Dwight

I don't . . . I simply back stitch 3, 4, or 5 holes . . . depending on how tight they seem . . . cut em off flush on the backside . . . lightly touch with a lighter . . . done. Never had one unravel yet. May God bless, Dwight

One thing I learned from boy scouts almost 70 years ago . . . and since . . . there is no such thing as a malformed square knot. They might be UGLY square knots. . . but they always work. They come apart just like the pretty ones do. Granny knot??? That's another animal . . . I'll mess with it for a moment or two . . . then my Kershaw comes out . . . and it is forever undone . . . no funeral . . . just undone. But there are any number of knots out there . . . some are good ones . . . some need the Kershaw treatment. But both of the knots on both sheaths are good looking ones. I have to do stamps on things like that . . . my tooling is something to seriously be desired for better. May God bless, Dwight

Really a good looking sheath for a good looking knife as well. I never wet form a sheath like that if I did any tooling on it. Tooling and wet forming are like wife and girlfriend . . . best only to have one . . . try getting both and wellll............. May God bless, Dwight

In two quick words . . . you don't. Put it on with a cheap 1 inch bristle brush . . . hair side only . . . and put just enough on to see you have covered it all or 95% of it. You know you did because it begins to look wet. Hang the item up to allow it to spread out and become uniform in the product . . . takes 24 hours. Do it that way and you will like the result . . . heating it up will get too much on the project . . . and while it will not always ruin the project . . . it can do it very easily. May God bless, Dwight

I'd certainly rather sell the guy the wrong set of spark plugs for his diesel rig . . . than tick off the fellow who I'm handing a fully loaded .38 special to . . . in his new holster . . . he don't like. May God bless, Dwight PS: So far neither has happened in my 20 years of sales. My worst case was I was late on a tax payment of less than 10 bucks and some lily livered jughead down at the tax office (sales tax) threatened to sue me $1000 a day until it was paid.

Maybe someone else knows . . . but honestly Scootch . . . I have no idea what a side pull is. Might be something to do with a saddle . . . maybe a rifle scabbard . . . a ladie's purse . . . or a camera case. I wouldn't know . . . and couldn't guess what you might use. May God bless, Dwight

For my white leather projects . . . I buy white leather off Ebay . . . Has worked very well so far. May God bless, Dwight

Several years ago . . . standing in Tandy's . . . a fellow came in and asked the manager to make him a billfold. Manager pointed him over to me. His daughter had bought him a tri-fold a number of years ago . . . and it was simply worn out. He wanted a new one. I told him I'd try . . . but needed his billfold for a pattern. He got a bag from the store . . . dumped his bilffold comtents into it . . . gave me the old one . . . I copied it . . . and he was elated. These pictures are of the trial run I did . . . but they show the results . . . and you can copy that. He put several cards in each slot . . . and had a money clip in the middle. May God bless, Dwight

I noticed you did not have the Tippmann Boss in your lineup there. It would be a very good first machine for you. It's not only a good machine . . . the manufacturer is really great . . . we've had a 20 + year relationship . . . been nothing but good. It was may first machine . . . making holsters, belts, knife sheaths, even billfolds and other "things". For knife sheaths . . . I wouldn't even think of going any other way . . . it is tough to do belts . . . especially longer ones . . . It is in your price range brand new . . . although I don't have any idea what the shipping would be. May God bless, Dwight

Betcha cannot guess who helped me load my Cowboy onto my trailer there in Toledo . . . May God bless, Dwight

Who is the Bob who has these things ?? Thanks, may God bless, Dwight

OK . . . now where do you get that whatchamacallit . . . ??? Looks like a handy tool. May God bless, Dwight

Just had to ask . . . is your name because you like stitching stuff by hand . . . or you got the stitched hand . . . having the hand too close?? Sitting here looking at my left thumb . . . got it too close to a fairly sharp Kershaw the other day. Barely missed the stitched hand moniker. Any deeper and it would have been a sewing job. May God bless, Dwight

First rule, second rule, and third rule are sharp knife, sharp knife, and sharp knife. I use mostly a drywall utility type knife . . . and when I put a new blade in it . . . first thing I do is strop it. Factory razor blades are fairly dull. Learn to hold your cutting tool 100% straight up . . . NEVER lean it over to one side or the other. You will be tempted to do so in a curve . . . especially a tight one . . . DON"T do it. Also start out by making shallow cuts . . . knowing that the first cut will be your production cut . . . and the others can follow it fairly easily if you take your time. Last thing . . . don't try to cut your leather for belts, purses, holsters, knife sheaths, and things like that for a "final" cut that is pretty . . . fancy . . . etc. That is why you have a disc sander over in the corner. Your "nicky" cuts you made need to be sanded . . . they will look better . . . edge better . . . and finish better. Until it becomes second nature . . . practice these three things with all your scrap leather. It won't take long until you will be cutting like a pro. May God bless, Dwight

At the risk of sounding overbearing here . . . may I make a suggestion? See if there is an adult's computer class in your local area . . . trade schools . . . churches . . . high schools . . . some "senior" organizations. They will do more for you in two weeks about learning to use a computer . . . than talking on here will do in a year. They can actually "show" you how to do it . . . comment on your technique . . . and give you pointers that we cannot see. I was bumbling and fumbling all over the place before I took a 8 or 10 week "adult" course some 20 years ago . . . the best effort I ever made on computer work . . . and my company paid for it. It was like 2 or 3 nights a week . . . and was an absolute ball . . . to say nothing of the learning I did. As far as pictures go . . . the easiest is to stay away from those places where you store your pictures on their servers and so forth. . . . also about half if not more of them charge you to handle your pictures . . . this does it under YOUR control . . . at zero cost to you. You need to do only three things 1. Store all your pictures on your personal computer . . . make files for them : family . . . leather work . . . shopping . . . cooking . . . etc. so it is easy for you to find the one you want. 2. Download Adobe Photoshop 2.0 . . . you don't need any more advanced than that . . . it'll fix your pictures super for yourself or for posting here. You can usually find it for a free download. 3. Go down to the choose files . . . icon at the bottom of this page . . . pick the picture you want . . . like I just did (took 20 seconds) . . . and when you close out the entry . . . the picture will post. May God bless, Dwight

I virtually never do an 8 / 4 belt . . . they are always like 6/6 or 6/5 or 5/5 . . . trying to keep them pretty close to the same thickness. Lately I've been using a hide I got from Weavers some time back . . . it's a heavy 7/8 . . . and I've got my splitter set for about 110 thousandths . . . which gives me a .220 belt . . . right at the size I really like to make em. Never had one do what you are talking about . . . and I've got some steel lined belts out there . . . doing their work. May God bless, Dwight

I know this is different from what you described . . . but this is how I make a minimalist wallet with money clip. Please note that I don't have a beautiful picture . . . just my original sample . . . My last customer for this brought his very similar one that was seriously falling apart at the seams . . . and he wanted it replaced if possible. His daughter had bought the original one and he just wanted to keep that style because of her tie to him. His was 15 years old . . . May God bless, Dwight

Actually . . . I make a similar sheath for a lot of my friends for our cell phones . . . and it could be easily redone for a knife. Don't bother with the outside piece of leather . . . just make the back piece long enough . . . and the interior wide enough . . . that you can fold the back strip down inside the sheath . . . between the knife and the front of the sheath. That will also allow you to fully carve and / or decorate the front of the sheath with whatever stamping or carving would suit your fancy. I ride my zero turn mower with my phone in such a case . . . it stays put . . . May God bless, Dwight

These folks . . . https://www.knudsenhats.com/good-bad-ugly . . . have what they claim to be a correct version on their website. For sale of course . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Chuck . . . I sat and pondered white or black stitching . . . finally decided I'd do it white . . . if he wanted it black . . . he can come down to the house and dye it to suit himself. But after seeing the white . . . I think it'll stay that way. Thanks for the good words, Bladegrinder . . . May God bless, Dwight

I had similar problems with some of my holsters . . . a friend suggested that I give it a light coat of neatsfoot oil . . . on the hair side only . . . allow it to rest for 24 hours . . . then dye the project. It worked like a super champ . . . I do everything like that now . . . VERY seldom have a dye problem. I do however . . . dip dye about 99% of my work . . . and use a brush or dauber for the rest. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks for the good words . . . the whole belt was first swivel cut and hand stamped . . . then I got my really little brushes out . . . and hand painted with Feibings black dye . . . all the very small areas surrounding the oak leaves and the acorns. The two ends were then dyed with a small dauber . . . the two pieces were then glued together with Weldwood comtact cement . . . sewed . . . two coats of Resolene . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Pastor . . . for the kind words . . . Actually that was not done with an embossing wheel . . . it is a little 10 inch or so piece of clear plastic that has the ridges that can be pressed into the dampened leather . . . giving the outline of the impression. Then get out the swivel knife . . . mallet . . . stamping tools . . . and dedicate about 3 hours of your life and a pot of coffee . . . plus a half dozen little chocolate covered doughnuts to the process. I'm not really very good at stamping . . . but I was happy with this one. May God bless, Dwight

A number of years ago I bought an acorn and oak leaf belt embossing pattern from Tandy . . . figuring I would make that belt for myself. Fast forward 20 years or so . . . decided to make it for my son's birthday . . . plus I cleaned up a Ruger .22 pistol and holster that both went through a house fire. These will be his birthday presents . . . May God bless, Dwight

If you have a small piece of marble . . . put it on the table . . . and put a couple pieces of scrap leather under what you are punching. Wood is not good as eventually you will have cuts in it that will cause your punch to cut ugly holes . . . plastic cutting boards will destroy your tool . . . teak cutting boards are mainly for salmon, bass, and bluegill (just kidding) . . . they seriously should not be used with your tool. Use the leather . . . when you think you are pretty close to going thru . . . tip it over and see . . . that is exactly what I've done for 20 some odd years . . . works great. May God bless, Dwight