DeWayne Hayes

That is gorgeous work all the way around!

Beautiful piece of work! That is one case where I'm not sure if you're wearing the holster, or the holster is wearing you, but either way - great looking piece!

Brilliant work - I've been thinking about an apron, myself. Well done!

Absolutely. I will split a canister over two or three projects until it's exhausted. Bear in mind, you use more dye this way, as a lot of it gets sprayed right past the edges of your project (as with any sprayed medium), so you'll see your dye jar going down faster than you might expect, as opposed to a dauber, where it all goes into the leather. But I freely move the Preval from one color to another. Give it a little blast to clear out the old color still in the tube, then carry on. Also bear in mind this one little trick - when you're screwing a Preval directly onto a Fiebings 4 oz jar of dye, you'll need to trim a tiny bit off the end of the Preval's plastic tube that extends down into the dye. They're made to go into a different reusable reservoir and are just a tiny bit too long for a Fiebings dye jar, but with a sharp knife or razor, if you trim it just a bit, you can screw the Preval unit right down onto the Fiebings jar and eliminate the need for a separate reservoir entirely. Very handy! BTW - I'm in an apartment too, and I just step outside in the parking lot and spray my piece quickly. You certainly don't want to spray that pro dye in the apartment!

No, it's one and done - once the canister is spent, it goes in the trash. They're around $10 a pop, so not cheap, but the trade-off is never having to clean an airgun or maintain a compressor, etc.

Yep, I can get full use out of a 4oz bottle with a Preval.

Just to add to your options, I gave up dying with a dauber almost immediately due to streaking and turned to first airbrushes, but later the much simpler Preval air canister. https://tandyleather.com/products/preval-power-unit?variant=31977386868867&currency=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA75itBhA6EiwAkho9e4ayMpy0bMgtdKQ1BZLIJiDI4YnGrzmROkU0Ke8gBK-oJLUoiP6_pBoCSP0QAvD_BwE These will literally screw right into the top of a Fiebings small jar of Pro Dye and you've got an instant air gun with no clean up - use it until it's empty and throw away. It's my go-to method for dying now unless I'm doing Black, which I never have any streaking issues with when using a dauber. But that's the only color I do by hand. Anything brown or tan I use the Preval sprayer. Hope this helps! DeWayne

Thanks, guys!

Right on. Since all the holsters I do are cross-draw, so long as they have a 1.75" belt loop, I can slide them on there. I think I'll probably make one in black for the black holsters. One other benefit of this "modular" system that I've found is that I can easily pop the shoulder strap over to the other side of my neck. I imagine if I were wearing it all day, it might be really nice to swap sides to take the strain off the left side of my neck and even things out a bit.

Awesome - thank you!

I'm thinking I probably better use some brass washers on both sides of where the shoulder strap attaches to the horizontal strap - otherwise those small brass bolt heads are going to compress too deeply into the leather - not to mention, the washers will add rigidity to that intersection. Does anyone know a source for brass washers? Maybe 7/8" OD, 1/4" ID?

I should make one with a sheep's wool fly patch sewn onto the shoulder strap!

Decided I wanted to make an Alaskan style "guide holster" or chest rig, which allows you to fish up to your belly in water while keeping your self defense sidearm close at hand and dry. I could have bought one of these, but I wanted to have some flexibility - I wanted to simply use my standard cross-draw holster and be able to remove it when I want to wear on my belt. I also wanted something that would break apart for ease of packing/transport - in other words, not a complicated 3 dimensional "cage" but something that could easily lay flat or be rolled up. Finally, a last value add is I can use the horizontal strap as a belt when needed. So, theoretically, it's a chest rig AND/OR a cross draw belt holster rig. Good ol' Fiebings English Bridle Pro Dye, followed by Leather Balm + Atom Wax. Very simple (as is my style and limit of my abilities!). Hope you all enjoy. DeWayne

Ha ha! I work Veg-tan wet for my holsters, but the 8-10oz is as big as I've gone. Someday I'll get in the ring with the heavyweights!

That's tremendous! Wish I could work leather that thick.

I just love the look AND feel of waxed leather - like a nice pair of dress shoes. So, I consider this combo of wax and M&G to be a great "best of both worlds" ... I'm not exactly getting the feel of pure wax, but I'm getting almost the same shine, with the great value add of waterproofing provided by the acrylic. Good combo and easy, durable finish for novices like myself. I've just been going back and doing all my holsters and knife sheaths. Easy to add to an old project.

Does the M&G over the black shoe polish keep the shoe polish from rubbing off on clothing? I'm guessing it does.

Just for testing purposes, I reapplied a second coat to the test holster just now, and it dried nicely, depositing even more acrylic, I'm sure. Always scary when that watery mess goes on and turns the leather dark in spots, but within minutes it's dried and back to normal. And yes, I never was into the red dots, but my aging eyes are finding them to be quite helpful! Made this holster specifically to accommodate the optic. D

Made another holster for one of my long barrel Glocks and this time I tried a different finishing technique. Usually, I stain with Fiebings Pro Dye, then the next day apply Fiebings Leather Balm + Atom Wax. I love the waxy sheen but a wax finish is not particularly water repellent, and for an outdoor holster (woods gun), I felt like I needed to do more. I experimented on an older messed up holster finished with the Balm/Wax and mixed up a dish of Mop & Glow diluted 50/50 with water. I really wasn't sure how the watery M&G would react on top of a waxy finish. Would it just roll off? As you know, water and wax aren't supposed to mesh. To my absolute delight, it went on wet with a foam brush, then fairly quickly soaked in and deposited the acrylic layer perfectly, with no streaking or any negative side effects. no color change. Feels like a Mop & Glo finish now, but buffed right back to a pretty nice sheen. Not an intense waxy gloss, but somewhere in between. I was delighted. This stuff definitely beads water better than the wax alone. In other words, if I let water sit on the pure wax, it doesn't take long to penetrate the leather. With the M&G, the water beads and will eventually penetrate, but I have longer to wipe it off without penetration. That's about as good as I need. If I get caught in rain, I want to be able to wipe off the leather and then cover it up without staining. Now, here's another benefit I found. This particular double shoulder I got from Tandy leather. About half the shoulder was really nice and smelled of that delicious veg tan, baseball glove new shoe smell - the rest was more wrinkly and had a distinct farmyard smell after wet molded (smelled like cow sh*t to be honest). Not nice. The messed up holster I tested on was the worst, for some reason - really a nasty odor. So, I used the M&G on the inside of the holster too, applied with a brush. Dried nicely, and apparently sealed in the stink, because now the holster just smells slightly lemony! No more cattle yard smell. I think this is an interesting tool for both topcoats and interiors - I'm happy with it! If anything, I think the wax layer helps prevent the M&G from streaking, and that alone is worth it, in my opinion.

I have, and actually fabricated one of those myself using a spark plug feeler gauge as a metal piece, but I applied it on the exterior, not inside the layers. Reason being, I don't set my female snap until the holster is dry from wet molding as I find the strap often shrinks when drying, so if I set both ends of the snap too soon, I can have problems when the holster is dried out. If I used one of those stiffeners "inside", I'd be committed to a snap position.

I wet mold the entire holster - isn't that the same as casing? I've never 'cased' specifically, as I don't tool. Please educate me if I don't understand casing.

I understand Weaver sells a liquid leather stiffener. If anyone has used this, I have a couple questions. I want to stiffen the thumb-break portion of a leather pistol holster - just the thumb break tab, I don't want to stiffen the whole holster. Can I apply this stiffener after wet molding but before spraying my pro dye? In other words, will the stiffener affect the color of either the raw veg-tan or once dyed? Will it leave a stain-looking line between that area and the rest of the holster? Thanks for any experience you can share. DeWayne

I'm still a novice, but love problem solving ... or attempting to solve problems. As for the excess welt, I cut about 90% off with a razor box cutter, and then grind it down flush with a table-top belt sander.

The final product looks like this, once stitched. I hope these pictures help explain the process a little better. It's surely not as fast or easy as using a machine to punch and sew through a thick welt, but it is the best I've come up with for aligning holes and then sewing through them pretty easily with no glue interference. The primary benefit is the backside stitching looks as good as the front side, since you're connecting two sets of nicely pre-laid out holes - not punching through hoping the punch doesn't wander and come through the back side of the holster misaligned. Looks much neater this way, I think. Regards, DeWayne

And finally, I use the needle/pin method to glue up and attach the other side of the holster to the welt.