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I don't do many revolver holsters, but hopefully these will help. You can pinch the leather down over the top edge of the cylinder just a bit to help grab the top of the cylinder will give some retention - but don't do it too severely or you won't be able to remove the revolver. Also, you'll want to leave enough leather at the top that you can flare the top edge back out to create a funnel to help clear the top edge of the cylinder and guide it into the holster - in other words, make sure you opening at the top is wider than the cylinder itself, or the leading edge of the cylinder will hit the top edge of the leather and you won't be able to get the revolver in the holster. If you can indent the leather inside the trigger guard area that will help too - if you can't do it on the outside (the surface facing away from the body), definitely do it on the inside face towards the body since it won't be as visible. If you make your tooling impressions nice and deep and let the leather dry completely, I think you'll be surprised how durable the tooling is when it comes time to form the holster. Just use your fingers - don't use any hard tools or you will definitely start to mess up your tooling. This holster was still a work in progress when I took the photo, but it sorta shows the flared out opening on the top and how it's pinched down at the top edge of the cylinder. Here's a quick sketch looking from the front edge of the holster showing the revolver along the top edge and the front and back pieces of leather - hopefully it graphically shows what I'm talking about...

Thanks for the input fellas. Guess I need to clean off the clear fingernail polish from the adjustment nuts on my thread tensioners! Is there a fool-proof way to keep track of the tension settings so it's quick/easy to go back and forth between two tension settings?

I mostly sew holsters and related accessories on my Tippmann Boss and am wanting to start sewing journal covers too with decorative stitching. I use 277 thread for everything so far. The tension is fine for holsters (two layers of 8-10oz leather), but when I was sewing the journal covers out of 4-5oz leather, the bobbin thread was laying flat on the back of the leather. I probably need to use a smaller needle and thread for journals, but I really like the look of the thicker thread as I feel like it gives it a more hand-made feel, even though it's machine sewn. So, my question is.... What compromises do I need to make when moving from 16-20oz thickness (for holsters) down to 5-6oz thickness (10-12oz at the folded portions) for journal covers? I'd ideally like to make as little tension adjustments as possible to the machine, but I doubt I'll be able to escape that. In my mind, it seems like once you have the top/bottom adjusted to center the stitch in the leather, it shouldn't matter what thickness you're using, but I don't know enough about how the machines work. I mentioned this if for my Boss, but I'm hoping to buy either a CB4500 or a Cobra Class 4 very soon if I can afford it.

Dickf - that's a great looking holster! I'd also be interested in hearing more about your dye application method. The last time I tried using Fiebing's Pro Oil dyes with a sponge brush, it made the brush swell up like the dye was reacting with the sponge material, and when the sponge touched the leather it was like it dumped the entire dye load in one spot. Application was not smooth/consistent at all. Very heavy application right at the beginning, then faded off quickly.

That's a fine looking pair of OWB snap-on holsters and pouches woodandsteel! Nicely done!

I like the photo in the template. It's simple, peaceful, and I love the color. I wouldn't worry too much about "everyone and their dog" using the same template. The chance of stumbling across someone else using the same template is probably pretty slim... If you like the sketch, let your friend modify it until she's happy with it if she's willing to do so. The last sketch (Crazy Horse?) is too busy to me and indicates you'll be selling American Indian products, not "Cowgirl" stuff.

I had a customer swing by this morning to try out a new IWB holster I'm building for him. I also let him test fit the Pancake holster I just completed for him using my Springfield 3" Micro Compact .45 ACP 1911 dummy from Rings for forming. The holster fit my dummy great - it slid in easily and snapped into place. When we inserted his gun (Kimber Super Cary Ultra 3" 1911) it was much tighter and we had to stretch it a bit with a zip lock baggy wrapped around the slide. This helped the fit a little, but it didn't feel like it was going in all the way and still didn't fit nearly as nicely as my dummy. Upon further inspection, we noticed the distance from the top of the slide to the bottom of the trigger guard was about 1/8" more on the Kimber. This is minor, but it seems the forward radius on the trigger guard is smaller on the Springer as well. I can move the stitch line over 1/8" away from the bottom of the trigger guard, but it'll still be formed incorrectly. Any other suggestions? For what it's worth, I will be using the customer's gun when I form his holsters since he lives close, but I'd like to accommodate for the difference on future Kimber holsters without actually buying the real firearm.

Thanks for the feedback Malabar. I could probably stand to trim a little of the sweat shield away, but none of my customers have complained about the way cut mine. That being said - if I were to cut the sweat shield enough to clear the thumb completely for the "thumbs high" grip you mention and linked to, there might as well be no sweat shield at all. The proper grip for a 1911 is to have the thumb riding on top of the thumb safety, yet most people would prefer to have the thumb safety completely covered by the sweat shield. I'm afraid this is one of those areas where you simply can't have it both ways. I've chosen to cut the sweat shield where you can get a nice firm grip on the gun to draw it from the holster without interfering with the sweat shield, but this is not to say the thumb won't have to be moved slightly for a "proper" shooting grip.

Thanks! Since I've only made a hand full of IWBs in the past (Summer Special design), I wasn't sure where to order from. Is 6-32 the size most people use? Seems a little small to me, but any bigger and the prongs seem too long if you sandwich it between the layers of leather. I ordered a bunch of dot fastener snaps a while back - can't remember how well that screw size fits the snap base.

Good point Steven - thanks! That's part of the benefit of creating a mock-up - it's easy to see where those adjustments can be made and makes refining the paper pattern much easier (at least for me). My customer is coming by my shop tomorrow to look it over - I'll see what he thinks about the increased cant.

Actually, it was very easy to sew this on my Boss. The hardest part was figuring out how to position all the pieces as I assembled it. It's literally like a jigsaw puzzle... I must have stared at it for 30 minutes trying to figure out the assembly steps! You do have to fold the leading tabs out of the way as you go so you don't stitch over it, which was pretty easy to do with the belly leather but might be more difficult with usable pieces. I would love to see other's photos of the front-to-back splice along the top of the slide. Do you do anything special there? Or just glue the halves to the reinforcement with the front and back butted up to each other? If you're lining it - do you line it like you would a Pancake holster, or like you would an Avenger (which would obviously leave a gap between the lining and the seam of the pancake sight channel, but it would reinforce and cover the previously mentioned splice)...?

Here is a quick photo that I took on my way out the door this morning showing the clearance at the grip area. I'm 6'2" with relatively large hands and I can grip it just fine.

I don't have a lot of experience with IWB holsters, but was recently asked to build one by an existing customer. It'll be for a 3" 1911. This is my first attempt at this style holster, and I'd appreciate feedback. I built it out of scrap belly leather, so please ignore the lack of edging, burnishing, etc. The snap loops are not attached as I don't have the T-Nuts on hand at the moment. At first glance, I'm not sure the ride height is right. I feel like it needs to ride lower on the waist line. I think I'd ideally like the top of the belt to be flush with the top of the holster at the trigger guard area, but I'm not sure if that would begin to interfere with a good combat grip on the gun. I also might trim some of the curve off on the trailing wing - it looks like it might curve outward too far. Any other thoughts? Thanks for looking!

Paul - Microsoft Project is a great program for scheduling your time out, but I think it's quite expensive. There may be cheaper alternatives, or even free versions. I haven't looked lately. Project will allow you to create parent objects, so if you wanted to itemize your production for a few projects, you could do something like.... Project A Cut pieces >Transfer Pattern Marks >Dye Pieces >Assemble Pieces >Stitch Pieces Project B Blah blah blah You get the idea. You tell the program how long you think each task will take. If cutting the pieces for all your orders will take 5 hours, you tell it 5 hours. If it happens to take 10 hours, the final date of completion will get bumped back 5 additional hours if you update the schedule. If you tell Project B that it can't begin until after Project A is complete, the start date of Project B will automatically shift out that same additional 5 hours. Pretty powerful scheduling tool. If you don't make any adjustments along the way, you can keep track of how far behind you're getting (or how far ahead), and you can adjust your working hours according to make up for lost time (or take a vacation!).

Like Dwight - we (my wife and I) also use Excel for my orders, though we use it in a different way. I built my website using the free Concrete 5 site builder. I'm currently using their form component to receive my new orders. Once we receive the order and print it out, we hand-write any updates to the order should the customer decide to make any changes. When I am in the shop (my garage), I have a set of stacking in/out paper trays. I place all my orders in the trays - one order per tray. That printed order form stays with the holster until it's ready to be shipped out. Meanwhile, my wife types the contents of the order form into Excel (one customer per row) as we receive the new orders. As an order is completed, she hilights the customer's row of information and shades the cells gray to indicate the order is complete. This gives us a quick reference for how many outstanding orders we have left to complete. It contains detailed information about what they ordered, as well as the customer's contact information and the total amount of the order. When it's time to file taxes, my wife prints out a nice and tidy spreadsheet that shows the entire year's orders and how much money the business has brought in and we hand this over to our tax guy. You can also use Outlook to schedule your shop time. You can create a new appointment, they copy and paste the contents of the customer's order form into your appointment if you wanted so you don't have to go digging through old emails to find the order information. Theoretically, you could schedule all your existing orders out for the next X days or weeks, provided you're that organized with your time. I ask my wife "what's next" and she tells me what to work on. A better method would be to tie the order form to a database so that once the customer's information is received, the data is automatically submitted to the database. Using a private back-end page, you could access the contents of the database on a per-order basis and have fields where you can add notes and such. You could have a method of marking the order as active so your customers could log into the website and see what ticket number you're working on so they'll know many orders are in front of their own. I'm not a big database guy, but would love to know how to do it. They're very powerful if they're setup correctly from the start.

Give this thread a look to see my setup. http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=28482&st=0&p=178649entry178649 I think some people have said they use the food saver with the bags turned inside out? The vacuum system won't do all the work - it will just minimize some of the initial effort. Depending on the level of detail you're after, you'll likely need to remove it from the bag for final detail boning.

I just make holsters, but I know about how many items I can complete in a month. If that's, for example, 10 items, and I have 40 orders, then I state on my website that I have a backorder of something like 12-16 weeks. Find a number that is comfortable for you, then artificially inflate your backorder if you wish. That'll help dial back new orders, and people that really want your work will not really care about the long lead time. You'll still be at your current workload for a while until you get rid of those old orders, but once those are clear, you'll be able to slow your pace down to maintain a production level you're happy with. I know one particular person on this site that built a custom order form that ties into a database that manages his orders. If you have just a ton of orders, you might consider something like that. I just do everything via forms on a website that the customer fills out. When they submit it, I get an email. We print out the emails and put them in a file in the order they were received. Not very sophisticated, but I don't get a ton of orders - right now I'm only able to fill about 100 orders per year on average because I still have a full time job and family responsibilities.

I spaced them 1" apart, using this punch from Weaver. It's the only oval punch I have, and I hate to order another just for this belt. But, I'm not quite sure this punch is big enough either because it's hard to get the belt to lay flat when buckled.

I got a special request for a 1 3/4" belt from a customer to match his holster. I totally forgot that I needed to order a buckle (all mine are 1 1/2"), so today I ran over to Tandy and looked at their offerings. Their economy buckle didn't look very nice. The mid-line buckle was okay, but there was a lot of slop in the roller from side to side. I wound up buying the stohlman buckle. As I went to install it tonight, I noticed the prong thing is much thicker than my other buckles I'm accustomed to using. I used an oblong punch for my holes. Is there a bigger punch I need to use for this stohlman buckle? As it stands, I can't really get the prong through the holes.

Hi Chavez - refer to post #7 above in this thread. I tried to describe how I colored them in that post. BondoBob - sorry I never replied to your post. You made a good suggestion on how to price stuff and I appreciate the input. Your $95 seems right on - just not sure something like this warrants that kind of price....? That's more than I'd charge for a holster, which is considerably more labor intensive. On the flip-side, my wife keeps telling me I need to charge more for my holsters, but I feel like I'm already fairly inline with what other makers are charging...

Listen to my machine at 5:44 and 7:50 of this video: One thing I notice as I watch my video - I was sewing painfully slow! You notice too many aspects of the machine's operation when you cycle it that slow in my opinion. Plus, sometimes going that slow actually causes my machine to skip a stitch. I think your machine sounds fine personally... Part of what you may be feeling is the top thread being pulled over the top of the bobbin shuttle - the thread snags on the bobbin thread, then releases and slides over the top to form the lock stitch. Well, I'm no sewing machine expert, but that's my uneducated explanation of it. Also, your flimsy table is absorbing some of the mechanical force when you cycle the machine. As you push and pull, your table is flexing/moving, actually making you work harder. Is your thread breaking? Is it fraying? You said your top/bottom tension looks fine, so I'm guessing not. My suggestion is to relax, find something more sturdy to mount it to, then speed up your cycle rate and do a few projects with it. If you're still having problems with it, contact someone after Tippmann opens up again after the first of the year or post a message on their forum (if you haven't already), but don't harass the tech guys by calling their personal cell phones should you happen to find their numbers - let them enjoy their vacations...

Try wetting the leather with a sponge, then immediately rub over the area with a bone folder. Don't wait for the leather to be properly cased, as this will result in burnishing too quickly, which I assume you want to avoid (burnishing). If that doesn't work, dampen the leather with a sponge and tap it with a smooth faced hammer along the track lines.

I agree with TwinOaks. Actual soaking time - there isn't really a specific time you should dunk the leather. It will vary a little, depending on if it's natural or dyed, how much dye was applied, if it's dyed front and back (inside and out), quality of the leather, density of the leather, etc. But, generally speaking, you shouldn't really need to dunk it more than about 8-10 seconds, and can sometimes get away with just 2-3 seconds. Lately I've been dunking my stuff for about 7-8 seconds on average, but I vacuum form the initial shape which helps to remove some of the moisture.

Very nice!

That looks fantastic! Merry Christmas!