Dwight

I've only made one set of armor, . . . imitating the Roman stuff around the time of Jesus, . . . this is how I did the shoulders, . . . and it worked real good. May God bless, Dwight

I have no idea what is in the plastic wrap, . . . but the two small tan pieces look like generic bees wax to me. Bees wax makes a beautiful edge burnishing material. May God bless, Dwight

Denster, . . . he said it. May God bless, Dwight

Well, . . . honestly, I have stitched first, . . . sanded and beveled, . . . burnished. BUT, . . . by getting the outside edges done first, . . . it gives you a really good edge from which to gouge your stitch line (which I almost always do, . . . ) and then your stitches will naturally be the proper distance from the edge with no trouble. I have occasionally ran into a bad piece, . . . wrinkle, . . . whatever in sanding the edge, . . . and had to go deeper than I planned from my original edge. Since I had not stitched, . . . I'm the only one who knew. If I had stitched first, . . . uhhh, . . . it would have been ugly. My reasoning isn't perfect, . . . but it works to save me time and leather, . . . May God bless, Dwight

Best thing I can suggest, . . . buy a bag of rivets, . . . punch holes in some scrap leather, . . . spend an evening practicing. Honestly, . . . my first copper rivets didn't belong on a mule strap for a coal mine, . . . but it did hold. Once you learn the ball peen thing, . . . you need a SMALL ball peen for this, . . . it gets better. I kinda go around the edge, . . . and there will be a little "point" left in the middle when I get done, . . . that's when I get the mushroom tool. It also helps if you drive the washer down real firm. If you don't the copper rivet can bend, . . . lean over, . . . all sorts of nasty stuff. ALSO, . . . I do my rivets on a 12 x 12 x 1/4 inch steel plate on my work bench. Having that "unmoveable" object under the rivet makes a world of difference. Fact is, . . . I won't even start one if I don't have something like that as a anvil. Those little Tandy anvils aren't good for this, . . . IMHO. Truly, though, . . . practice it a bit, . . . the price of a full bag of rivets is a whole lot cheaper than ruining a really nice project. May God bless, Dwight

Invasion, . . . I am not sure how you are doing your project, . . . but there are a couple of things you need to pick up on. 1. Most, . . . indeed the MAJOR majority of all leather projects should be cemented or glued together before they are stitched. You did not mention this. 2. You cannot successfully cement or glue these pieces together until the dye is fully 100% dry. 3. Many people put stuff together without glue or cement, and most of their stuff can be found in the bargain bin at Goodwill or on the free table at the local flea market. 4. You also need to bevel and clean up the edges before you stitch the thing together, . . . and again, that is made possible only by cementing or glueing, . . . which must wait until the dye is dry. On a personal level, that is one of the reasons I don't dye most of the time until the project is completely assembled. Anyway, . . . welcome to the forum, . . . have fun, . . . don't take leatherwork seriously, . . . keep it fun, even if you are working at it. May God bless, Dwight

A properly measured belt will put the buckle's tooth into the center hole of the 5 or 7 holes in the belt (you can look on my belt page of my website for proper measuring for a belt). It doesn't make any difference if it is a ranger belt, . . . guard belt, . . . rassler's trophy belt, . . . that is still the proper way to meaure for a belt. Most jeans have a loop dead center of the back, . . . 180 degrees opposite the center of the buckle. When I put a name on a belt, . . . I start at that center space, . . . and work to my left, . . . one letter at at time, . . . backwards for the first name. If they want their last name, . . . leave space for the loop, . . . put the last name on one letter at a time, . . . going forwards in the name. Just the way I do it, . . . nothing set in concrete says it has to be done that way. May God bless, Dwight

Cyberthrasher beat me to my rule, . . . overnight. May God bless, Dwight

Awesome is the word that comes to my mind. You have talent and patience, my friend, . . . consider yourself blessed. May God bless, Dwight

Hey, Cogs, . . . I've never been accused of being a guitar player, . . . but I can beat one into submission in a quick G, C, D7th order. Have him simply undo his strap, . . . turn it 180 degrees clockwise, . . . re-attach and the strap should be flat. May God bless, Dwight

I would hazard a guess that it is done with a clicker and dies. It is literally a bent piece of steel, sharpened on the down edge, arranged to be a closed loop that IS the shape of your object. If you can think of cutting biscuits with a milk glass, . . . it is the same concept, . . . except it uses very sharp steel made into a design, . . . and either an air powered or hydraulic powered press. They're not exactly inexpensive either. The words: Norfolk, Captain, Firefighter, Fire/Rescue, . . . those also could have been done with a pantograph engraver, . . . another expensive little toy. If I were going to attempt to do that type of work, . . . my first choice would be to go to someone like Weaver Leather, . . . or maybe Tippmann Company (makes the Tippmann Boss sewing machine), . . . and ask them about clickers and dies. At the same time take a look at this youtube, . . . while he is doing this in wood, . . . the same concept can be adapted to leather: In the leather work, . . . the letters would be actually left standing, . . . the background would be eliminated by the router cutting blade. I've done a little work with a router on leather, . . . it does and awesome job if your tool is really sharp. May God bless, Dwight

If you want to, mail me one that is complete, . . . except for the rivets, . . . and a couple of extra barrettes, . . . at least one of em will get whacked the wrong way. I'll PM you the address. May God bless, Dwight

My apologies, Montana, . . . I missed the etsy connection. From the looks of the clip, . . . I'd bet that a little jig could be made like this drawing, . . . bottom is 1/4 inch steel plate, . . . maybe 4 inches square, . . . the two supports would have to be 3/8 or 1/2 inch steel, . . . and they would be as long as the plate is wide. You could then lay several side by side, . . . rivets pointing up, . . . cap em and clinch em. The bottom would not be rounded, but that does not make any difference if you are using capped rivets. In the drawing, the brown is your leather, . . . two curved black lines are the barrete, . . . the blue is all the jig to hold it. We used to make things like this all the time in the factory where I worked. Do you have someone who could make that for you? May God bless, Dwight

Keplerts, . . . send an email to Will, . . . he usually answers fairly quickly. He and I have kicked around a couple of topics, and I've found him to be most helpful. Rory, . . . explain how you are sewing that the thread gets frayed, . . . I used to have that problem, . . . but one little change solved it when I was doing more than my share of hand stitching. May God bless, Dwight

Can you show us a picture of the other side? It may take a special shaped tool, . . . need to see what we are up against. I've never really found a pair of pliers I would trust to set a rivet, . . . just cannot get enough force onto the jaws. May God bless, Dwight

Good looking saddle, . . . looks like a lot of effort went into that one. Oldtimer beat me to my question, though. May God bless, Dwight

Some people swear by a coat of neatsfoot oil before the final finish. Some people swear AT a coat of neatsfoot oil before the final finish. I've done it both ways, . . . and I haven't lived long enough to see what the outcome will be in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. My decision is based on which stain I use. If it is an oil based stain, . . . I don't use the oil. If it is not oil based, . . . I "most generally" do give it a quick coat, on the hair side, one smooth pass with the paint brush, lightly dipped, . . . and leave it out to come back to the original color before doing anything else to it. In answer to your unasked question: yes, . . . too much oil can make the holster a throw away, . . . good for absolutely nothing. May God bless, Dwight

I just finished my first pair of chaps, . . . shotgun, . . . for a little 11 year old cowgirl. Her bigger sister had a pair someone had give her, . . . just used them for my pattern, . . . Learned a LOT !!! For the smile I got on her face when she put them on the first time, . . . I could have almost walked away without a check, . . . but I need to pay my bills. Can't see a lot of the details, . . . her mom wanted black on black (and I had a really beautiful piece of white buckskin), . . . but there they are. I have a whole folder, . . . maybe 50 pictures of chaps, . . . chinks, . . . etc. They are made just like the people who wear them, . . . all sorts of sizes, shapes, colors, and textures. May God bless, Dwight

That's a good looking rig you made there. I made one similar a while back, . . . it's traipsing somewhere out west now. I didn't like the way Will did the opening and closing of the belt, . . . so I changed it. The tongue that holds the buckle, . . . I used it to close the belt and keep it closed. I used two snaps on the back, . . . unsnap and pull it back through the slot, . . . dig out the cash, . . . re-snap and you're back "in the saddle" again. Either way it works out good, . . . mine was 5/6 oz rough out leather, . . . was made to imitate the rig the Duke wore in his last few movies. May God bless, Dwight

I make similar pouches to hold ammunition magazines, . . . riveted in the exact same way. First, . . . make a wooden insert that is 1/4 inch shy of the width of the pouch. Get a piece of flat stock steel 1/4 inch thick, . . . as wide as the pouch, . . . and the length is the same as the depth of the pouch. Put the wood in, . . . lay the steel on the wood, . . . set the pouch up on edge, . . . and hammer away. I always position the rivet so it is pointing out of the pouch, . . . and I usually give it one extra whack after setting it, . . . that flattens the inside, keeping items from catching on the rivets. Also, don't use a maul, . . . use a small ball peen, . . . it sets them better. You'll mushroom up the top of the setter, . . . but they come free in the big bags of rivets anyway from Tandy, . . . May God bless, Dwight

Looks good from this end, . . . Particle should be proud. May God bless, Dwight

Some day, . . . I am going to perfect my basket weave stamping. Probably right after I surf over Niagra Falls, . . . Good job, . . . my friend, . . . you have patience I only think about, . . . May God bless, Dwight

Leather is measured in ounces, . . . and those ounces translate each to 1/64th of inch. One full inch of 64 oz equals 25.4 mm. Breaking it down further, . . . 8 oz would be 1/8th of an inch or just a tad over 3 mm thick. Most of the leather sellers offer their leather in like a 7/8 oz or 6/7 oz, . . . which means it is not absolutely perfectly uniform from edge to edge, . . . some will be very close to 6 oz while the rest will be closer to 7 oz in the last example. If I made a suggestion, . . . it would be to go with a piece of 7/8 oz, . . . and order the piece called a "single shoulder" if your supplier offers it. Shoulder leather is good tough leather, makes good holsters, belts, cuffs, wrist bands, spur straps, . . . it usually tools nicely also. Back leather isn't usually as tough, . . . is softer, . . . belly leather is even worse. Good luck, . . . and welcome to the wonderful world of leathercraft. May God bless, Dwight

The main thing I saw missing was the sweat shield. There are too many rough edges, sharp corners, etc. on most semi-autos to not have a sweat sheild to protect the old body from rubbing and chafing. I'm not fat by anyone's standards, . . . but I have just enough of a "roll" that your holster would chafe my side, . . . Otherwise it looks good. May God bless, Dwight

Because it is two pieces of leather, . . . I stitch the outside edge of my holsters all the way around. The parts that don't become the folded together edge get stitched last. BUT, . . . I contact cement the pieces together, . . . I sand smooth the edge before stitching, . . . bevel both sides, . . . and stitch gouge both sides. It takes a bit of practice, . . . but it can be done, . . . and it protects the stitches a bit more. I then do whatever folding has to be done, . . . cement the edges after folding (also usually put in a welt for western holsters), . . . sand them smooth, . . . edge bevel, . . . stitch gouge both sides, . . . and sew. If I wander a bit on the backside out of the gouge (virtually never do) it is no big deal, . . . the rest of the stitches being protected is more important than whether I wandered 1/3 or 1/4 of the way out of the stitch groove. PLUS it is on the back side, . . . dyed, . . . finished, . . .and practically un-noticeable. Quite honestly, . . . if a customer did notice something like that and complained, . . . I'd hand him back his money, . . . . with a smile, . . . retrieve the leather goods, . . . and wish them a great day. Hand made leather goods will always have some sort of irregularity, flaw, mis-step, . . . that is what makes it personal and unique. May God bless, Dwight