Dwight

Making a gunbelt to carry a full size 1911, . . . Colt or Smith .357 or some similar firearm, . . . will only be successful if it is at least 12 to 14 oz thick. Making a 7 oz with a 3 oz liner will most likely result in an unhappy customer in about 4 months when the belt starts rolling over at the top and developing a curl in the back that would make Robin Hood's bow envious. The best ones I have found come out right at .210 or shortly thereabouts thick. The outside piece is cut roughly 10 inches longer than the liner, . . . folded over to accept the buckle, . . . and chicago screwed into position. Both layers are contact cemented together, . . . edges sanded, . . . beveled, . . . stitch gouged on both sides, . . . and stitched the full length and around the end of the tongue. I do not skive anything as I try my best to use two pieces of leather from the same hide, . . . side by side if it can be worked out. When you dye the belt, . . . bend the buckle end over while it is still wet, . . . and form that end. Also while it is still wet, . . . do a rough "bending" of the belt to begin to develop the curve it will need to go around it's owner. I do it all with a dip dye process and latex gloves. Trim the outside piece to perfectly match the glued together inside piece location. I actually use a home made punch on both pieces, . . . which forces them to match. Stitch, dye, and finish, . . . you'll have a belt you or your customer will be proud to wear and use for years to come. May God bless, Dwight

You might want to re-think your post, Glendon, . . . I've seen a lot of big cows, . . . but never one that a 10 foot long side could come from. May God bless, Dwight

I use the dip dye process for my holsters, knife sheaths, belts, mag carriers, phone holders, billfolds, etc. I use 2 each, 9 inch by 14 inch by 2 inch deep, . . . cake pans. One is for browns, . . . the other is for black. I pour basically a quart of dye into the pan, . . . and roll it all around down in the pan until I know it has all been covered. Probably no part of the item stays in the pan for more than 5 or 6 seconds. Belt are the easiest, . . . I just start the buckle end through and snake it along in the pan until it is all dyed. One caution, . . . if you are doing big pieces, . . . don't hang them right away. I did a batch of belts a couple of years ago, . . . not thinking, I just pulled them out of the dye, . . . up on the hangers. WRONG !!!!! The blacks and dark browns weren't that much affected, . . . but there were 2 or 3 shades of difference in color in the lighter browns. The dye gravitated to the "down" end, . . . making that end much darker than the other end. I was able to salvage them, . . . but now I just lay them on edge for the first hour of drying time. May God bless, Dwight

Actually, . . . Elmers white glue will do what you want. Or, Weldwood yellow wood glue, . . . put it on the leather with a small paint brush, . . . put the belt down on the canvas, . . . you should be good to go. I would find a piece of stiff foam rubber if I could, . . . and lay it over the glued belts, . . . leave it for 10 to 14 hours, . . . remove it and the belts & canvas should be one piece. Depending on the thickness of the belts, . . . you will about 80% chance, . . . be out of luck on the sewing machine, . . . unless you want to spend some serious money. One think you can try, . . . if you have a large JoAnn's store near by, . . . the big ones have people demo'ing the machines. You might take a sample in there, . . . tell them what you need. I actually have an old singer, . . . and I use carpet thread in it, . . . I can sew most garment leather with it, . . . May God bless, Dwight

You heard right, . . . belly leather is good for buying, . . . practicing, . . . and pitching, . . . and not much else (IMHO). Back and side leather is good for belts, purses, bags, etc, . . . just remember that the closer you get to the belly, . . . the less quality it is. Rump and shoulder leather make good belts, holsters, etc . . . . stuff that needs to be formed, and keep it's shape. I pretty much use only double shoulders in my holster / sheath / belt work. May God bless, Dwight

If you first make a wooden mold, . . . you can literally press out the fronts in 5/6 leather, . . . let them fully dry, . . . trim them so you have enough to sew them, . . . contact cement them to the back, . . . and VOILA, . . . you have it. I did not "give up" on making a mold that does two of them out of one piece of leather, . . . but after enough of the failures, . . . I said to heck with it, . . . now I just make the singles, . . . and if anyone wants 2 or 3 or whatever, . . . I can just gang them up on the back piece, side by side. Mine are done quick and dirty, . . . sew center seam, . . . bottom seam, . . . left & right edges, . . . soak, . . . hammer the wooden fake mags into the wet leather, . . . let dry, . . . remove the wooden fake mags, . . . stain and finish. They are not as pretty as the molded ones, . . . but they work well, . . . and so far, only one customer had a problem, . . . we tried snapping the back on, . . . it kept catching on things and unsnapping, . . . not good. May God bless, Dwight

If you are referring to this particular armor, . . . archer's would have to leave off the shoulder pieces, . . . or at least cut them down some. Looking at your deadline, . . . if it were me, . . . I'd make a front piece, . . . back piece, . . . and the belt to hold it all together. If you did it out of 10 oz leather (my suggestion) you could pretty much tool all the designs in rather than making the separate pieces. A little antiquing, . . . creative dye work, . . . it should look good. Make it out of veg tan leather, . . . make a "dummy" out of old shirts, . . . boards, . . . what have you to resemble your bodily makeup and shape, . . . soak it wet, . . . mold it to shape with your hands, . . . be sure to "flare" out all openings so it doesn't chafe and eat you up. Once it is shaped pretty good and dried, . . . lightlydampen the top layer of the leather, . . . and you can tool in the details. Looks like a fun project, . . . I'd offer to come help if you'ld pay my way to the Gold Coast, . . . we could sit on the beach and tool leather Here in the states, . . . you are probably looking at 120 dollars worth of leather, . . . +/-, . . . a good razor knife, . . . swivel knife, . . . mallet, . . . a rough backgrounder, . . . a couple of bevelers, . . . and two or three full days of work adding the designs to the front plate. I'd attach a robe to cover the back, . . . you could then leave it plain. The belt, buckle, everything can be made of leather, . . . proper dying and/or painting and it will pass inspection for what you are doing. May God bless, Dwight May God bless, Dwight

It depends on the armor you want to make. Reply with the time frame, . . . description, . . . type, . . . etc you want. St8line showed one type of Roman armor, . . . My armor for my alter ego: Centurion Salvatorus Antonio, of the 6th Legion, Centurion of Capernaum, was far easier than the other two examples. The orange picture is the really tough one to do, . . . the pinkish looking one is mostly sewing, and is done with thicker garment leather, . . . mine is really thick and somewhat heavy, . . . but was the easiest of all to do in my opinion. May God bless, Dwight

The first indicator I look at is the back side, . . . if there is a lot of strings and stringy stuff hanging off the hide, . . . forget it. What you want is a smooth, flat, clean back side that almost feels like very, very fine sandpaper. You don't want the one that feels like a piece of felt or worse yet, thick flannel. Final test for me is then the front side, . . . scars, fence marks, brands, cutouts, gouges, etc. A premium hide will have little of this, . . . the more it is blemished, the less valuable hide you have. If you have a Tandy store nearby, . . . go look at a cheap 7 oz side, . . . compare them to a "European tooling bend" piece. You'll see the difference. May God bless, Dwight

The cliff note version: 1 oz of leather thickness = 1/64th of an inch. IOW, . . . 8 oz = 1/8th of an inch,.........16 oz = 1/4 inch,........... Most leather is sold as a "range" of thicknesses. If you bought a piece of 7/8 oz leather, . . . it would range from 7 oz to 8 oz across the piece. May God bless, Dwight

THANK YOU, jlaudio, . . . I've got a couple of little cowgirl customers, . . . they will LOVE that little pink trick. I have used oxblood, mostly use it with black to make a black cherry that can really turn out beautiful. May God bless, Dwight

A couple of things you can try, . . . because I don't know your definition of "light". One simple and quick pass with a brush of neatsfoot oil darkens it somewhat. The same goes for one coat of Resolene, though the Resolene is only about half the oil. You can also lay it out in the bright sunlight, . . . that will darken it some. Personally, . . . I don't like doing browns, . . . it is really hard to match 1 for 1 unless the pieces all came from the same hide, . . . dyed the same day, . . . out of the same bucket, . . . etc. May God bless, Dwight

It's too bad you live clear over on the left coast, . . . we could start a class of 2 I've researched it back and forth, . . . looked at different models, makers, etc. and have determined one thing for sure, . . . there is no such thing as a "standard" chap, . . . although they all look somewhat alike. So far, I've made only one pair, . . . have orders for 3 more (but they're patient folks and don't demand much). I used the 13 year old sister's chaps as a pattern for the 11 year old, . . . and if all my customers become as happy as that 11 year old cowgirl, . . . I'll be OK. There are a couple of cd/dvd offers here on this site, just use the search function. There are also patterns available. This is the one pair I did. May God bless, Dwight

Matt said, "Don't be afraid to ask questions, make mistakes or accept constructive criticism. Above all have fun." The last 4 words are the most important of all. An inexpensive but yet very rewarding way you can build your confidence and skill is to take on a small project such as making little leather snap bracelets for a Sunday School class, . . . for some old folks in a local nursing home, . . . for the kids in your child's class. You will learn to cut, stamp, burnish, trim, how to add snaps correctly. Most important of all, . . . you will be able to see your progress from #1 to #20 if you do them one at a time. Finish them in different ways using coffee, tea, shoe polish, etc for stain, . . . sharpies to do background, . . . be creative. May God bless, Dwight

Just remember, . . . opinions are like dirty socks, . . . everyone has a couple and the all stink at one time or another. But since you asked, . . . I prefer flat, . . . more comfortable, . . . harder to make, . . . and does not have the retention of the molded back. May God bless, Dwight

A hole saw and a drill press is THE ticket to this problem. First cut a hole in a piece of 1 x 6 long enough to clamp on to the table of the press, . . . sandwich the leather between the top board with the hole, . . . and another board below, . . . remove the center drill bit from the hole saw, . . . cut to your hearts content. May God bless, Dwight

I started with a tool I was familiar with, . . . the old Stanley carpenter's razor knife. I have a circular knife that I seldom use, . . . as well as other tools, . . . razor knife works the best for me. May God bless, Dwight

I use Will Ghormley's basic technique for the ones I build. These aren't the best pictures, . . . but you'll at least get the general idea. Pics 1 and 2 show the front side and back side of both 44 and 22 caliber examples. FWIW, these are my 3 dimensional notes from me to me on how to do this. May God bless, Dwight

You could lessen the probability of looseness in the front if you did away with that extra half inch of leather between the straps and the sight channel of the weapon. Secondarily, . . . move more of the gun into the back piece. I make an IWB that is positively flat on the back, . . . super comfortable, . . . but if worn OWB, . . . it flops like a fresh caught catfish. It'll work and is designed for putting on quick and making a 7-11 dash as an OWB. Most pancakes that hold the gun in tight to the body, . . . have a lot of the gun molded into the back piece, . . . and I's suspecting from the looks of yours, . . . it doesn't. Anyway, . . . to the OP, . . . the craftsmanship is really good, . . . you make a fine looking product, . . . good luck with the "snapcake". May God bless, Dwight

I'm going to take a shot in the dark on the belt fraying and please don't take this personally, . . . but that just looks like cheap leather to me, . . . and possibly some ragged edges on the inside of the buckle you are using. I use Tandy leather "most" of the time, . . . double shoulders mostly, . . . and I just do not have that problem. Fact is, . . . my belt I've had for 5 or 6 years doesn't show that much fraying. The cracking problem I found was by using too thick a final coat of the finish. I use Resolene almost exclusively, . . . and have ony ran across that same problem a couple of times. I also do all the necessary bends in the leather while the Resolene is wet (buckle end of the belt blank for instance) and just as soon as it is dry to the touch, . . . I start breaking it in by doing some short bending. After you bend it wet, . . . you have to touch up the finish with your gun or brush, as it will leave fingerprints in the finish if you don't. For a rifle sling, . . . I would never put any thing but resolene on it, . . . 24 hours or so after a very, very light coat of neatsfoot oil on the hair side only. And I would never put gum trag on the flesh side of anything that comes in contact with the human flesh. It is abrasive and nasty on the skin. Others may advise differently. May God bless, Dwight

Borrowing from a current buzz phrase, . . . "think outside the pocket". This is my personal phone case, . . . something in the 5 years old bracket, . . . lotsa hard miles. I personally detest my pockets having a bunch of stuff in them, . . . as well as carrying anything in my hands. Maybe some sort of OCD I put snaps on the bottom so I don't have to take my belt on or off to remove the case or put it on. May God bless, Dwight

It is a simple reinforcement piece, . . . I make the body out of one piece of leather, . . . wrapped around the form, . . . coming together at 12 o'clock. The fortifying strip, or reinforcement, . . . again one piece of leather, wrapped aroung the form, . . . comes together at 6 o'clock, . . . so the seams are opposite each other. It makes it beefy, . . . but it also provides some pretty heavy duty protection for the phone. I'm pretty hard on all my tools and toys, . . . so I have to think about protection, etc. May God bless, Dwight

Good lookin' rig, . . . we both chose the same buckle pattern, . . . Yours is a bit more BBQ than mine though, . . . shows you have more patience May God bless, Dwight

Pretty hard to see in the pictures. I'd simply take those pics to a Tandy shop, . . . talk to the folks there, . . . if you have one close. My store would have an answer for you in a heartbeat, . . . they are really knowledgeable and helpful. May God bless, Dwight

The guaranteed fix: go out to your wood shop, . . . create a blank piece of pine the size of the phone, . . . wrap it in a plastic bag, . . . force it into the holder. Do not wet or steam it, . . . leave it dry, . . . wake up 12 hours later, . . . remove the pine, . . . try the phone. If it doesn't work the first time, . . . put 2 bags on it and do it again. By bags, . . . I'm not talking about those throw away things from Meijers or Walmart. Use a good quality freezer bag. We do this all the time with holsters and other items. By the way, . . . that is a good looking case. I make cases also, . . . but mine are more the heavy duty, . . . rough service types. They're usually 7/8 oz leather, . . . and have a fortifying strip around the top. Yours is much more the "genteel" variety. May God bless, Dwight