Dwight

Ohio still writes em by hand, . . . carbon copies, . . . all that stuff. I know, . . . OSHP followed me about 4 miles earlier this summer, . . . I'm doing 45 in a 55 with my trailer on back, . . . with a tractor on the trailer. He gives me the lecture for going too slow and impeding traffic. May God bless, Dwight

Keith, . . . both of those pieces were done with Feibings British tan, . . . cut 50/50 with thinner. I dip dyed them (as I do with all my leather work). May God bless, Dwight

That would be the time I would have read her the little note on the front about legal tender for all debts private and public. When she said she'd call the cops, . . . I'd have give her my card, . . . and told her to have em call me, . . . no need to chase, . . . I'll meet em where ever is most convenient for them. Then I would have walked out. May God bless, Dwight

How long is the barrel? Does he want a 50/50 or a flat backed? May God bless, Dwight

Yes, . . . I have tried the "order without seeing" thing from different suppliers, . . . and was basically disappointed every time. I go into the Tandy store, . . . search through the piles, . . . buy the piece that works for me, . . . and I'm on my way. No shipping costs, no waiting three or four days, . . . and NO big holes, blemishes, scars, etc, . . . such as I have gotten before. May God bless, Dwight

The first thing I would suggest, is quit buying leather at Hobby Lobby, . . . it is way too expensive, and the leather you bought is really not conducive to a beginner learning how to make much of anything. Buy some vegetable tanned leather, . . . cement all your edges together, . . . the first two absolutes. Next, . . . clean up the edge, . . . bevel, sand, burnish, . . . get it "nice". Then if you have wing dividers, . . . slightly dampen the leather in the area you want to sew, . . . make a crease line 1/8 to 3/16 inch in from the edge on both sides. Use that same set of dividers on the "beauty side" and mark off your stitches about 6 or 8 at a time, . . . set your length at 3/16 of an inch. Do not use a multi pronged punch to learn with, . . . that is an advanced tool. Start with an Awl, . . . slowly push straight down on a table surface with another piece of leather under your project, . . . when you fell your tip has probably gone through, . . . turn it over and make sure it came through on the line on the back side. Had you done that on the first wallet, . . . your stitches would not have wandered like a drunken sailor. Getting the hang of hand stitching is easy as falling off a wagon, . . . getting the hang of it and it looking really good, . . . takes lots of practice. You might even just make a couple of strips an inch wide, . . . bevel the edges, . . . sand em, . . . burnish em, . . . mark em, . . . and stitch em, . . . maybe 15 or 16 inches long. Do 3 or 4 inches, . . . quit, . . . go get a cup of coffee, . . . call a friend, . . . then come back and do another 3 or 4 inches. Keep stitching, . . . breaking, . . . stitching, . . . breaking until you get it done. Make some of the breaks a day or two long. By the time you have gotten to the end, you will easily be able to tell which is the beginning and which is the ending part. You already have the best talent you could ever get, . . . you want to do it. Now just make it come to pass. May God bless, Dwight

Of all the things you mentioned that you might "some day" like to make: vegetable tanned leather will work fine for all of them. In fact, if you want to do any serious stamping or tooling, . . . it is your leather of choice. Then it only becomes a choice of thickness. There are some "rules of thumb" for thickness based on the item you are making, . . . but at the same time, . . . those rules of thumb are not set in stone. A little thinner on the leather for a lady's purse, will make it a bit more flexible, . . . an little thicker for a holster, will make it more bulky. Nice thing about this place, . . . and at least my Tandy store, . . . tell em what you want to make, . . . somebody there will give you a real good idea, and possibly even a couple of alternatives. May God bless, Dwight

The only advice I can offer is doing what I do, . . . I do not touch, period, do not touch the outside of a holster if I spent the time to stamp anything on it. The weapon is inserted into the holster, . . . and any pressure applied is only to the places around the stamping that are still just plain leather. BUT, . . . I also have never tried vacuum molding for this problem. You would have to be very careful to have no wrinkles in the bag you use, . . . but at least the molding pressure would be spread equally all over the holster. I would also allow the holster to completely dry, . . . then using a wash cloth, . . . wet only the inside of the holster, . . . stick it in the vacuum sealer, . . . and try that. Again, . . . I don't get too much involved in stamping, . . . but that is what I would do if I had to do one like yours. I usually try to keep my tooling on holsters to a minimum such as the one I pictured below. May God bless, Dwight

Looks good from here............ May God bless, Dwight

Actually it is pretty easy, . . . I've got 3 of them there 9 x 14 x 2 inch deep cake pans. One black, one brown, one that showed up and ain't been used yet. Pour about 2/3 of a quart of dye down in the pan, . . . start one end of the belt through the dye, . . . takes all of about 3 minutes to get the whole thing through it. I've got a piece of cardboard I lay on the work bench, . . . lay the belt on the bottom edge, . . . sitting on edge, . . . leave for about 10 minutes. That's usually the time to pour the dye back in the bottle and clean up the pan. Turn the belt over onto the top edge, . . . shut off the lights and go in the house. NEVER, EVER, ever hang up a freshly dyed belt, . . . unless you want a belt that is real light colored on one end, . . . dark on the other, . . . and normal in the middle. And don't ask how I wound up with a whole hand full of belts like that, . . . (sometimes lessons can be costly to learn). I would imagine I sponge out maybe an ounce of wasted dye and toss it as I clean the pan, . . . but it is a "cost of doing business", . . . and I just march on. May God bless, Dwight

When I do a belt, . . . the first thing is to cut 2 blanks, . . . inside blank and outside blank. Lay down the templates for punching the appropriate holes on the buckle end, . . . punch them Rough cut the length (usually 1/2 to 1 inch over, . . . JIC ) Apply contact cement, . . . allow it to dry. Make the blank keeper while this is drying. Finish drying with heat gun if necessary. Put the 2 pieces together, . . . make finish cuts to lengh, . . . punch holes in the tongue end, . . . sand edges with electric sander, . . . bevel edges, . . . limber up the Tippmann Boss sewing machine, . . . make sure there is enough bobbin thread, . . . use gouge for sewing line on both sides of belt. Sew belt. Dye belt and keeper. Apply Resolene to belt and keeper. Assemble belt. Go get coffee and a snacky reward for a good job, . . . or find critical mistake and put it in the trash. There obviously are a few extra steps for a Ranger belt, . . . but this is the general pattern. The one BIG change is the place where it is sewn. Sometimes a customer will want a belt with white thread. If I cannot talk them out of it (it gets dirty and ugly if it is worn for anything but a dress belt), . . . then after the dye, . . . but before the Resolene, . . . we sew the rascal. I'v never hand sewn a belt, . . . but a guy I knew did them, . . . he and his wife would do it together, . . . watching TV, . . . averaged 4 hours, . . . he just laughed and said it doesn't cost him anything to entertain his brain while he exercised his hands. Not for me................ May God bless, Dwight

I only make basically one type of belt, . . . a double layer, . . . cemented and sewn together, . . . the basic CCW belt. There are two versions, . . . a "regular" belt, . . . and a Ranger belt. The ranger has a separate tongue sewn onto the belt surface, . . . as well as a buckle tongue. Starting from absolute scratch, . . . nothing prepped ahead of time, . . . a regular belt can be blanked out, . . . and ready for the finishing process in about 2 hours, . . . with absolutely NO hurry involved. That means I can make a bathroom break, . . . go get coffee, . . . maybe munch a cookie, . . . and still get it done under 120 minutes. Add 1 FULL hour for a ranger belt. Again, . . . this is the "making" process. Dyeing either one takes 15 minutes at the outside. Adding Resolene takes another 15 minutes. Final dressing of the edges will also take another 15 minutes. There is also lots of drying time involved, . . . Hope this helps. May God bless, Dwight

Biker, . . . in times past I messed around a bit with some of those ratios. It will look good for a year or two, . . . then it will change. In most cases it seems to get lighter and drifts off to a more "sunburned leather" color. I know where there is a beautiful single holster, . . . plain western rig that was almost a funky dark grey when it was done several years ago, . . . and now it was drifted down to a medium dark brown. Don't get me wrong, . . . it still is really good looking, . . . but the color has changed significantly. That has been my experience with the lighter ratios, . . . May God bless, Dwight

Chris, . . . Experience will teach you that leather is a funny animal (no pun intended) when it comes to dyeing. Sometimes it dyes AOK, . . . and sometimes you wonder if a space ship didn't go overhead, disrupt the galaxy, and cause your dye job to turn upside down. The best thing YOU can do is be constant. That is the reason that I cut my dye 50/50, . . . first time, . . . every time, . . . all the time. I only do "custom" dye jobs when the customer demands it up front. But I make sure that if I'm doing a belt for him, . . . he knows not to come back in a year and want a billfold and set of spur straps to match his belt. That borders on the "darn near impossible". If I am using my standard colors (I have 3) I can come close to guaranteeing the color, . . . anything else is worse than trying to predict how many times you will have to try to win solitaire with a deck of 51 cards. The alcohol I get comes from a local hardware store or Lowes. May God bless, Dwight

I use denatured alcohol, . . . on Feibings dyes, and Feibings oil dyes. May God bless, Dwight

Sometimes we get the privilege of learning from our mistakes. You were so privileged. As a rule, . . . ALWAYS, . . . check your dye on a scrap piece before jumping in whole hog. Personally, . . . I ALWAYS cut my dyes 50/50 before I even do a test piece. Never found any of them yet that look REALLY GOOD full strength. May God bless, Dwight

I keep several tubes in my shop desk, . . . and it ain't to fix clocks or some such. May God bless, Dwight

Sounds like a winner to me, . . . take out the guts, . . . build a rack in the middle, . . . or at least some kind of bars to hang the holster on. Should be pretty easy to rig up a thermostat inside, . . . to turn the heater and a fan on and off, . . . I would not think you would need a heat lamp, . . . heater should be quite enough, . . . and it's already insulated, . . . looks like a winner to me. First thing to do though, . . . gut it, . . . get a meat thermometer, . . . drill a little hole in the side of it, . . . put the thermometer in there, . . . turn it on, . . . find out what kind of heat we are talking about, . . . from all I've ever heard, . . . 140 F is the MAX, I do know (and you don't need to ask how) that dampening a Kirkpatrick holster for a 1911, . . . putting it in the microwave for a minute, . . . is too hot. May God bless, Dwight

Yep, . . . you got it on the first guess. I messed around a bit trying to figure out what is the "best" depth, . . . especially for automatics, . . . and I came up with "just below the rear sight". That is my "go to" depth for just about all of em I do. Another comment that was made concerned putting finish in the inside of the holster, . . . I do it to make the weapon less likely to abrade the inside. I had one holster one time that every time I pulled out my weapon, . . . little shards of leather came out on it, . . . (it was a purchased holster, . . . I did not make it). I decided not to let mine do that, . . . and a light coat of resolene seems to be enough for the job, . . . but does not abrade the weapon surface greatly either. But, . . . that again is a subjective decision for each maker and each buyer. May God bless, Dwight

Chief nailed it, . . . too much product on the project, . . . or not thinned properly. A light coating of Resolene is all that is needed. May God bless, Dwight

Thanks for the story, . . . sorry for the giggling, . . . I have done equally "unintelligent" things myself. Also just wanted to mention, . . . others of us also keep super glue handy May God bless, Dwight

msdeluca wrote: "Dipped in 100% Fiebings Pro Dye, 50/50 Resolene, and (on the holster) a final coat of Sno-Seal. I know Dwight uses Sno-Seal only... might try that next time. I'm just not sold on the benefit of Resolene and it is harder than hell to apply evenly. Tried dipping the holster in it this time, but still had to brush it out. Daubers don't work... maybe my dilution is wrong for it to sheet off after dipping... any suggestions are welcome." First off, . . . in my opinion, . . . really some good looking leather work there, . . . edges are good, . . . stitching good, . . . I would probably stuffed the gun a bit further down in the holster, . . . but that is a subjective decision everyone makes to their own preference. BUT, . . . I don't use Sno-Seal, . . . I'm a dedicated Resolene user, . . . picked it out only because of one reason to start with, . . . it has a UV blocker that will not allow the sunlight to "quickly" mess up your dye colors. It probably will eventually, . . . but not right away. I mix my resolene 50/50 with water, . . . and have tried a couple different applications, . . . always go back to the ugly little cheap bristle brushes that I buy from Harbor Freight. I'll use the same one until the bristles start coming off on my project, . . . pitch it, . . . pull a new one out of the box, . . . they're not very costly at all. I dip the brush and start brushing the project, . . . starting with any "flesh side" parts that there are. Sometimes for the inside of the holster, . . . I'll use a dauber to get the crevices their coating. I then concentrate on the outside, . . . brushing left, right, up, down, swirling, . . . at first looking for the bubbles to appear, telling me that I have enough product on the item, . . . it'll be kinda frothy looking at that point, . . . I then quit adding material, . . . concentrate on brushing out the bubbles, . . . and when they all disappear, . . . I quit brushing, . . . hang it up to dry. THAT IS my process, . . . so far it has really worked good for me. May God bless, Dwight

I just finished this one for a new customer, . . . he needed a space for 9 cards. I cut a piece of pine, . . . after I measured out 7 cards from my "stash", . . . made the board that thickness. Like was said, . . . wet and stuff, . . . wet and stuff. Got it to fit, . . . sent him a folded piece of manila folder so he can put another one in, . . . leave it overnight, . . . and add one every day, . . . until it stretches out where he wants it. Billfolds are a pain, . . . but I really like the finished product, . . . May God bless, Dwight