Dwight

Tandy sells a "package", . . . big white envelope, . . . I disremember the author, . . . but you will be hard put to find anything better for starting out. It'll give you a good foundation, . . . getting your edge designs, . . . spacing, . . . notching, . . . all that needs to be laid out right or you might just as well hang em on with a pair of pliers and some bailing wire. Make a couple pairs of basic straps, . . . wear em for a day or a week, . . . figure out what you do and don't like about em, . . . then adapt the pattern to what you want. May God bless, Dwight

Did you thin it down any with water? I don't remember, . . . I think it is 60/40, bag kote/water, . . . but it works for me that way. I put it on with a 1 inch wide brush. May God bless, Dwight

My wife had an old beat up cake pan, about 10 by 14, 2 inches deep, . . . I used it once to do some brown leather, . . . got hooked, . . . almost never do it any other way now. I have a black pan, a brown pan, and a "spare" pan in case I want to do something other than them. I have a belt for a princess I have to do today, it will be pink. May God bless, Dwight

Google a company called Law Enforcement Targets, . . . in Minnesota (I think). When you get on their site, it is down in the bottom of the first page, in one of the columns on the right side, . . . under tools I think, . . . They have always come through for me, . . . price, service, delivery, . . . and if they don't have it, . . . they'll find it and drop ship it to you if you ask. I always go to them first, . . . and have never been disappointed. May God bless, Dwight

There are now two of us who make belts with 7 holes, . . . (that I know of, . . . lol). Just about every one else only does 5. Good job, . . . welcome to "belt land", . . . May God bless, Dwight

One of the easiest ways to decorate leather is with a common ordinary old wood burner wand. Just, . . . BE CAREFUL, . . . and TAKE YOUR TIME. Also cover up everything except the immediate area where you are working, . . . you drop that thing and you've got an added bonus to your design. May God bless, Dwight

Yep, . . . ^ ^ ^ he nailed it. May God bless, Dwight

Really a good looking rig, . . . good job. May God bless, Dwight

Tiara, . . . I'm sure you have a good logical reason for doing so, . . . but why so many coats of contact cement? One coat is all that is needed, . . . As far as "fuzz" is concerned, . . . if I can cut it off with my scissors, I do it, . . . sometimes lay my big ugly round knife down on it and drag it along, disconnecting what I can, . . . but unless the fuzz is big enough and ugly enough to make a lump, . . . the contact cement or the glue will grab it, and keep it in place. Take all said above with one more piece of understanding, . . . I've never worked with caiman, . . . a couple of cavemen, . . . but never caiman May God bless, Dwight

You can also use the iron like electrathon said, . . . to mark the holes, . . . put a very thin piece of cardboard under your piece, . . . and go through with your awl. Then when you turn your product over, . . . you only have a little hole where the tip of your awl came through, . . . you can then go back the other way with your awl and you holes will look really nice. THAT takes a bit of practice though, . . . knowing by feel, . . . "I got through", . . . and quitting that hole, . . . going to the next. You also want to remember that if you want your product to last a good long time, . . . . you don't just sew it, . . . you also glue the pieces together before you do any punching and sewing. May God bless, Dwight

When faced with your question, I too bought the Boss. Ben, there in Ft. Wayne has been fantastic at keeping me and my machine running, . . . and FWIW, . . . I only remember one other tool I've ever had that I was as overall satisfied with, . . . a Zippo lighter, back when I smoked. I do belts, . . . 10 to 12 minutes for a 45 inch belt, . . . sewn along both edges and around the tongue. Holsters take far less time. I made a little table out of some scrap plywood and a plastic cutting board, . . . 12 inches square, . . . helps me keep everything straight. I did not look at others, . . . so I cannot compare, . . . but I am very much satisfied with a sewing machine that will sew through 5 cemented layers of 8 oz leather, . . . and not balk. May God bless, Dwight

You may want to hold the stitching until after the molding. I've had dye run in water. Not so much with browns, . . . but when I get a black/white stitch order, . . . stitching is done just before the final, . . . final finish coat is put on. YMMV, . . . but that is how I do it. May God bless, Dwight

Anybody wants the copy, . . . ciminod@midohio.net is the email. I can't send through here, . . . too big. May God bless, Dwight

Hey, Cathy, . . . fellow buckeye here, . . . near the Marion area. I'm a holster, belt, scabbard, sheath, gun bag guy, . . . quit wallets after both of the first two were super successes. Ain't pushing that luck. Anyway, . . . welcome, . . . May God bless, Dwight

Mike, one of the "niceties" of vegetable tanned leather is that you can wet it, form it, and after it dries, . . . you can "work it" so to speak to loosen it up. Think about those round toed shoes us old timers used to wear. When we pulled em out of the box, they were stiff and if you weren't careful, you could wind up with blisters all over your feet. Once we wore them for a couple of days, . . . creases formed where our toes bent, . . . loosening up the leather. The same applies to any leather that has been water formed, . . . so don't worry too much about that. Make your shoes, . . . break em in later. May God bless, Dwight

Welcome to the forum, . . . you did some pretty good work there, . . . and yeah, . . . hand sewing a belt is, . . . uhhh, . . . well, . . . tough. I tell all my students that hands are for hamburgers, . . . sewing machines are for sewing leather. But anyway, . . . again good job, . . . just a couple critiques for you: I couldn't see where you burnished any of the edges. That is the first thing that separates the leather choppers from craftspeople, . . . the edges are an important part of your product, . . . it is to holsters what chrome trim is to an automobile. Secondly, . . . I took your pic and "modified" it a bit. If you make the top of your holster come across straight (see red line) or even arched up a bit, . . . it will make re-holstering in an IWB much easier. As it is, you will find it probably will get floppy, . . . and one day the muzzle will push the front side of the holster down and double it over. Adding a re-inforcement piece to the front also goes a long way toward keeping that from happening, . . . plus it keeps the front of the holster from collapsing. Many holster makers (I'm not one of them), and some very well known ones too, . . . put a piece of metal between the holster and the re-inforcement, again to keep the holster mouth open in case you have to do a one hand re-holster and cannot turn around and put eyeballs on the holster. I don't show anyone my first few attempts, . . . yours are far, far better, . . . keep up the good work. May God bless, Dwight

It would probably be easier to give you the engineering formula for getting 90 miles per gallon out of a 454 Chevy engine, . . . but we'll try anyway. If the choc brown is the finished color you want, . . . buy it, . . . also buy a quart of thinner. Take a glass jar, . . . add a specifically measured (liquid measure) amount of thinner to the jar, . . . then add 1/10 of that amount of choc brown. Try that on a scrap piece. If it is too light after it dries, . . . give it a second coat. If after a couple of coats, . . . it isn't dark enough, . . . throw that scrap piece away, . . . add enough dye to get about a 33% solution, . . . try that. Seriously, it sounds like I'm jerking your chain, . . . but I worked for 3 decades in the automotive refinish paint business, . . . color making, color matching, color imitating is all a trial and error business. Leather color is no exception. May God bless, Dwight

I'd stay away from tractor places, and auto parts, . . . most of their belts will be 4L or 1/2 in wide. What is the width at the top of your pulley? That tells you the width you need for your belt. Getting the length will be tricky, . . . it always is. If you have a mom & pop hardware store nearby, . . . that is where I would go. May God bless, Dwight

To me, . . . those both defeat the purpose of the Ipad, . . . to get disconnected from pen and paper, trash cans, envelopes, filing cases, erasers, staplers, rulers, protractors, . . . and all that other junk that resides upon, in, near, or alongside a desk. There is virtually nothing the pen and pad bring to the table other than a document that needs to be photographed by the Ipad, . . . stored, . . . and the paper tossed. YMMV, . . . but that is WHY I have one, . . . and, yes, . . . I love the freedom. May God bless, Dwight

I did this one for a guy who was involved in some kind of cowboy action shooting, . . . It was a fun diversion, . . . not sure I'd want to do a steady diet of them though. May God bless, Dwight

Sixer: http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=26305&hl="hobby%20lobby"#entry165483 When you go there, . . . they have two tools, . . . this is the snap tool, . . . it is FABULOUS, and I'm trying not to shout. They also sell another similar tool that should be hanging pretty near this one, . . . looks a lot like it, . . . about the same price, . . . it does eyelets, smaller snaps, . . . For more info on this whole subject, . . . hit the advanced search button up in the right hand corner, . . . in the search window put "Hobby Lobby" (make sure you use the quotes), . . . down in the author, . . . put Dwight. There have been several threads on this and similar subjects. My tool works equally well on pull the dots and regular line 24. May God bless, Dwight

Mike, . . . if you have ever worked around metal or plastic casting, . . . you know they use a two piece mold, . . . one for the front, . . . one for the back, . . . I use that process for making the "front" for my "Fanceee" molded magazine carriers. Most of my customers are easily pleased with the ones I sew, . . . but occasionally I get one who wants something with a bit more finesse, . . . hence the molded mag carrier. In the picture you see both pieces, . . . I simply lay a flat piece of 6/7 vegetable tanned leather over the female mold, . . . force the two pieces together, . . . clamp with a couple of carpenter clamps, usually overnight, . . . pull it apart, . . . voila, . . . molded leather. Before I put that leather in the mold though, . . . it is absolutely, positively, surely, and completely SOAKED through with warm (not over 130 deg F). You should probably only need the inside mold if you are doing something generally round and not too complicated, . . . stretch it over the mold, . . . tack it down until it dries, . . . trim it and go for it. May God bless, Dwight

Looks really good to me. May God bless, Dwight

Of course you would forgive me if I said all you had to do was make a square one and sand off the corners, . . . but I won't say that. I've never gotten an order for one of those, . . . but if I did, . . . I would treat it the same way I treat handles like that, . . . I simply contact cement a piece of rope in the pre-rolled leather, . . . and I use a shoelace stitch to sew it all together. The thing that makes it fairly easy, . . . I remove the thread from my Boss, . . . use it to punch and space the holes for the stitching, . . . works every time. Honestly, if I had to awl-n-stitch them, . . . uhhh, . . . probably wouldn't happen. May God bless, Dwight

As I worked for several decades for a refinish paint mfg., I learned early on that several light coats of finish will almost always be better than fewer heavy coats. The same rationale works (for me) wiith resolene. I do not like the finish I get with the full strength stuff, . . . 50/50 is easy for me to control, . . . and it has just about a 100% satisfaction rate. It's very seldom that I look at it and just am not satisfied. May God bless, Dwight