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

I would probably prefer to punch both sides of the seam, and lace it just like lacing a pair of shoes up, . . . tuck in the ends so they are not seen, . . . then pour some hot/warm water onto the leather. As it dries it will try to shrink ever so much, . . . it will also "set" the veggie tan leather, . . . and I would think that it would be a really handsome piece. To keep it from coming loose and rotating around the handle, . . . I would go back from the seam a bit and contact cement a stripe of it the full length of the handle. May God bless, Dwight

For the reasons you mentioned above, I have all but quit using my holster press, . . . except for those I know will be black. I'm working on a vacuum molding deal, . . . havn't gotten it where I want it, . . . doing hand molds for all browns for now. Sorry I couldn't be more help, . . . maybe if you moved this question to the holster section you might get a bit more traffic. May God bless, Dwight

I might be too late, . . . but just for the heck of it, . . . consider giving it a couple coats of 50/50 Resolene/water. If that doesn't stiffen it up a bit, . . . then bronze plating is about the only other hope. May God bless, Dwight

I'll agree with Randy on this. Lose the alcohol. I regularly use Feibings dyes, and all but one are the oil base. I do not dilute the oil base unless I am looking for a specific effect, but I dilute one of their spirit dyes by 1 to 1 for a certain color I use in some of my products. When I do dilute, I use the Feibings product for that, . . . and have never, ever encountered the problem you mention. And, yes, . . . almost all of my stuff is dip dyed, . . . for me and my products, . . . it gives a more predictably uniform color. As an aside, . . . I did do a western rig one time, . . . it was dip dyed in a 95% thinner / 5% dye solution to give an "aged" and "worn" look. I was thrilled with the product (still have it in my personal collection) and there was simply no cracking or anything like that. Again, Feibings oil base dye and their reducer. May God bless, Dwight

What gun do you plan to make it for? May God bless, Dwight

I need a pair of chaps about like most guys I know "need" another horse, another gun, or another dog, . . . but after seeing these, . . . I just might be tempted to haul off and make a pair. I started to make a pair several years ago out of naugahide type material, . . . primarily to keep the poison ivy & poison oak off my clothes when I did my weed eating thing, . . . but after I found out about Round Up and some other chemical weed eaters, . . . I shelved that project. You did a real good job, . . . I'll second the suggestion that there was probably one happy cowboy last Christmas. May God bless, Dwight

Looks like a Win, Win, Win to me: you were happy with the work, . . . client was happy with your work, . . . you were compensated for your work. What's to complain?? I'd be proud if I'd done that one. I did one for a Ruger a couple years ago, . . . stainless fluted barrel target .22 with a 4 power scope and regular sights both on it. Had to set the muzzle in first, . . . then rock the rest of it back onto a ledge that the trigger guard sat on, . . . grabbed the snap strap to hold the whole thing in place. It was a Win, Win, Win for me too. Keep up the good work, a lot of people I know wouldn't even have tried that one. May God bless, Dwight

I don't have any samples to show you, . . . but with my Tippmann Boss, . . . if you let up a bit on the tension, . . . you can nail that stitch where ever you want it, . . . just about any direction you want it from where you are now. You can get some pretty far out patterns by connecting the dots your way. I haven't tried the thin thread yet, . . . but I got a hunch it will work. May God bless, Dwight

Doug, . . . it probably is not the problem I had, . . . but it sounds just exactly like it. My "big" problem (there actually were several other little things) was that a set screw had loosened in the back of the machine. Around in the back of your Boss, . . . remove the cover, . . . there is a cross shaft up in the top. On the left hand side of that shaft is a collar, . . . mine had slipped and moved about 3 inches down the shaft. The proper position for that collar is the center of it being exactly 1 inch from the inside left edge of the machine. There is a wonderful mechanic at Tippmann's, . . . his name is Ben, . . . he fixed mine, . . . but I stuck it in the passenger seat of my Jeep and drove it there. Best wishes, may God bless, Dwight

Thanks for sharing, Cowboy, . . . yes, . . . He is good. We don't brag on Him enough in my book. May God bless, Dwight

I googled up this page, . . . http://www.mcpheetersantiquemilitaria.com/05_accoutrements/05_item_006.htm As Frank said, . . . 36 loops. May God bless, Dwight