dikman

If you've got 30 minutes to spare watch this. A (young) Japanese chap making boots entirely by hand. His skills are remarkable!

Damn, Keith, that is so beautiful it hurts my eyes!!!! Makes my effort seems so........inadequate.

I made one years ago to use with a WD40-type bulk oil. I soldered a stem onto the can, so it was pretty solid and pumped it to around 30 psi, I think, mainly because I had no idea what pressure it would take. It worked, but tended to slowly lose pressure. I've still got the can but I don't use it for anything, I found it easier to re-use plastic trigger-pump bottles.

In my (limited) experience with holsters I've found that the wetting, for wet-molding, tends to harden the leather, and using dyes does like-wise. I believe Medieval leather armour was hardened by soaking in water? The fact that you've worked beeswax into the leather is going to make it difficult to do anything as beeswax helps to keep leather soft (and will be almost impossible to get out). Using carnauba wax, with a polishing buffing wheel, may be about the only thing you can do.

Simple is good. White lithium grease may work, just a light coating to minimise fling-off, the idea of motorcycle chain oil is good but I've got several different types that I've tried on my bike and all but one tend to throw off and make a mess. The one that works best on the bike is Motul brand, minimal fling.

Welcome to the forum. Have you read this -

That looks great! The leather has a texture to the colour, it should age well.

The last thing I'd be doing is trying to use inkjet inks on leather! It will probably act like dye and get into the leather. My experience with such ink is that it's not colourfast and it runs when wetted with anything. I'm curious about your laser printing process too. I dabbled with it for making printed circuit boards many years ago so would like to know how you did it.

Frankster, there are many youtube vids showing how to make holsters, including making the pattern. It's not that difficult, once you understand the basics. That's exactly what happened to me! I couldn't get the holsters I wanted (many in the US wouldn't ship to Oz ), so a few years and many $$ later........

Nice work. Regarding the money belt, there are many examples in Packing Iron. The buckle end of the belt is not usually sewn, to make it easier to get the money (including notes) in and out. The tongue of the belt is passed through the slot and then the buckle, this closes the open end of the belt.

That turned out very nice, and the very detailed explanation will doubtless prove useful to others. Box-stitching is tedious and can be nerve-wracking, as well as time-consuming. Unfortunately there is no easy way around it, but it's a satisfying feeling to be able to do.

I forgot the instructions. Ammo box instr..pdf

Here's something you might find interesting, the patterns for an 1841 Army ammo pouch. It's very similar to what your making. I made one but haven't got a photo of it (no carving or stamping, just plain as per the originals). Ammo box.pdf

Well, that's different! There's some very nice workmanship in there.

Don't forget that gearbox oil is generally used in enclosed sealed gearboxes so the gears are essentially running in an oil bath. It doesn't matter if it gets flung off as it is constantly replaced on the gear surfaces. Unlike sewing machine gearboxes.

Ordinarily I would agree, but in this case the piston assembly is shielded from the motor by a "bulkhead", for want of a better term, and while the head gets hot it's nowhere near as hot as the area of the casing that's above the motor coils. I've taken temperature readings to try and localise the main source of the heat. The fan on top keeps the cylinder head noticeably cooler, the motor only slightly so. It's just poor design of the motor housing. Fred, thanks for that, lots of interesting stuff to look through there!

Oil-less piston. Like I said, it's a known issue with these little compressors, but having said that there are no reported failures because of it (probably because they're rarely used continuously, it's not as if they're spraying a car). The heat comes from the motor, not so much from the piston/cylinder head. I toyed with the idea of completely stripping it to drill out more holes for better circulation but couldn't be bothered as it will work fine like it is. Another possibility is to fit a small air tank to it, like my other one - maybe one day? I'm still annoyed that I can't fit the pistol-grip airbrush to the cordless compressor.

Bladegrinder, there's nothing wrong with your stitching, it's just your oblong holes, they don't fit properly.

Update: The bowl on the airbrush was a bit small so I found some larger capacity bowls on Ali-express, however it was only a few dollars more to buy a complete pistol-grip airbrush with the bowls, so I did. I felt this type of airbrush would be more comfortable to use with the compressor hanging underneath. Great idea, unfortunately the thread size on the compressor isn't like anything else I've got and the gun won't fit!! Bugger. Looking on gumtree (local ebay) I came across an airbrush and compressor for $50, so grabbed that. I figured I could leave that in the shed with the airbrush. It works well, and the pistol-grip airbrush fits so that's good. A couple of problems became apparent, however - it runs bloody hot and moisture is an issue. After 10 mins use (continuous) the case is almost too hot to touch (approx. 40*C at its hottest part), a common issue with these compressors. So I fitted a couple of fans. It still gets hot (poor air circulation inside) but considering it normally won't be in continuous use, more like start-stop, this should be fine. It has a water trap on the regulator but with continuous use water still builds up in the hose, so I've ordered some small water filters that attach to the airbrush end of the hose. Again, with start-stop use it should be fine. I now have eight assorted airbrushes!! Do you think I may have a problem?

I have a couple but they were taken before I gave it the sun treatment. You can see a slight "colour" variation in the leather, this disappeared after being left in the sun. I didn't think to take a photo afterwards. It's nothing special, as such, about 4"x6" and is designed for their pocket size notebooks. It will be handled a lot so should age very quickly.

From what I've seen it doesn't look too much like the original (for one thing yours is obviously for a longer barrel so the patterning is different). Having said that, and ignoring the Hand of God reference, you've done a bloody good job!! Lots of time-consuming detail work there, and a very nice colour. I'm impressed.

I made a notebook cover for a graduating police office and everything about it was pretty much left up to me. I had used a small laser thingy to burn the official police logo into it and felt that most dyes were likely to be too dark against the black etching, but I didn't like the "natural" colour (too light), so I gave it a coat of neatsfoot oil and left it in the sun for a couple of days (in Summer). It came out with a beautiful rich lightish brown colour. The girl I was making it for was stoked!

Interesting idea. I see where you're coming from but if you get it that hard then stropping probably won't have any effect? Still, I think you should try it as we will all learn something.

There have been a few posts about making dyes, I have made walnut dye from walnut husks, but it's a long process. As Ed said, vinegaroon is a great one for dying things black, although it's more of a dark-grey/black, looks really nice. If you have sunny days battlemunky's idea works well, the UV darkens it slightly to a rich golden brown.

That's great news, Sam. It's much better being able to see and, if possible use, a machine before buying it. Hopefully through this forum you'll have a pretty good idea of questions to ask when you eventually visit the place.