Dwight

A couple of months back . . . had a fellow need a new belt . . . his older one had seen better days. Simple project . . . grabbed a Script font from MSWord . . . wrote his name out . . . on the computer . . . did a screen shot . . . turned it into a *.jpg . . . picked it up with Laser GRBL . . . plotted in on my little 50 dollar laser engraver . . . did a "guesstament" as to the settings . . . darned if it didn't turn out just hunky dory. Laid his belt onto my engraver's table . . . did a couple of test runs for position . . . turned my little laser loose . . . and about 6 or 8 minutes later . . . took the finished project off the table . . . wiped it down with a paper towel . . . dyed and finished the belt. He was happier than a broke out jailbird . . . May God bless, Dwight

If you saw the right front pocket of most of my work britches . . . you would not wonder why I don't have one. May God bless, Dwight

I like the patch idea . . . but I'd rather just make the holster out of two pieces of 6/7 leather and be done with it. It'll make a really good sturdy holster . . . it'll outlive your friend unless he is come kind of hard on holsters . . . I've made some ungodly number like that . . . only ever had one that would not pass my quality control . . . I did some experimentation on it for rigidity . . . and you could probably get arrested for hitting someone in the head with this one . . . it would knock him out . . . leave a concussion . . . and he might bleed to death from it. May God bless, Dwight

It ain't HO . . . but I've never had much more than a small quibble about the sides I've purchased thru Tandy. Granted . . . I don't order them on line . . . I go in . . . start pulling and inspecting sides with my dial caliper and my two good eyes. It has taken a good half hour in the past . . . but that side of leather I walk out with tucked under my arm . . . it does the job and then some. May God bless, Dwight

1: don't use glue . . . use contact cement . . . put it on with a plumber's brush . . . (cheap metal handled / size of a pencil / buy at Harbor Freight in a bag) 2: it goes on both surfaces that are to be put together . . . let it get 95% dry . . . then put them together. 3: a minimum amount of care will keep it off where you don't want it. May God bless, Dwight

No . . . you absolutely DO cement the lining to the kydex . . . just don't glue the outside holster cover to the kydex. May God bless, Dwight

No . . . you mold it to the weapon . . . and if you buy it from Tandy . . . get their thicker batch. There should be a shiny side and a dull side. The dull side goes inside like it would lay on and touch the gun . . . the shiny side faces out. Put a row or two of masking tape over the top of the weapon . . . gets rid of the need for a sight channel . . . take it up to just before it gets to the rear sight (that's how I do it) . . . if you've got a piece of thin suede . . . wrap the gun it it . . . it helps with the spacing. Put the grip in a leather padded vice and lay the kydex piece on top of the gun . . . heat that center piece until each side falls down . . . pull the edges together and rub the top with a wet wash cloth . . . it will set the kydex from any bending right now. Lay the gun on one side . . . heat the top side of it . . . and wearing a pair of leather gloves . . . mold the kydex to the weapon . . . over top of the suede. Again . . . once you get it molded good . . . hit it with the wash cloth to stop it from moving. Flip it over . . . do the above steps again on the other side. BE CAREFUL WITH MAGAZINE DISCONNECTS . . . and other levers / buttons / or whatevers . . . don't get them involved deeply in the molding process. Then comes the fun part . . . with the kydex all molded . . . nice and cold . . . put the bottom of it in that leather padded vice . . . so the top of the mold where the sight track of the gun is . . . that part is up on top . . . and level. You should notice a definite "spring" sensation as you try to close the bottoms of the pieces together . . . and what you will do now . . . is reverse the spring. As it is now . . . it will want to spring apart when you squeeze the bottoms together. What you do is apply just enough heat across the top to relax that springiness. Hit it with the wash cloth . . . and when you take it out of the vice . . . the bottoms will want to touch or come within 1/16 of an inch in doing so. When you pull the bottoms apart . . . it will want to spring back together. Trim the kydex only enough to get it inside the leather stitching. Double check the springiness . . . you may have trimmed enough off the edges that you may want to repeat that last heat / mold you did. You then mold the inside . . . leather lining of your holster . . . I like 5/6 oz for this job. Mold the leather as tight to the weapon as you can . . . maintain a sight track . . . be mindful of those buttons and levers on the side of it . . . BE CAREFUL WITH MAGAZINE DISCONNECTS . . . STEER CLEAR OF THEM. I have actually cut totally around them for 1911's . . . just a hole there where the leather and kydex used to be. Here you check and see if you have a decent grip on the gun using the kydex as the spring. It has to at least keep the gun in the leather and kydex if you hold it so the gun conceivably could fall down and out. CONTACT CEMENT THE KYDEX TO THE INNER LINING. Next . . . finish the holster with the outside layer of leather . . . belt loops . . . snaps . . . whatever . . . and sew her up. If you use any glue or contact cement . . . steer clear of the kydex. Wet the holster once it is finished the construction . . . and put it in a hot box to dry . . . 140 degrees F . . . Doing that twice will harden up the whole process like you would not believe. Be careful not to go over 140. You now should have a fairly springy holster. May God bless, Dwight

Kydex . . . properly molded with a hair dryer . . . can double for the steel spring . . . You can sew it into the holster . . . works great . . . my derringer holsters use it quite effectively (and I hate to make em) May God bless, Dwight

Thanks for the video . . . cool presentation May God bless, Dwight

Handstitched ^^^^^ gave you the best advice. Talk to people . . . you either have to become a good salesman . . . or you need to wear your wares. Show off a gorgeous belt . . . wallet . . . maybe a hatband . . . key fob . . . vest . . . AND . . . carry a pocket full of business cards . . . When you strike up a conversation with a new person . . . make sure you let them know that their new belt of wallet . . . etc . . . does not have to come from China or Pakistan. Create a website . . . get on facebook . . . and put some stuff on Etsy or Facebook marketplace. Get your face and examples of your wares in front of people is how it starts. And don't be discouraged if it takes 2 years to get the "groove" you wanted. Took me several different tries . . . and I'm still adding newer products. May God bless, Dwight

There are some still sold by Lowes Lumber . . . that's where I get my replacements. Plus if you can buy a 40 yr old string of the bigger christmas tree bulbs . . . I had one that was so hot that it burnt the linoleum on my living room floor. May God bless, Dwight

My box is about 16 x 16 and 48 tall. I bought 100 watt incandesent bulbs . . . 5 of em sitting on the bottom . . . gives me a 140 deg box up at the top. Never had any problems with that setup May God bless, Dwight

If you do many belts . . . like me . . . you'll find you are changing that 30 inch rascal all too often. I still use both of the two I've got . . . but just as soon as I can get some of the junk work out of my hair . . . I'm going for a 2 x 72 inch knife grinder . . . with a bit less than 5 times the belt surface . . . I'm looking to get 5 times the use out of it . . . plus the 2 inches wide will do better than the 1 inch I'm now using. But I do like your rig . . . and if I did any real serious wood working . . . I'd be very much interested in one of those May God bless, Dwight

Actually I should add a couple of "tips" to help with holsters . . . especially western / cowboy types. 1: Once the contact cement is applied . . . I like doing the liner first . . . allow the whole shebang to "almost" dry to a DRY state. The piece that makes the outside of holster and the inside of the belt flap is my dryness tester. I let all of it dry until this piece is still just a tad bit still sticky. It won't glob off on your finger . . . but you can still feel a tiny little bit of sticky there. That will allow you to take it apart if something didn't quite line up right. AND . . . yes . . . that's the voice of experience talking. 2: Go to a hardware store . . . buy a hammer handle for a typical old style 16 oz carpenter's hammer. Cut the end off of it where it would go thru the hammer head . . . sand it real smooth . . . and put some poly finish on it. You will use this tool once the two pieces are put together . . . force it down thru the holster . . . keeping the stitch edges together. It opens that sight track very well and will give you room for the ejection handle as well. Latigo Smith wrote: "Alrighty, it sounds like pre-bending is the way to go. Do you find that simply applying pressure with your hands when cementing the layers results in a strong enough bond? This was the only reason I had planned on gluing flat, that I have more confidence in the hold of the contact cement when it's had a little time with some weight applied to it while curing. You use the gun to wet mold the individual layers to the correct curve radius before glue up? That sounds like an excellent way of doing it. Do you leave the gun in the leather while it's drying like when doing final molding or do you just mold it to the proper curve, take the gun out and let it dry? " Yes . . . hand pressure is usually enough . . . have never had a problem with it. And actually . . . once it is sewn . . . it ain't gonna go no where. I only use the gun for wet molding the interior liner . . . everything else is molded over top the liner piece. The gun is in a plastic bag while doing that bit of molding . . . and once I have that mold (about 3 minutes) the gun is not needed in the rest of the process. Have fun . . . may God bless, Dwight

I'd wear it proudly if I were a lady May God bless, Dwight