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I received my W&C split 3.5-4oz english bridle samples yesterday. WOW, this stuff is beautiful! Has a great feel to it.

I have a set of samples from W&C and wasn't overly impressed. However, I'm not sure if their intention was to impress you with the quality of the samples, or simple demonstrate color and general feel of the leather. Several of the pieces have a white powdery/waxy coating - I assume it's the wax stuffing and simply needs to be buffed away - never tried, they're just hanging on my peg board. That being said, it doesn't concern me at all - I am thoroughly happy with the leather from Wickett & Craig - it's very high quality. I love that I can order single hides directly from the tannery and they will split vegetable tanned leather "Tooling/Holster/Carving" leather for no additional cost. They're actually mailing me a few samples of English Bridle "Chestnut", split to 4-5oz - should have them any day now. I love Herman Oak too, but just noting that you should not judge W&C simply by their little 3 or 4 inch sample squares that are mass produced, probably from belly cut-offs, and no telling how long they've been sitting on a shelf waiting to be shipped out.

I've been asked to help make a custom wine rack. The rack will have individual leather cradles to hold individual bottles of wine. The customer has a specific color in mind. Right now I'm leaning towards just buying a whole hide, dying the entire hide, oiling it, and sealing it - all before I cut the pieces and sew them to the structure. That, or I was going to order English Bridle leather from Wickett & Craig, but their description said it was stuffed with waxes and oils. When I was at my local Tandy, I was eyeing an oil-tanned hide and told the owner what I was planning, and asked if the oil-tanned leather would be bad for the wine bottle labels. The owner said oil would eventually leach out of the leather, even if it was sealed. Is this true?? He said it would even leach out of vegetable tanned leather if it's been oiled - even if it was sealed with something like Resolene. Now I'm leaning towards buying a bottle of Tandy's Pro Waterstain in the "Tan" color, because I think that's about the correct shade even without oiling (well, at least from looking at the sample swatch - they didn't have a small bottle in stock for me to buy and try). It'll be easy to apply to an entire side of leather, as opposed to airbrushing 4 coats to a side... This could turn into a huge project for me with the potential for more work down the road from this client, so I really want to get this right and make sure I don't ruin a bunch of high dollar wine bottles!

Always loved that video. Would pay good money to see a video of the entire build process!

I believe this is a newer model, but it shows what I believe the Pfaff that she's been using has for a feeding system. It's definitely a step above the feeding system on her Riccar.

My wife has started sewing for hire from home for a lady that makes t-shirt quilts, and already has a pretty nice bottom-feed machine. However, it needed a tune-up so we took it to the shop. While it's there, she's borrowed her sister's Pfaff 6120 and fell in love with it. Apparently it has a better feeding system (IDT Walking Foot?) and works much better for the type of sewing she's doing. With our current machine, apparently it doesn't feed smoothly (bottom feed only) because the t-shirt material and the backing (cotton sheets) doesn't feed the same so it tends to bunch up a bit if she's not careful. Does anyone out there have one of these they'd like to sell? Or something of similar quality and performance? It needs to be portable, so I'm not really interested in a table-mounted machine. She has to be able to carry it since she's not always sewing in the same place - sometimes she sews at home, but usually she sews at her parents house since they don't have a cat.....

Sounds like you've worked on some fun projects! You know, North Texas is a great area to live... just sayin'.

Hi Nicklas - I feel your pain. I made a laptop sleeve for my sister-in-law for Christmas and experienced the same flared out opening as you did with your iPad. I too am wondering the best way to prevent it in the future. Now, not to toot this guy's horn, but here's a maker that doesn't seem to experience the same problem, though I have no idea how he avoids the flaring problem. http://www.etsy.com/...search_type=all

Very nice! The color looks great too.

Here's a relatively good picture that shows how that bump is intended to work. Doesn't really have anything to do with the belt, though I guess that bump could help if the clip slipped up & over the edge of the belt.

I think they look great! I really like how you incorporated the mag release cover in the kydex. I haven't payed a lot of attention to this style of holster, but I like how you've also added the retention adjustment screw - not sure how common that is, but I like it. I suggest sourcing black hardware to match the black rivets, but that's a preference really. I assume these are lined? If so, nice touch. The only other thing I'd suggest is using a different clip. Those clips are really intended to be inserted into a leather sleeve with a notch cut in the leather - that little humped portion slips into the leather notch, holding the clip in place. There's noting really wrong with the clip you're using, but to me it just stands out as "the wrong tool for the job". I don't do a lot with clips - perhaps that's the best one out there for what you're doing. Did you place a washer behind the clip to help prevent scratching of the leather? If so, another nice touch!

I would suggest confirming the tension is set properly (according to the manual as a starting point), and of course the machine is threaded properly. I believe the procedure was to loosen the primary and secondary tension nuts all the way, then from the point the nuts make first contact with the springs, the secondary should be turned two full turns, and the primary should be turned 1 1/2 turns. Once you've done that, loosen the locking nut on the bobbin case, then adjust the bobbin tension until your thread knot is buried in the leather, then lock the bobbin case screw. Once you've sewn with it a while and are comfortable with how it's stitching, take a permanent marker and draw a line so you can visually tell if the nuts have moved - because they will if you accidentally bump them while threading the machine.... Now, you may already know all of that. The next thing I'd suggest is to avoid using too much pressure on the presser foot so it doesn't mark up the leather. But, by doing this, you need to deliberately push the leather into the machine as you stitch. Not hard, but just enough to make sure it doesn't slip backwards as you push the lever forward, pulling tension on the thread (causing the leather to slip back towards you). As a side note, make sure the thread take-up lever doesn't drop immediately after you start to pull the hand crank back towards you. If it drops, it'll cause a loop in the thread and mess up your stitching. You simply need to tighten slightly the "HS 98-3" bolt that secures the take-up lever. Nothing wrong with winding a bobbin with a drill, just make sure you don't wind it too tight, and make sure you zig-zag the thread on the bobbin like an open-face fishing reel would do. The Boss is a great machine, and capable of producing just as nice a stitch as the powered machines - it's a fantastic machine for holsters. But, it's only a needle feed, so it does have limitations that you'll need practice to overcome.

http://www.bluegunstore.com/?page_id=10&slug=product_info.php&products_id=302

About all you can do is tighten the tension, but I'd avoid going too tight with the tension with the Boss being that it's hand powered. You definitely don't want to groove the back side. You can also dampen the leather after it's sewn, then hammer the stitching flat. Machine stitching will never look as nice as hand stitching - no real way around it. Speed vs. appearance. I used the stirrup plate exclusively on mine, though I filed the top flat so it wasn't rounded. It gave me a little more clearance on the back side for my Avenger style holsters so the base plate didn't scuff up the leather so much.

Very nice Jacob - photos look great! I need to build one as well - my first attempt was way too big, so I never want to mess with it - too much trouble to setup. I downloaded one of your images and looked at the camera settings. It says you had an ISO of 800, and an f-stop of f/4. Since you're shooting from a tripod, give manual mode a try. I suggest you lower the ISO to as low as your camera will go, which I believe is 100 for the 550d. Increase your aperture (f-stop) to something like f/8 or f/11 so the entire subject object will be in focus. Then, adjust your shutter length to whatever is required to achieve the desired brightness level (so you don't have to brighten the image in Gimp). Lastly, in case you're not, enable the timer setting so you'll minimize camera shake when you depress the shutter button - unless you're shooting with a remote. Hope this helps!

I ordered them from www.bluegunstore.com. He sells them in varying quantities. From the menu on the left, click "Maker Supplies". They're listed towards the bottom of the first results page.

I did a couple mock ups along the way of various pieces, including the holster that I built first out of cow hide to test the pattern - though I didn't make the snap straps in the mock up phase or I'd probably cought the problem with mounting them too high.. Fortunately I'd built a pancake for this revolver so I had a good starting point for the pattern, but it definitely took more time than it was really worth considering I have no interest in making another like this. But, it was still a good learning experience.

No real reason, aside from I haven't made very many IWB holsters and I never really think/remember to embed them between the layers. And probably a good thing too with this particular holster, because looking back at the photos, my needle would have struck the t-nut, and the holster would have been ruined since the leading wing was too narrow to assemble & sew with the t-nut embedded. I could obviously revise the pattern for future holsters having now seen that mistake in the pattern. But, I think this particular pattern is only a one-off - I'll probably never make one like this again.

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I really appreciate it. I sent photos of the holster to my customer and he seemed happy with it! Wohoo!

Here's a holster I just shipped out this morning to a customer. I almost turned down the order, but eventually caved and took on the build after endless emails and begging... It's not perfect, but I think it's pretty close to what the customer was after. Feedback is definitely appreciated! What do I mean by "too many firsts"? It was my first time to make a cross-draw holster (negative 25 degree cant at the request of the customer), first time using horse hide, and consequently my first time tooling horse hide,, first retention strap, first time doing this belt snap strap method, first time using rivets and a reinforcement piece and while not my first, I almost never make holsters for revolvers.... This particular holster is for a S&W revolver - the customer sent me dimensions and asked me to leave 1/2" of my Ruger's barrel exposed. If I had it to do over again, the only thing I'd change is to mount the snap straps about 1/4" lower so there is more room under the grip. I was trying to get the revolver as low as possible for stability-sake, but didn't account for the thickness of the snap strap folds and simply placed them too high. In reality, the straps probably should be replaced with Kydex for a thinner profile. I'll leave that up to the customer to decide. Oh yeah, I also should have brought the tooling down a bit on the back so it didn't collide with the reinforcement piece of steel. It's hard to get much depth to the tooling in horse hide.

I agree Troy - Steve has been great to work with, and is always very helpful. Too cool that you got to pick the color! Regarding the differences between the various manufacturers - I agree with Troy. The outsides may look the same, but when you start looking at the quality of the internals, you can start telling differences between the makers. I remember seeing a close-up of one particular internal part (from another brand of 441 clone) on YouTube that another owner needed to clean up to make the machine function better. I was having a similar issue with my machine. The other guy's machine needed some file work to clean up the metal part, as well as an adjustment - mine simply needed the adjustment because the steel piece was nicer from the start. I have very little knowledge about the machines themselves, but I don't regret the purchase one bit - I love my Class 4!

I use Lexol, but was recently walking around dusting the house with a can of Pledge. I started reading the label and noticed it said it could be used on leather... Worked fine for me! FYI - the couch was advertised as "Italian Leather" when we bought it from Dillards 11 years ago. I tested it first on some little vegetable tanned leather decorative cows I made from a Tandy pattern a couple years back with no damage to the color or leather, so I tried it on the couch.

I've been trying to track down my original photos of my punches prior to them being sharpened for the first time, but I can't find them. I'll try to keep looking and post them when I find them.

I purchased two slot punches - one was 5/16" x 1 9/16" and the other was 5/16" x 1 13/16" - both had handles attached. I just checked their site and if memory serves, I paid around $65 each for them back then - they seem to be much cheaper now. Regarding the ejection of the punched pieces - both of my above mentioned punches have the same problem - they get clogged up on the shoulder and weld splatter inside the punch. I can usually keep punching though and they'll eventually push through, but that's going to be totally random unless it's intentionally ground away in the finishing process.

I bought a pair of punches from a well known custom die maker in Texas (hint, hint) a couple/few years ago and experienced the same thing. The edge had severe grinding marks and wasn't polished at all. The edge was almost blunt - not at all what I'd call an acceptable level of sharpness. I tried to sharpen them myself, but too much material needed to be removed so I finally contacted the maker, explained what I'd done and asked them how much they'd charge to fix what I'd done (was was still miles better than what they originally sent me) and properly sharpen them. The lady on the phone basically told me I ruined them by trying to sharpen them myself. Wrong answer! Another user on this board offered to sharpen them for me and they worked much better after that. I've been using them since then without a problem. By comparison, I've bought a few punches from Weaver - their "Master" tools. They've been great, and came extremely sharp with a mirror polish. I didn't have to sharpen them at all when I received them - ready to go right out of the box, as they should be.