MADMAX22

Its pretty good leather from my experience however the store was somewhat close so I picked thru to find what I wanted. If you going with tandy leather and want good results this is about the only stuff I would buy. However for the price I would rather get some good wicket and craig or some herman oak personally. This is just because I like how the WandC tools and I love the colors you get with the HO and its really good for molding.

Regular retail is the highest price youll pay. Become a member and you will save alot if your gonna be spending large amounts of money there. Still they arent any more expensive then most other places for retail prices. If you are getting into it as a business get a license and a tax id number which will allow you to buy wholesale either from them (I think) or some place like zack white, weaver, or countless other places that sell equipment and you will save even more money. Ofcourse you will have to deal with the business side of things.

Im with Chuck on this one. I went thru this a while back with a thread in the sewing section. I ended up getting a spool of the barbours linen 6 cord thread. It is great stuff. I wont use anything else anymore for my hand sewing unless I absolutely have to. Once I get a couple of different size threads I wont use anything else period. One thing that to add to this that put my sewing up a notch is to get the proper wax to put on the thread. After reading on this subject as well I ordered some Rosin and mixed that with bees wax, and a little oil and heated it until everything was all liquified together then poured it into smaller sized balls that I kneaded into shape before it totally cooled. Now I use this to wax the thread with and it gives it a somewhat tacky waxy feel that really grips the leather when you set the stitch and protects the thread. Gives your fingers that extra grip also lol. Once the fine people on this forum got me setup with this method theres no other way I will do it. Oh and depending on how much you sew a nice batch of the wax/rosin mix will last you a good long while. Here is a link to one of the threads I was talking about. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=16552

Looks pretty good, I wanted to comment on your lacing though, thats darn near perfect.

Very cool stuff, not sure how to compliment on the wood without sounding dirty lol.

Thanks for the compliments guys and gals. Yeah Leatheroo I dont know how the saddle makers who sew by hand to it. Its a challenge for me on just this little stuff.

Well here is my first effort and doing one of these cross draw guys. I think there are some better ways to do it but Im gonna see how he likes this and then go from there. I think the next style I try will be a pancake version but not sure yet. Anyways, HO leather left natural. Sno-seal then neat-lac. Stitching 6 cord linen. The stitching leaves a little to be desired but ah well. The show off holster I made for him turned out alot better looks wise, this is primarily a utilitarian sheath. Critique and or ideas welcome. Things that I would change 1) I think the handle needs to stick out a tad more, make it a little easier to pull. 2) I needed to move the the snaps farther apart or just use a thinner strap with a single snap. Its really hard to seat those like that. Personally I dont particularly like these, I wore it a bit to play with it and trying to resheath the knife when its on your back is a PITA atleast for me. Guess with some practice it would be allright. I think the side attach with a cant is the easiest all around but to each there own.

Great job, Ive gotta learn how to braid one of these days.

Thanks Luke, yeah he should be.

Kind of hard to see from the pic but looks great from what I can see. Really like that lettering style with that tooling.

Those turned out very good. I like the natural one the best.

Well just finished one of a couple of sheaths I am working on for a buddy. This is HO leather, the black is vinegaroon, inlay is olive green lizard. Oiled, sno-seal, then a couple light coats of neat-lac. The top portion with the inlay is two layers of 5oz, the welt (think its called that lol) is 5oz as well, the back with the belt loop is 8oz doubled over. Alot of leather for this one. To make it a little easier to punch thru the leather with my awl and because the one awl that I have that is the correct sized width wise is not long enough to effectively punch thru all that leather I assembled the inlay portion and the welt and punched my holes, then assembled the complete sheath and repunched the holes. I had to go back thru the back side just to ensure the holes were wide enough on the reverse side. Kind of a pain in the butt however it helped alot with the final stitching. Thread is 6 cord linen dyed black. Enjoy, any constructive criticism welcome.

Nicely done, looks like your busy enough as it is.

Ha pretty cool and a good idea. Dont wanna be in the beer line lol.

Yeah Ive used it and I think there are better products out there. I use sno-seal and alot of followers here of pecards. Someone (sorry forgot who) did a really good test over a period of time and they found that sno-seal, bea naturals, pecards, and I think montana pitch blend or whatever it is were all pretty good. The obenaufs didnt offer any longer term protection. Come to think of it it may have been esantoro who did the test.

Thats pretty cool, thanks for the info. Ive only scene the one version with the little teeth brackets or whatever they are called and a few variations of the stitching ponies.

Thats really cool. Great find and must say it doesnt look overly worn at all. That is a interesting tensioner that it has on it. Far different then the others I have scene.

Good looking stuff, great stitching by the way.

Thanks David. Yeah I hear ya about that wet forming on those seats.

Being proficient with the awl just takes time and proper practice. At first you will get the front to look really good but the back side is what usually takes the most time to learn how to get properly lined up. Once you get the feel for it though you will speed right along and have very nice looking stitching.

Good then Daggrim, they are nice to work with. If you get a chance I would still say try the angelus dyes maybe just get a couple of the small bottles to play with. I prefer the oil dyes but have used the angelus dyes and they work really well also. Luke I gotta get some more of that chocolate dye, that stuff is great for when I do my edges, its close allmost to black after its burnished but not quiet and looks really good with any type of brown overall project.

Hey Jim I use 6 cord pretty much 90% of the time and I use a 8 SPI for it. Looks really good IMHO. I dont think I would go any closer then that but thats just me. This isnt the best sewing job around but it will give ya an idea of the combination of the 6 cord at 8 spi. Hope this helps.

Great looking stuff. Ive been meaning to ask how do you like those integrated belt loops like that? Do you prefer those over adding a seperate piece of leather as a belt loop?

They come in different threads per inch spacing and each brand seems to have there own little design on how to do it. The overstitch guys from what I understand were more of a combo space marking then ran back over the threads once sewn to kind of lay them down and keep them in line sort to speak. The others which are just for space marking have more of a point and actually pierce the leather a little bit, this gives you a staring point for the awl blade so as to make sure you hit the exact same interval every time. Atleast thats my limited understanding which is pretty much what was covered.

Nicely done. Those are very clean and neat with the tooling.