I got done before I left. Hopefully will have some more stuff to share in the near future that are a little more interesting. Got a ruger 357lcr for the fiancee and had to make her a holster for it. Quick relatively plane OWB. Stitched this on my new machine, made for a quicker easier process thats for sure. Also made her a nice double layer belt. Figured if she ever wanted to carry for whatever reason she needed a nice belt to do it with. Left the belt natural, oiled and waxed then put it in the sun for a bit. Its plain but I personally think it looks pretty nice. Thinking of doing one for myself. Also made a sheath for my buck and flashlight for work. The design for this needs a little adjustment as the straps tend to want to pull off to the side a little but other then that it help up great. Made this from WandC harness leather. Pretty good tough stuff. Critique and comments welcome as always.

Finally got some pics, this is a small card holder. 3 layers of 4oz leather, relatively soft for vegtan. Didnt do anything to any marks on it. Using the 4500 with a 24 needle and 277 thread. Hope this helps. Also wanna add I am still playing with various adjustments on this guy so dont wanna go and say this is the best it can do. Also this is with the holster plate, and the right side foot that I got from Bob. There is one from the front and two from the back.

Not sure if you have tried yet but wicket and craig has some nice harness leather that I have played with. I dont make bridles and such but have used it on some projects that require durability and it has performed very well. The edges tend to hold a burnish if done right and areas of wear tend to get a nice shine to them. The leather is pretty darn durable. They will send you some swaths, I know it may be hard to determine if they will work for you but you may get an idea. They have harness and bridle, have not tried all versions of them but worth looking into maybe. Nice thing is you can order however many sides you want and they will usually split the sides down for you.

I have scene mentioned on here and use it as a rule of thumb for my hand sewing is to use a length from your outstretched hands across your chest. No longer. As twinoaks mentioned about the wearing out, also it makes it a ton easier to handle at this length or shorter. For shorter runs or smaller projects you kind of learn how to getstimate the right length that will be atleast long enough with a little extra. Sorry I dont know the proper equation for figuring out the length. Never really needed to do it.

I dont know if it is similar to the other Stohlman knives they were selling but if it is I would say save some more money and go for something a little nicer. I am not saying they are bad. When they first came out I looked up the brand that this comes from and they deal primarily with kitchen knives of the medium ok range I guess you could call it. Better then some but by no means a really good steel. I started with the regular stolhman knives and used those for a little while. The curved blade knife I still use occasionally for cutting various large chunks of leather but not for any type of detail work or for cutting out patterns. It is also a pain to sharpen. I bought a rose knife pretty soon after getting these and the difference was amazing. It actually help an edge for a good amount of time and was just all around such a better blade. There are several older knives that have amazing blades. They may be pricier but are worth the money. Many new knife makers make some darn good stuff also. I agree to talk with Bruce johnson and have him set you up with a nice round knife.

Very cool sewing machines but from my understanding they max out at 1/4" thickness. They are apparently invaluable for those awkward areas that are hard to get to. Its a 29 class im pretty sure. I am no pro sewing machine guy though.

That is usually the case and one of the single quickest ways to piss me off. Ecspecially if they charge you for something they dont have and dont tell you it will be later then expected. I know if I had a business or was unemployed and needed the machine to start making money the machine would be coming from someone else about 1.9 months ago.

The sun penetrates all lol. It should still darken some atleast I think it should. Granted best results would be fresh leather, oiled, and suntanned. Still it is worth a shot since you run far less chance of ruining it that way then with anything that involves dye or anything like that.

I dont know about the thinner leathers but when I make things like rifle slings and what not I use 8oz body and suede splits for the shoulder padding that is about 4oz. This I run right to the edge and stitch about 3/16 in back from the edge. I then bevel the edges on both sides. This usually cuts the suede at a rounded angle back away from the leather. I then burnish like normal and the edge of the suede smooths out along with the edge of the leather it is glued to. Looks pretty good IMHO but not sure on longevity of the edge. I will try to find one of my older pictures to show you what it looks like. EDIT: here is a kindle cover I made that shows what I am talking about. I did this pretty much the same way. It is horse hide with suede lining.

Not sure where you live but if its sunny at all put it out in the sun for a couple of afternoons and it will darken up rather nicely.

Great looking stand Oldtimer. My thoughts on these stands are if you have the tools (welder, metal cutting tools, good drills, and the know how) then build your own by all means. If you are interested in learning how to build stuff and have the time then you may as well go about building one since like anything it can be educational. However if you dont have the tools, time, or drive to learn this particular craft (god knows in my case I have enough hobbies as it is) then it just pays to buy one premade. Its kind of like buying leather working stamps or making your own. If you are skilled enough or wanna learn the craft you can make some excellent quality stamps, however the time and energy and money involved need to be weighed in comparison to just buying the better quality stamps to begin with,

I concur with Rayban. These things are beasties, If you have not already got it in the setup I would get the left and right outer feet. These will be imperative to stitching around formed items. Neels great to work with and your machine should show up ready to go. I got mine all hooked up and ready to go within an hour plus and I dont really know squat about sewing machines.

Thanks Bob, that is one thing I usually check thanks to your videos. Ill have to watch the thread tonight while I do some more stitching. One thing I totally forgot about was that I had rethreaded it and where you go thru the bottom tentioner I had been doing like Wiz and others have said and gone thru the silver eye, around twice backout thru the silver eye then thru the black eye before going up to the take up lever (think thats what it is called). When I rethreaded it I just went thru the silver eye once around once and a half then thru the black eye. Not sure if this would be that big of a deal but Ill give it a try and swap it back and see if that works a little better.

Thanks Jim Ill give it a shot tonight after work.

OK so I think I am starting to get ahang of this 441 clone I have. I seem to not have any issues for the most part sewing pretty thick stuff say two 8oz layers or more. The issue I am running into is when sewing two thinner pieces of leather. This belt I was working on is two layers of 5oz. It is about 5oz horse lined with about 5oz cow. It seems to stitch just fine for a while then it will randomly pull the bottom thread up to the top. I am not sure which adjustment I need to tweak some. The other stitches seem to be centered very well. Sorry if this is a simple adjustment to fix, Im just not that experienced with sewing machines much less with these big stitchers. Thanks for any help.

Lookin kickass as usual David. That one looks like it has quit a bit of work involved in it.