Dwight

FWIW, . . . I saw one put together by a fellow for his father for a gift. I was not impressed, . . . period. If you have any mechanical or design ability, . . . you should be able to go on line, . . . look at some designs there, . . . and play around with it enough to get yourself a better idea than this thing. It's design is to mount a basic belt holster on the "arrow" part, . . . and for me leaves a lot to be desired. But, . . . I've only seen one, . . . YMMV/YOMV May God bless, Dwight

Adding just a little to Lobo's information: when you sandwich two pieces of leather together, flesh side to flesh side, it becomes much stronger as both faces (inside and outside) are now the hair side of the leather, . . . which is the strong side. I also personally detest a belt with a suede liner, . . . the darned thing will not slide like I want my belts to all do, . . . ugggghhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! I usually start out with a 8/9 piece of leather for the outside, . . . hit it with the calipers, . . . then find another one that will get me in the .210 to .240 area of thickness, . . . just under 1/4 inch. I also set my strap cutter to 1 7/16 inches for the reasons Lobo mentioned about width. May God bless, Dwight

A router will do your edges, . . . and will do a really good job, . . . but you have to have your work fence and the opening in the table set up so the leather does not flex at all. And under no circumstances, put anything in a router except a router bit. They turn far too many rpm's for sanding drums, discs, etc, . . . and will get you hurt if you try to use them. No, . . . if your router bits are sharp, . . . they will not burn your leather, . . . they will cut it so smooth that it will look like it is already partially burnished. The most important thing to remember here though, . . . you cannot "see" the piece as the blade touches it. You have to run it through, then turn it over and look at what was done. I've tried it with mixed success, . . . finally quit for now, . . . but I have to admit that the good pieces were good. The bad pieces just proved that the router blade is just absolutely unforgiving, . . . non merciful, . . . it just cuts. May God bless, Dwight

Nail the lid of a plastic peanut butter jar on the wall, . . . screw the lid into it, . . . you can hand a batch of straps or strings over it. Finishing nails in the wall, . . . 1/8 in hole in the corner of the leather, . . . it's hung, . . . can be hung by size, by type, by color, by ugliness if you want. Snip the edge of the hole with a razor knife or side cutters, . . . don't even have to unload the whole nail to get the piece you want. I also have a round pile on the floor by my cutting table. It is simply long pieces that are a foot or so wide, . . . that way they can sit on the floor in a circle on edge, . . . and I can look down into the circle to see if I have a piece of 5 oz 8 oz or whatever I'm looking for. Oh, . . . and yeah, . . . I've got the drawers too, . . . another topic for another day. May God bless, Dwight

Tn, . . . I make all my molds out of southern yellow pine, . . . and I find it is just about as perfect as one can get for my projects (mostly magazines for weapons, . . . and boxes for other items). I'd make a magazine copy probably 1/2 inch wider and thicker than the original, . . . cut a piece of leather that was exactly the back side size plus a flap to go over the top and snap to the front, . . . then cut the front, bottom, both sides all in one piece, . . . wet it good, . . . wrap it around your dummy, tack it till it dries, . . . then simply contact cement and rivet the thing together. Rivets and contact cement are wonderful for such projects. If you need any help, . . . pm me, . . . I'll walk you through it, . . . As for velcro, . . . I contact cement it to my leather before I try to stitch it on, . . . and I use a machine, . . . hands are for holding hamburgers, . . . not stitching. May God bless, Dwight

I think you are well on your way to figuring it out, . . . just a little sketch as how I would do it if it were mine, . . . to get the front piece. It of course is the most critical. One thing to remember about forming leather this way, . . . always use vegetable tanned leather, . . . and don't be afraid to put some pressure on it. It stretches pretty good under most circumstances. I like the idea of the small clamps for sewing. I had a holster the other day I could surely have used one of them on. May God bless, Dwight

Clutey, I'm a deer hunter, . . . so I don't empathize well with you shotgunners, . . . but the leather part is a snap I think. Make your first one out of 4 or 5 oz vegetable tanned leather. It will carve, dye, stamp, . . . all that stuff easly, . . . and will work easily too. Use the little diagram I have here, . . . make one the size of a box of your shells there in Ireland. Make a wooden box first that is about 3mm longer, 3mm wider, and 3mm taller than the box of shells. Make your leather just like the pattern, . . . sew it up the sides and along the bottom for your belt box. Get it wet in hot water you can just barely stand your hands in, . . . stretch it over the box, . . . leave it for a couple of hours, . . . slip out the wooden box, . . . let it finish drying. If you want to carve or stamp, . . . lay out your design first, . . . then do the carving and stamping. THEN cut and make your box. Dye it last, . . . give it at least 2 good coats of 50/50 Resolene and water solution (3 or 4 would be good), . . . you'll have a strong, practically water proof leather box to carry your shells. After you have proofed your technique and style on the single box carrier, . . . get a piece of 8 or 9 oz leather, . . . make your 50 round box from that, . . . make it the same way. If you don't want to stitch it, . . . punch the edges and lace it. Just remember that if you sew it and leave the four seams sticking out away from the box, . . . it will be unique looking and at the same time, . . . very strong. May God bless, Dwight

If I understand what you want to do, . . . I do a lot of this for boxes, magazine holders, etc. I've found that rivets and contact cement are your friends when it comes to a project like this. Make your wooden core in the shape you want the hole to become. Make it the proper thickness, minus the thickness of the piece of leather you want to use for the rear. Make two boards 1/2 in by 1 in, and pre drill nail holes about every 3 inches, and within 1 inch of each end. Cut the leather for the back, and tack it to the mold in the position you want it to finish up. Cut the leather for the front a bit oversized all the way around. The front piece will overlap around the back of the form by 1 inch on each side. Drown, . . . wet, . . . soak the leather until it is similar to a big floppy noodle. Nail the one edge to the back of the core using small nails. Stretch the leather around the front and nail it to the back on the other side. Set it up somewhere to dry for a couple of days. Pull the nails out, . . . let the two pieces and the mold completely dry for another day or so. Then get a piece of 1/16 in flat stock steel the length of your mold and 1 inch wide. Re tack your back to the mold, . . . place the front where it should go, . . . mark the back so you know where the front covers the back. Remove the front and coat both the front and back edges where they meet with Weldwood contact cement. Allow it to dry for about an hour. Put the front onto the back, being careful when you line up the edges, . . . where the contact cement edges touch, . . . they will immediately grab and go together. Roll those joints with a wall paper seam roller. Punch holes up & down for small capped rivets. Put rivets and caps in holes on one side, lay the piece of steel in the hole over the backs of the rivets, slide the core in and punch the rivets. Remove the core and do the same for the other side. If I understood you correctly, a cross section of your project when done will look like the attachment. May God bless, Dwight

Tentman, . . . I'm sitting at my computer looking at my 15+ year old boots that got so scruffy as brown boots that I just up and dyed them black. They don't look quite so bad that way. Anyway, . . . they're work boots, . . . steel toed, . . . original soles, . . . original heels, . . . and I still love the things. I'd say I've had em on probably no less than 300 days out of each of those years I've had em. They're from http://www.georgiaboot.com/products/ and are a Wellington design. They also make those that are not steel toed. May God bless, Dwight

Of the ones I could get to without a bunch of hassle: 26", 28", 38", and 22". I guess the average of that bunch would be something around 28 1/2. May God bless, Dwight

Like the others have said, beautiful job. What did you use for the finish on the scabbard, if you don't mind sharing. May God bless, Dwight

I don't know of anyone that does anything like that. Line 24 snaps all have metal posts that I've ever seen or used. Most of us only put snaps where their backsides can be covered with another layer of leather. May God bless, Dwight

I like to use the little hand sewing tool that has a small spool of thread built into it. I don't use the spool, just the handle and the needle. Push it through and pull it back slightly, creating a small loop. Take the thread on the other side and loop it twice around the loop you made, pull it all tight, make the knot disappear in the leather. Doing this on 4 or 5 consecutive stitches makes a finish that almost cannot come loose. I tried putting a little drawing there to show it to you, . . . hope it works well enough for you to see it. May God bless, Dwight

The obvious of course, . . . is to turn the piece around so you are not back stitching, . . . but going forward. It can be a pain with some machines, . . . and some pieces, . . . but it should give you the finished result. Another trick I use on some special pieces, . . . I get to the end and on the last stitch, . . . I remove the product, . . . but before I do that, I pull a good 18 inches of thread from both the spool and the bobbin. I then hand stitch back 4 or 5 stitches. May God bless, Dwight

Our local Tandy store carries machine coded thread. A lot of folks like 270 for holsters and belts, but I prefer the next size up, 346. I use is almost exclusively. I'm working on a heavy duty set of leather gear, . . . it will probably have I believe 416 is the size, . . . but that is some heavy stuff. Lift up the black plastic spool, look on the little white tag on the underside, it will tell you the machine size of the thread if your Tandy salesperson does not know. The thread I get from Tandy for my sewing machine also works fine for hand sewing in my opinion. May God bless, Dwight

Big O, . . . I have taken small board scraps and made "imitation" belts and other tools around which I mold leather shapes. I like southern yellow pine the best as it sands easily, . . . is harder than regular pine or spruce, . . . and does not leave a grain mark on my projects. As for developing the "curve" for the body, . . . I laughlingly advise my customers to strap on the new holster, . . . insert gun, . . . get in the car, . . . drive about 100 to 200 miles to a really great restaurant, . . . come home. Unholstering and laying it on the night stand, . . . it will be properly curved. Don't laugh, . . . it works. May God bless, Dwight

I always admired the old Zippo lighter company, . . . their warranty was if it didn't work, . . . they'd fix it. I have run my leather business that way from day one. Yes I have been burned, . . . I expect to be burned again, . . . but I can honestly sleep at night knowing that I have done nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical and my business practices putting the customer first. I do not require any kind of deposit, figuring that even if I get stuck with the holster for a while, . . . I did at least gain another pattern or more experience making an old pattern. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Johanna, . . . thanks again, Paul, . . . seeing that was a great way to start my day. Oh, and yes, . . . I'd love to see more things like this. Just never know what you might learn. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks for the good words, Joel. He didn't want to do the expense of new latigo, and I got all the corners down a lot flatter than they were in the beginning, . . . but not "flat" flat. It certainly was a learning process, . . . looking forward to someday building one. It may wind up a living room decoration, . . . but I've done other things that didn't make even that much sense, . . . and it was good. May God bless, Dwight

I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who posted and helped on this project. He came and picked it up today, and I don't think many kids in a candy store were a lot happier than he was. I replaced the little "D" ring up by the horn, . . . both of the "D" rings for attaching the breast strap, . . . re-stitched the whole top of the saddle horn (after I took out the nylon monofilament fishing line someone previously used), . . . I re-sewed the outside edge just about all the way around it (all hand sewing, . . . ughhhh), . . . gave it a real good bath, . . . and oiled it lightly. The silver conchos were a pain to polish, got them done, . . . replaced the rosettes underneath them, . . . Most importantly, I learned a lot, . . . and a tip of the Stetson goes to "justken" who invited me to his saddle shop, . . . we looked the job over, . . . got a lot of good advice from him, . . . and during the process, made a new friend. I read each post and did most of what was suggested, . . . and again, . . . thanks to all. You've seen the "before" pics, . . . these are "during" and "after". May God bless, Dwight

Thanks Johanna, . . . right now I have a Tippmann Boss, . . . and it is a great machine, . . . but I need something to do production with, . . . and the Boss is more for one of a kind stuff. I just drove it 135 miles one way to the Tippmann factory, . . . sat it on Ben's desk, . . . a little over an hour later, I'm out 40 bucks and some change, . . . got 10 new needles, 6 bobbins, and a machine that just got a professional tuning. Lot's of folks badmouth the Boss, . . . but I'd have to give up leatherwork if I had to hand sew all the stuff I do. Anyway, . . . thanks again, . . . I'll give them a call soon as I get a chance. May God bless, Dwight

It's a trade off, really. If you dye first, depending on the type dye you use, . . . can become less responsive to water forming. I am not a chemist so I cannot tell you why that happens, . . . but you are right, . . . it does happen. If you cut, edge, sew, and mold first, . . . depending on how you edge, your edges may not look the way you want them later on, . . . and you run the risk of some inadvertant contact cement or glue getting on the product, . . . preventing it from taking on dye like it should. The old master, Lou Alessi, told me himself that they always cut their pieces out and then and there threw them into the dye process. He made a lot of holsters that way, and most of his customers were happy ones. In this, . . . there is no "right" way, . . . just the way that works best for you. May god bless, Dwight

Does any one know of a sewing machine manufacturer in the Toledo, Ohio area. I talked to a sales rep from that area a couple years ago, would like to get that conversation on a new machine going again. Thanks, may God bless, Dwight

Sam, . . . can you post a picture of each? I make almost exclusively IWB, . . . have never had one come back for that reason, . . . perhaps we can see something collectively here that would make a difference. And, . . . yes, . . . I have a couple of, . . . uhh, . . . umm, . . . larger customers. They all like my holsters, and while the mouth is reinforced, I have never found a need for the steel addition. Anyway, . . . looking forward to seeing pics. May God bless, Dwight

That's an easy one, . . . lay your vegetable tanned leather face down on the work table. Do the same with your pigskin lining. Now cover the back sides of each with Weldwood contact cement, available at any local lumber and most hardware stores. When it is dry, . . . about an hour or so, . . . can be done sooner if you are very careful in using a heat gun, . . . lay the veggie tan glued side on top of the pig skin glued side, . . . cover with a pillow case or something to protect the face of the veggie tan leather, . . . roll it with a rolling pin. You now have basically one thickness of leather to work with, . . . make your ipod case from it. We do this all the time making holsters. May God bless, Dwight