Dwight

As you finish, . . . everything else done, . . . wrap the threads with two wraps of teflon tape. It will prevent the screws backing out because of the pressure of the washer. May God bless, Dwight

I use a pair of sheet metal bending pliers, . . . they look like a "wide jaw" version of pliers. Ask for them at a hardware store. They work real well on Glock holsters where I have to make a 90 practically at the stitch line. Use water just a little hotter than your hand can stand, . . . soak it, . . . then grab it with the pliers and bend, . . . forcing the front of the pliers down into the fold, . . . works great for me. May God bless, Dwight

In John Bianchi's video on making a Western Gunfighter Rig, . . . he goes through the steps to make this burnisher. It's basically wool felt cut into 1 1/2 inch discs, . . . placed on an arbor, . . . placed on a small 1725 RPM motor, . . . he advocated first using Tandy's Edge Coat (I think the videos were a Tandy informercial to a certain degree) and then rubbing with virgin beeswax and doing it again. I made one like that, . . . it works great, . . . but it is out in my shop where it is -8 F and I would rather use my Dremel in the house where it is between 68 and 72 But for $99.00 on ebay, . . . one can get the product and not have to do anything. May God bless, Dwight

In one of his holster making videos, John Bianchi put on a pair of wide cuffed, heavy canvas gloves and demonstrated that those were his "burnishing" tools early in his career. He used a bit of moisture to get started, and ran a piece of raw beeswax on the edge. The friction of rubbing the edge briskly with the palm of the glove would soften the wax and imbed it into the fibers. It gives a fair edge, . . . but a dremel tool and either the dye you are using, . . . or Gum Tragacanth, . . . gives a really good edge. May God bless, Dwight

About a year ago, . . . I went through a couple of threads on TFL and 1911.com, . . . and actually logged down what everyone answered to the question "What do you carry?" My list showed a preponderance for Glock 19, Beretta 92, and 1911's, . . . and I bought the appropriate "blue gun" dummies for those. So far, the 1911 and Glock have been used several times, . . . the Beretta gathers a lot of dust. But I paid $35 or so for each, . . . your deal looks better. And I echo the other comments about the blue guns being really great to work with for molding, etc. May God bless, Dwight

McJeep, . . . some of the holster makers like to add a drop or two of liquid soap to their water before they dunk their leather prior to forming. I'm usually in too much of a hurry for that, . . . but the key is to let the leather return to almost the same color as it was dry, . . . then when you form anything on it, . . . it stands a better chance of keeping the formed shape. You also want to trim your fingernails, . . . you can ruin a good piece of wet leather with one ugly scratch of a fingernail. I hate wearing gloves, . . . so I don't mess with that either during my forming processes. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Kiwi, . . . are you over near the East Coast? I was there about 40 years ago with the US Navy, . . . pulled into Brisbane, . . . spent 4 days on the "Gold Coast". You have a beautiful continent from what little I saw of it. May God bless, Dwight

Lisa, . . . for several reasons, . . . I do not spray anything in by leatherwork. I daub or dunk my dyes, . . . and brush on my Resolene. I cut the Resolene 50/50 with tap water, . . . shake it well, . . . and with a camel hair, one inch (cheapie) brush, . . . I begin brushing the object. At first it is kind of slopped on, . . . but then I keep brushing and it will kind of foam up, . . . and just keep brushing, . . . the bubbles will all break and you will be finally brushing a polished surface. Hang it up to dry, . . . a little (emphasis on LITTLE ) heat will help. The double rig was done that way, . . . all three pieces probably took 45 minutes total. May God bless, Dwight

Ray, . . . I confess to not knowing how it was done, . . . but:, . . . a few years back I was involved in a discussion of armor, armoring, etc. and how it was done in the "old days". One person mentioned taking very heavy leather, . . . cutting it to shape, . . . and literally immersing it in liquid beeswax, . . . forming it to the proper shape and allowing it to cool and harden. I guess this was actually formed to the individual wearer (can you imagine laying down while your local armourer "fits" you with a piece of leather that just came out of a boiling cauldron of beeswax ?) So just for fun, . . . we heated up some parrafin, . . . threw a piece of 12 oz or so of leather in the stuff, . . . left it in until it had soaked up the parrafin, . . . fished it out, . . . and when it dried, . . . it was almost a rock, it was so hard. I don't know if that process would work for you, . . . but a knife sheath done the same way would be a good practice piece, . . . and if it works as good on the knife sheath as it did on our scrap piece, . . . you'ld do all right. May God bless, Dwight

I have an order for a simple suede gun bag with a fringe down one side, . . . kinda sorta Native American, . . . but with a twist. I want to put a beaded design on it, . . . and have never done any beading of any sort whatsoever. I went to a couple of craft stores yesterday, . . . got the bum's rush so to speak, . . . figured I'd go to a friendly community, . . . here. The design will be the USMC logo, . . . or some facsimile thereof, . . . and should be in the neighborhood of 4 inches in diameter. I can do the layout with graph paper, etc, . . . what I am mostly interested in is the technique, . . . hints, . . . however you can advise on a bee-ginners project. Thanks, may God bless, Dwight

Living next to a 4000 acre public hunting land, . . . there is absolutely NO WAY I would hang a hide out on my wife's clothes line to spray it. Even if I had full 3rd generation body armor, . . . nahhhhhhhhhhhhh ! May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Trooper, . . . I guess I knew there was some reason I kept all those little bags of wax after I got the honey out of it. I very slowly warmed the honey to the point the wax melted, . . . after it cooled and hardened, . . . I just picked it off the top and jarred up my honey. Now I have a use for it, . . . and I will be buying a quart of neatsfoot oil come next Monday so, . . . when I "go to town". May God bless, Dwight

Tom, . . . If you drill the dowell pretty close to center with a 1/8" drill bit, . . . drill it down to where you have about 1 inch sticking out. This is the trickiest part of the whole job. Try as hard as you can to drill straight, true, and very near the center of the dowel. Then cut off the dowell, allowing about 1 inch to 1 1/2 inch to make your tool from. Force the drill bit into the dowell with a dab of glue on it, . . . put it in your Dremel tool, turn it on, and form the dowell to whatever you want with files or small chisels. Sand smooth with sand paper as the dowel tool is turning in your Dremel. For edges, I sometimes use Gum Tragacanth (Tandy's) but for the two holsters in the picture, . . . I use the same stain I am using on the body of the holster. I also sometimes just use water, . . . it all depends on what I am working on. I like using the gum product, . . . but like glues, . . . if it gets on the finished part of the project, it keeps the stain from taking like it should, . . . and I can be a fumble fingered slop hound without even trying. May God bless, Dwight

What specifically are you looking for Tom, . . . might make the search & info a bit easier to find. May God bless, Dwight

Just was reading another thread, . . . use of beeswax was mentioned, . . . did not want to hijack the thread, . . . so here goes: 1. What can you use beeswax for with leather? 2. How do you apply it? The reason I ask? I have several pounds of raw, real, natural beeswax from the hives I used to have, . . . and since I am doing leather holsters, belts, etc. . . . figured if it is useable in my work, . . . should save me some bucks somehow. Lookig forward to all the replies. Golly, . . . this is a great website!!!! May God bless, Dwight

Just use the 1/8" bit that you drill the base with, . . . it fits the Dremel arbor and is a cheap tool. Go to Tandy, . . . get some Gum Tragacanth, . . . moisten the edges with it and your finger, . . . burnish it with the Dremel on about 2500 rpms, . . . polishes up like a brand new Ford. May God bless, Dwight

Take a look at my thread about edging, . . . on my second post you can see the tools I use. I would rather use my spool sander on my drill press, . . . but it's too cold out in the shed, . . . so I use my Dremel at my desk in the living room. My edging tools are pictured there also, . . . mostly now I use gum tagacanth, . . . makes a real nice edging. May God bless, Dwight

Peterk, . . . if I can get the picture to attach, . . . it's all yours. Least I can do for this community of good folks. The two in the picture are made of oak wood, . . . dowel rod type stuff, . . . I just clamped it into a vise and using a 1/8" drill, . . . drilled as best I could into the base of the piece of dowel, . . . trying to drill as straight as I could. I then cut the dowel off to the right length, . . . used a hammer to tap the same 1/8" bit into the cut off piece securely, . . . mounted it in the Dremel, . . . turned on the Dremel and using files and sandpaper, . . . cut out the grooves I wanted in the pieces. The three groove is for a) single 5/6 oz leather, double 5/6 oz leather, and c) double 7/8 leather, viewing it from right to left. The one with just a shoulder, I use for real thick pieces, . . . and for polishing the outside edge. Good luck, . . . may God bless, Dwight

A couple of months ago, . . . I did a "search" here on Leatherworker, asking about gum tragacanth and how and if it worked worth a hoot on belts, holsters, or whatever else a guy had to put a nice edge on. Well, . . . y'all came through with flying colors, . . . I got me a dremel tool, . . . some of that gum tagacanth from Tandy's, . . . made an edging tool for the Dremel from a 1/8 inch drill bit and a short dowel piece of oak, . . . and today I made one of the best edges on a holster I have ever done. I was especially concerned as it is a suede lined veggie tanned holster, . . . and getting both of them to smooth out together was critical. The Dremel tool with the little sanding barrels also is absolutely wonderful for smoothing out 2, 3, 4 or more layers into one nice surface. I don't know who it was, when asked how to apply it, . . . just said take your finger and rub it on , . . . but that works like a champ. Again, . . . I don't know who all to credit, . . . several threads were in the search, . . . but Leatherworker.net did the trick, . . . so many thanks to everyone who may have been involved. May God bless, Dwight

Ian has the answer, . . . get yourself a small can of contact cement, . . . put the cement on the edges of the holster (if you are using a welt between the two pieces, glue it to the back first, then line up the front and glue it down). You have to be real careful with contact cement, as any extra will show up by not allowning the dye to penetrate. Keep it about 1/16 of an inch from the edge and you should not have any trouble. I use a set of dividers to mark the inside of mine before I put the cement on, . . . and it works out well that way. Then when you are stitching, . . . you only have one set of holes to worry about. Plus, . . . once you put it together with the contact cement, . . . lay the holster down on its back, . . . take another piece of scrap leather, . . . good side down, . . . and use a small hammer/mallet to forge the two pieces together into one piece. If you do it right, . . . the stitches almost then become embellishing adornments, . . . and not really necessary. May God bless, Dwight HELP!

A couple of years ago, a friend loaned me 3 videos made by John Bianchi on making a SAA drop leg western holster and accompanying cartridge belt. If you ever get the chance, . . . they are well worth the 5 or so hours of watching. In it, he emphasized using two pieces of leather, one inside, one outside, . . . glued together (he used Tandy glue, . . . I use contact cement). And yes, . . . it is glued all over, . . . I make my outside to the exact pattern, . . . cut the lining a little bit big, . . . glue em, . . . and trim the lining. I do all my tooling before I put the two pieces together, if there is any tooling. After the holster is completed, you want to form fit it to the revolver, . . . by wetting the thing down real good and molding it. The last thing you do is take your thumb and very gently roll the edge of the holster out and away from the weapon, . . . when it dries and you apply the finish, . . . it will stay nicely. His technique is to then drench the whole thing in warm neatsfoot oil (he had a stainless steel tub about 2 feet long, one foot wide and one foot deep, . . . half full of oil) and then finish it with several coats of Tandy Harness finish. He recommended 7/8 leather for the belt and 5/6 for the belt liner, . . . same for the holster. Holler if you have any more questions. May God bless, Dwight

A couple of years ago, I made a holster for a Bersa Thunder .380, . . . an IWB style with loops on each side of the weapon to attach to the belt. I glued the sides together with Tandy's contact cement, . . . edged and finished it, . . . and it looked so nice without the stitches, . . . I just did not sew it. I wore the thing until one day a friend was talking about needing one for his gun, . . . I gave it to him and told him to let me know if it ever came apart. Haven't heard from him about the holster, . . . although we see each other regularly for other things. Glue it!! May God bless, Dwight

I have had very good results with a cheap, throw away camel hair brush (that I wash out with hand soap after each use) and it works super well. The secret is twofold: a) dilute the resolene to a 50/50 solution of resolene and water AND apply two wet coats together, starting with the inside of the holster, then the back side, soaking into the flesh side of the leather. Once the first coat has been applied, . . . brush it until you have an almost foam like appearance that will then disappear with a bit more brushing. Continue to the smooth side of the leather pieces, . . . again soaking, working up the foam, and brushing until the foam bubbles are basically gone. It is not as important on the flesh side, . . . but on the smooth side, . . . brush untill the bubbles are gone. Now, . . . go back, . . . right now, . . . and do it again. I like to hang my project up in the window, . . . let the sun's heat dry it, . . . or I hang it up about 7 feet above the furnace register, . . . it gets heat, . . . just not all at once. I only had one problem with this method, . . . I got in a hurry on a black OWB I did for a .40 Glock, . . . and some of the bubbles were not gone, . . . when they dried, . . . it looked like water spots on a finely waxed wooden table. Dye some scrap leather pieces, . . . and practice, . . . I think you will like it. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Tim, Kate, . . . I had thought about spraying, . . . but I can't do that year round because both the house and the shop are heated with "live flames" so to speak (wood burner in the house, . . . propane burner in the shop). I really have a yen for heaven, . . . but not on the leading edge of an explosion. John Bianchi showed using a larger tank for his oil bath he gave his Western rigs, . . . and I thought maybe some of you folks did something similar, . . . just wanted to get it as close to right the first time as I could. I'm planning on ramping up my holster business, but there will only be a few colors, . . . I just cannot do the rainbow thing. Thanks, may God bless, Dwight

I was not as well pleased with the dye job on a large Western gun belt or the two holsters as I could have been. I've been thinking of setting up some sort of container for large object dying using Feibing's solvent based dyes (mostly). Just wanted to hear from others, . . . maybe not make the same mistakes, . . . and I am concerned about how to store 4 to 6 qts of dye once it is opened and being used. If you do this, . . . what type of containers do you use, . . . are there any special clean up tips, . . . any special pit falls, . . . ???? Thanks, may God bless, Dwight