Dwight

My hands only fit hamburgers, hotdogs, books, and an occasional keyboard. I use a machine, . . . I use 346 size thread bought at a local Tandy Leather store, . . . others use slimmer thread down to 207 size. You get a 1 pound spool at Tandys for $25 +/-. What little hand sewing I do, . . . I use it also for it, . . . don't have any trouble at all. May God bless, Dwight

JS, . . . if you are talking Weaver Leather up in Berlin, Ohio (Amish country), . . . all you need is a vendor's license (if you are in Ohio) and a credit card. I have bought from them for years, . . . and my only big gripe is that if I order less than $100, . . . I get hit with a $15 shipping fee. Call em up, . . . tell em what you want, . . . they're some really easy people to deal with. I make every excuse in the book to get there any time I am near. May God bless, Dwight

If it was for me, . . . I'd make the top edge of the opening of the sheath conform to the angle of the handle. 1) I think it would look better 2) Because of the angle, . . . it would naturally lay against the top of the knife blade, . . . keeping the sharp edge from the welt and stitching. THAT could become an esthetically pleasing project, . . . not all do. May God bless, Dwight

With time, . . . a little practice, . . . a couple ruined projects, . . . and a small box full of wasted/broken/folded/spindled snaps, rivets, etc, . . . you can learn to use the tools sold at Tandy's. For line 24 snaps, . . . go to Hobby Lobby (they have it on line also, but you'll have to call their 800 number to order it as it is hard to find in that Pakistani web site of theirs), . . . they sell a blue handled snap setter for around $23.00, . . . it is head and shoulders above the Tandy tool. You'll find it on the wall where they sell their sewing tools (scissors, tapes, needles, rotary cutters, etc). The SKU number for that tool is 733006. Rivets, . . . the Tandy tool is fine. Grommets, . . . Harbor Freight is your store, . . . have a salesperson show em to you, . . . everything from the little string grommets with about a 3/32 hole, . . . up to the big brass ones for tarps. May God bless, Dwight

I use a method similar to John Bianchi's method. I also only use latigo leather for the hammer thong. If the holster is lined, it goes between the two pieces of leather on roughly the angle you see in this drawing, but if not lined, . . . like the drawing. May God bless, Dwight

That is one pretty knife and sheath. I would put a belt clip on the back of it, . . . we use them for all sorts of stuff that needs to be "belted" Looks like the drawing, . . . uses a small piece of leather to hold it in place, . . . it is sewn to the original sheath / box / bag / holster or whatever. May God bless, Dwight sheath clip.bmp

You do some excellent work, . . . are definitely an asset to the leather working community. I love that square, single star buckle, . . . where did you find that one? And the Duke rig, . . . did you leave one end open for a money belt too? I did one like that, . . . will stuff a couple Sacajawea dollar coins and some simulated Confederate paper in there when I sell it. May God bless, Dwight

Actually it is a 3 step process: 1. After your black dye dries (after you think it is dry, . . . give it another 3 hours to be sure) take a wash cloth or 1/4 of a towel you do not want to ever use for anything else and seriously rub and burnish the whole project, . . . getting off the pigment/oxydation dust that is left after the dye has dried. You will be seriously surprized at the amount that comes off, . . . especially if you are using USMC black dye from Feibings. 2. Find an alternative use for the super sheen 3. Switch to Resolene, . . . applied with a bristle brush, . . . diluted to a 1:1 ratio with tap water. Brush it on until you form a small lather of bubbles, . . . keep brushing, left, right, up, down, cross ways, . . . until the bubbles disappear, . . . gently hang up to dry. On belts, . . . I usually do the back, . . . then the edges, . . . roll it over, . . . do the front and address the edges a second time, . . . hang it on a piece of coat hanger wire through a buckle hole, . . . then "touch up" the last couple of areas I touched it with my fingers. I also use cheap latex gloves. DO NOT try to force dry the Resolene, . . . something in the neighborhood of 125 deg F, . . . maybe a little fan, . . . give it 24 hours, . . . you should have no problems. I have never had dye come off from a project I have done like the above. Though I don't do it, . . . some folks advocate a "Final" coat of neutral shoe polish, . . . (Edited to add) Went back and took a second look at your work, . . . good stuff !!! I'm kinda sorta a throwback maybe, . . . but all this plastic, kydex, poly-whatever stuff has its uses, . . . but there will never be a piece of that man made junk that will be a beautiful as a hand made purse, wallet, pouch, holster etc. made from cowhide, . . . in my opinion anyway. May God bless, Dwight

Tandy leather has their aluminum strap cutter on sale now for about $30. You cannot duplicate the great cuts it does with any knife / ruler / straight edge combination. It'll probably pay for itself just in less scrap leather. Plus, . . . you can cut belts with it, . . . and if you put them together right, . . . almost no sanding. May God bless, Dwight

My wife's 30 year old round ottoman / footstool became very decrepit in its vinyl covering. I bought some dark brown chrome tanned about 5 oz, . . . punched and laced it up one side and around the whole head, . . . looks like a Shawnee war drum sitting on my floor in front of my wife's rocking chair. I'll try to do a picture if you are interested, . . . but it is the only way I would do an ottoman, . . . I can lace it a bit loose, . . . slip it over the thing, . . . tighten up the laces, . . . looks like a super production piece. May God bless, Dwight

I traded off a Galco paddle, . . . loved the paddle, . . . hated the holster. They told me then (couple years back) that I could buy replacement paddles from them for about $10 each. I was going to make myself a couple paddle holsters, . . . decided against it, . . . went IWB, . . . never looked back. FWIF, . . . YMMV May God bless, Dwight

Your machine may be different from mine, . . . but mine loves to move the tensioners, . . . releasing the tension, . . . allowing the bobbin thread to pull all the way through. I solved this with a small crescent wrench and two 1/4 x 20 nuts. Put them on the top of the posts, . . . lock the tensioners from moving with them, . . . and once you have your stuff set right, . . . it will not move. The other advice: needles, thread, bobbin direction, needle direction, . . . all good stuff. Just remember, . . . you do need to practice with it a bit, . . . and it will come. Also, . . . final note, . . . they guy you want to talk to at the Boss shop is Ben, . . . ask for him by name, . . . he is great. If all companies had a "Ben" in their customer service depts, . . . life would be so much better. May God bless, Dwight

I have a $10 plastic tub from Office Depot that holds the ugly green file hangers. Put the pattern in a manila file folder, . . . put the name on the tab, . . . kinda, sorta, alphabetized, . . . works for me as I have less than a hundred patterns and stuff to keep track of. I like your idea, . . . but I hate having to fish the pattern out of the bag, . . . then have to put it back in, . . . prefer the manila folder where it just lays in there. If there are more than one piece to the pattern, . . . they are marked 1 of _, 2 of _, etc, . . . and all hung together with a big paper clip. May God bless, Dwight

Actually the drill press may be not needed if the worker is really good at using an electric hand drill. This is what I do. I also reverse the nails so that they exit on the marks, . . . and if one of the nails isn't quite perfectly straight, . . . a pair of long nose pliers can put him where he needs to be. Cutting off the head of the nail, . . . gives one the EXACT "drill" to make perfect holes. Holding the drill perfectly perpendicular is the key. The perfect size holes made by the drill, allows the marker nails to be driven in without splitting the narrow piece of wood or dulling their points. I have some other uses for this concept too, . . . making perfectly matched patterns for cutting, . . . sewing, . . . carving, . . . etc. Once the pattern is made and adjusted to what the user wants, . . . it can be put in a drawer or hung up until needed again, . . . the "pattern" it produces will always be the same. May God bless, Dwight

Another simple little trick for perfectly spaced anything: take a small, narrow piece of wood, . . . maybe 1/2 in by 1/2 in, . . . maybe 3 inches long. Use a rule to mark your spacing, . . . cut the head off a #3 finish nail, . . . put it in your drill press, . . . drill straight through the piece of wood, . . . making a perfect line of holes. Gently drive new #3 finish nails into the holes, . . . you then use the whole thing as a marking tool, . . . Takes 15 minutes to make, . . . will save you hours in marking and poking. May God bless, Dwight

You might also want to invest 20 bucks in an inexpensive dial caliper, . . . mine keeps me straight. Even from upper echelon leather providers, . . . the variance from what they said and what you bought can be a real pain. I made up a little chart using my caliper and a calculator, . . . it's in the caliper box, . . . May God bless, Dwight

As I have said before, you are indeed a credit to the leatherworking industry. Keep it up, . . . May God bless, Dwight

If you contact cement the liner to the outside, . . . completely, . . . it will not bunch up. Gluing it around the edges, . . . or sporadically, . . . will result in "bunching". The other trick that helps in that 180 degree bend though, . . . skive off some of the leather on the inside of both pieces where they make that curve. I've never had any holster I made with double thickness of leather "bunch up", because I did all of the above. May God bless, Dwight

You can really benefit from buying John Bianchi's holster making video for cowboy leather. I had the good fortune of a fellow loaning me the three VHS tapes in his set, but it is worth the investment in the CD, . . . I've seen them on Ebay for around 40 or 50 bucks. There are some pitfalls he walks you through that makes the difference between a gunbelt, . . . and a useable gun belt. May God bless, Dwight

One of the ladies on here gave out a neat recipe: 1/2 neatsfoot oil, . . . 1/2 virgin beeswax (by weight, not volume), . . . put in a container in boiling water, . . . leave it in there until it gets all mixed up real good, . . . pour it into small plastic bowls or someting similar (I used the tops off Country Time Lemonade containers). Put it on like Kiwi shoe polish, . . . buff it, . . . beautiful. It is inexpensive, . . . easy to make, . . . stores indefinitely, . . . and very easy to redo whenever you want to. May God bless, Dwight

I did one once similar to that. I took a scrap piece of 16 or 18 oz and laid down a 1/4 inch wide track in it with my router, using a straight edge. I then trimmed the piece to fit the top of the holster, . . . glued and sewed it in place. I was not "perfectly" happy with the results, . . . but it did the job well enough to resolve the problem. May God bless, Dwight

FWIW, . . . I just use my thumb and ever so slightly "funnelize" the opening into the holster for the revolver. It adds a ton of strength to the front of the holster, . . . and kind of guides the thing down into the hole. I also don't mold the belt slots quite as much as you do. I let the wearer finish putting the "set" in the slots, . . . that way it has a tendency to mold more to him, and also help in the retention of the weapon also. I'm curious as to the weight of the leather you are using there also, . . . I usually lighten up a bit on any front side decoration or reinforcement. The sides look like they are a bit thick, . . . but it just may be the angle from which the picture was taken. Holster looks good to me, . . . good work. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Hedge, . . . I guess I was so excited about getting started, . . . I didn't think it through. Sometimes we can't see the forest, you know, . . . all these trees are in the way Still don't have a real good answer, . . . may just go buy a commercial bag, . . . strip the guts out of it. May God bless, Dwight

I have a beautiful semi auto rifle that I want to make a case for it. Holsters, belts, knife sheaths I can do, . . . this I'm having troubles getting the materials fixed in my mind. I'm using veggie tan 8/9 for the outside, . . . but I want both a liner (I'm thinking suede), . . .and a "cushion" material between the suede and the outside. If you have done this, . . . or have one you like, . . . I'd love to know what others are using for the insides. Thanks in advance. May God bless, Dwight

It depends on how straight you want that first line. An aluminum ruler that has a layer of cork glued to the bottom side does not slip and slide hardly at all. A drywall knife with a new blade that has been stropped 50 -75 licks will cut through any 9 oz or less leather I have ever encountered, . . . and do it in one pass. A "last resort" that will give you a straight enough lne for most things, . . . is the old carpenter's chalk line. Just don't get too much chalk on it as you pull it out. It works well if you have a side you are trying to even up or something like that. May God bless, Dwight