Dwight

And you are right on that bet . . . it really does not go anywhere other than a little slip / slide back and forth on the belt . . .and that is not much May God bless, Dwight

Got a request for a cross draw for a Hellcat with a laser and an optic up on top . . . talking about a challenge. The Hellcat is one "little" gun . . . But we managed to get it done for him . . . he was thoroughly tickled with it. I can make two holsters for an Anaconda or a 1911 while trying to make one of these. . . . May God bless, Dwight

I have always followed John Bianchi's pattern . . . two layers . . . resulting in a belt that is basically 1/4 inch thick (they run from .200 to .240 inches thick . . . depending on the leather I have available . . . The key to keeping it from slipping from around your waist . . . is to make it on a curve . . . if you can vision a bow the length of your belt . . . having about 6 inches from the bow to the bow string . . . dead center of the bow. That is about the curve you want for a 40 inch belt. You wear the curve so the longer side is the bottom edge of the belt. Always measure the gun belt to be 4 inches longer than the belt that holds up your britches . . . . And yes . . . double layers are always stronger . . . simply because you have two "hair sides" of the belt. The hair side is the strength side . . . one 16 oz belt will be no stronger than a belt made of two 6 oz pieces . . . glued flesh side to flesh side . . . and stitched around the whole edge. But now comes the best information . . . Madmaxx got you started . . . trim the belt (sand the edges on a belt sander if you have one . . . they're 50 bucks at harbor freight . . . mine is 20 years old . . . then stitch groove both sides . . . get your 6 stitches per inch or 5 stitches per inch . . . whichever you want to use . . . buy some 346 waxed nylon thread . . . and get a couple of size 22 needles for production sewing machines. Lay a piece of 1 by 4 on your drill press . . . put the 22 needle in the drill press . . . drill a 1/4 inch hole in the middle of that 24 inch 1 x 4 . . . about 1 1/2 inches from the edge . . . and with the drill bit in that hole . . . c clamp the back of the board to the drill press . . . take out the drill bit . . . put in the needle . . . unplug the drill press. Use the drill press to make your stitch holes . . . and I'll guarantee you there are very few people who can use an awl and get their holes as perfectly up and down as you will with the drill press. If they are not 90 degree . . . your back side of the belt will have stitches wandering like a drunken Marine (sailors don't stagger . . . just Marines) Punch the holes down thru the outside finished face of the belt. Next . . . take a couple of 1 x 2 boards . . . about 6 inches longer than the belt . . . sandwich the belt between the 1 x 2's . . . leaving about 1/2 inch of the belt sticking out . . . the part you are stitching . . . c clamp them to the edge of your work table . . . turn on your favorite John Wayne western . . . and start stitching . . . this will go faster than any other style other than machine stitching. One good John Wayne . . . and one Marshall Dillon should be enough to get you at least mostly thru the belt. Have fun. . . may God bless, Dwight

In one of John Bianchi's videos . . . he finished up a single holster cowboy rig . . . He had not dyed it yet . . . just finished the construction. His final "construction" step was to dip it in a stainless steel container of neatsfoot oil that was in his statement . . . warmed. Quite honestly . . . due to his overall success at selling hundreds of thousands of leather products . . . I just think I'll believe him before some internet cowboy who may have made a belt and wallet. He considered his leather products worth the few extra pennies to use the real stuff. Maybe being cheap is more important to other folks. May God bless, Dwight

Another weldwood guy . . . peanut butter jar . . . if you keep it 75% full it stays better longer. White kids glue or any carpenter glue is also good . . . just takes too long to set up for my processes. May God bless, Dwight

Remember the word "compound" . . . it's got some neatsfoot oil in it . . . but the rest is just what ever was around at the time the order needed to be filled. I'd pour it on the saddles and in the tanks of a bunch of bikers I don't like . . . that's the only use I have for it. May God bless, Dwight

I actually got out my computerized bully club . . . threatened it severely . . . finally got it. Thanks fredk . . . it's gonna be a while . . . but I'll pop the results in a couple months. I actually have an M14 rifle I have to build first . . . And right after breakfast today . . . gotta put on my all white robbing suit . . . lift the lid on my beehive . . . rob the ladies of about 25% of the work they did this summer. That and getting it all in the jars and on the shelf . . . shoots a cannon ball sized hole in my Monday. Stinking goldenrod usually doesn't hit full bloom here until the 10th or 12th or so. It's there today . . . it'll ruin the honey if I don't get it now. My wife has some chipping and painting she has laid out for me . . . have slid around it all summer . . . am about to get nailed I think. May God bless, Dwight

Cowboy 4500 . . . not even one hesitation. May God bless, Dwight

The download said "saddlebag pattern pack" . . . and was 921 kb in size. That was the generic Tandy one . . . just showing a typical bland saddle bag building. It wouldn't tell me anything more. The second one . . . 15mb size . . . had all the designs / flowers etc . . . I got out my bully club and made it down load . . . The third one . . .11mb size . . . said it originated from off leatherworker here . . . and either the info was moved . . . or one of us did not have permission to view it . . . I'm good with the other two I think . . . May God bless, Dwight

Got it . . . Saw three different offerings . . . don't know why but my computer balked at two of them . . . some silly excuse "Cannot be downloaded" But one came thru . . . and it seemed to have everything. Thanks again . . . may God bless, Dwight

If my mother . . . the quilt maker was here . . . she would fix you right up. I'm into quilts as well . . . but she made em . . . all I do is sleep under them. Check around . . . find a quilt maker . . . she'll help ya out. May God bless, Dwight

I have a pair of these . . . one glove stays in the kitchen . . . the other in my leather shop. In either place . . . it is used on the left hand. In the leather shop it is put on most any time I get out my super sharp leather cutting knife . . . round knife or draw knife. Same for my rotary cutter . . . Either one can take off a finger . . . I've never had an "accident" while wearing the glove . . . where a finger or hand could have been seriously hurt . . . but I don't get those nasty little cuts and knicks that I might otherwise get without the glove. They seriously do have my recommendation. May God bless, Dwight

OK . . . appreciate that . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Rktaylor . . . I'm going to my Tandy store probably in a couple of weeks . . . will be buying probably a side . . . and am leaning a lot more toward making a really pretty pair . . . all stamped and such . . . Next problem will be finding "THE" pattern I want to use on them . . . I like flowers n such . . . but it is a bit overdone sometimes . . . not sure where I'll go with it . . . just gonna look. But your set has the general "look" of what I want. One thing I will do for sure though is make the center connector piece just one cut of leather. Will be more expensive that way . . . but it'll achieve a lot of the look I want. Thanks again, may God bless, Dwight

My machine is also the 4500 and I use the double sided shoe for 99% of everything I sew. When I am lining up my "first" stitch . . . I put the place I want for the first one . . . dead center between the sides of the shoe . . . and when the needle comes down . . . it will come down on the line that would be across the front edge of the shoe . . . exactly in the middle. It never deviates . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks Bland . . . I thought the cavalry bags (and Matt Dillons) were somewhat bigger . . . but not ever using them . . . I had no clue. Your info hits the spot . . . just what I really needed . . . May God bless, Dwight

Thanks, Ron . . .

You need to add pressure to the feet . . . I sometimes have the same problem with my cowboy 4500 . . . May God bless, Dwight

Good looking work, Goldshot Ron . . . those would make a bad lookin horse's image perk up. Looking at some of the TV westerns and movies . . . some of the saddlebags looked to be maybe 18 inches square . . . 5 or 6 inches deep . . . not the 10 inch variety that is sold on Etsy and Ebay these days. I don't travel much . . . maybe 2 days gone at a time . . . and a pair that sized would carry all of my needs. I remember them pulling the saddlebags off with a rolled up blanket . . . and the horse N saddle went into the livery. I'm kind of attempting that for myself . . . Got a lady down the street with a couple horses . . . may just go down there and snoop around. But keep up the good work . . . you are an asset to the forum. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks Littlef . . . whole lot more in there than I wanted . . . they'll be plain . . . kind of bags a cheap critter like me would have carried. May God bless, Dwight

Actually . . . I don't need the full saddlebag pattern . . . just the part that goes behind the rider . . . The distance between the two bags is one dimension I need the width of the top . . . at the center is a second dimension AND . . . the radius of the half circle cut out to ride up against the saddle . . . The rest is a no brainer . . . I want to make a set of saddlebags for a project . . . and maybe sell them later . . . just want them to be of the right dimensions that someone having a horse would want to buy them. Thanks for all your help . . . I was thinking if someone cared to do it . . . lay your saddlebags down on the floor with a 1 foot ruler laying next to them and post a picture. I can "interpolate" from there . . . close enough. Thanks . . . may God bless, Dwight

Look on Google . . . ask for Tandy Leather . . . find the closest store . . . go ask them. Some are knowledgeable . . . some are sales people. But it is a good starting place. May God bless, Dwight

Badhatter . . . the best advice on stretching the leather for a belt. Don't. 10 oz leather will be ruined and wasted if you attempt to go thru some ill defined process attempting to stop leather from doing something that it will do anyway. Even junk grade vegetable tanned leather makes an acceptable belt . . . But then again I've only made and sold several hundred . . . over the course of 20+ years . . . so what do I know? And not one ever came back because it stretched. May God bless, Dwight

Looks more like a nut cracker . . . can't figure how one would cut leather on that. May God bless, Dwight

And when you go to figure out how big a piece you will need . . . remember that if the strap were 1 inch wide . . . in one square foot . . . you would have 12 feet of 1 inch strap. Since you are cutting it at 1/2 inch . . . that doubles the strap length to 24 feet . . . if you want a 30 ft strap . . . you can start out with 1 1/4 square feet. Cutting it in a square piece is impossible so you at least have to look at a circle as the first possibility . . . and you don't want to have the last few inches sorely bent . . . Cutting an 18 inch circle . . . using a strap cutter set at 1/2 inch . . . you would wind up with a 30 ft strap . . . and roughly an 8 inch diameter piece left over in the middle. Again . . . soak it . . . stretch it . . . let it dry . . . viola . . . STRAP . . . May God bless, Dwight (provided I did my math correctly . . . )