Chakotay

Trying to buy leather from someone other than Tandy for the first time. Called up Wickett & Craig direct sales to order a single side of 10oz tooling/carving leather to try out. The salesman gave me the ballpark price, and told me that when my order comes up and is ready they'd send me an invoice with final price. That was almost two weeks ago. Emailed asking for a status on the order/invoice and was told it's still not ready yet. Are W&C's lead-times usually this long? I have custom order requests on hold as I'm out of leather. About to just go buy some double-shoulders from Tandy.

My stamp is from Grey Ghost as well. The delrin polymer is plenty strong enough. As mentioned, the leather needs to be properly cased. It's 1-inch across, so I used a dead blow hammer to get my impressions.

I'm sure someone else will mention this, but "Packing Iron" is the quintessential book on western holsters. Full color, beautiful full-page picts of old school gun leather. Lots of ideas. I would put mine out on the coffee table but my kids would trash it. It's kinda hard to find and expensive when you do. Mine's got some dust cover tears, but in otherwise good shape.

I'm presuming Tandy is just the distributor/rebrander. I ordered a small bottle of Aquilim 315 off eBay once. It sure seemed similar. If not 315 then probably one of the others; they make a whole line of water-based glues according to their website. Problem is it's from Europe and is expensive no matter where I find it. Weldwood is cheap and strong but the fumes make me nauseous, and I'm often gluing linings which require a large swath of it to be used. Ecoweld has very little oder (it reminds me of watered-down Elmers glue) and is plenty strong enough.

I've made real, concerted efforts in the last couple of years to get AWAY from using Tandy. It just took me a long time to realized I was being screwed paying their outrageous prices. And their 3-tiered pricing system just irked me for some reason. I searched online and found much cheaper sources for many of my key consumables and have never looked back. Of course I still buy from Tandy just because my location makes it so convenient. But I haven't had one of their paid accounts in about 2 years. I'm just considered "retail". And I only buy stuff when it's on sale or clearance; like the 7 to 9-ounce double shoulders the managers always say they're running out of and "don't know if they'll get any more," but yet seem to have had a constantly steady supply of for years. I'll check out their new prices though. Looks like their Ecoweld contact cement (aka, Rena Aquilim) is a lot cheaper now. That's one I use a lot of but haven't been able to source elsewhere cheaply.

Whoa! First I'm hearing about all this. Although I can't say I'm totally surprised. I live in Fort Worth, Texas, which is the heart of "Tandy Country". Corporate headquarters just 20 mins away and 4 (actually . . . make that 3) stores within driving distance. I've noticed subtle changes in all the stores last year or so. Managers and employees being transfered/swapped around like musical chairs. Dwindling inventories/stocks. Discontinued items (Craftool Pro). They closed my go-to store that I went to during my lunch breaks. And do the employees work on commission now? It sorta feels that way when I walk through the door recently. Sort of an aside, but does anybody else hate how they remodeled their stores so that all items are in arranged in bins by item number? Takes twice as long to find anything. About half the stores (including the big Fort Worth location) went back to just hanging everthing on display racks and shelves. Just seems like they're grasping at straws trying to find something that works.

Thanks guys. The image was taken with my phone. The background is an old stump that has deteriorated quite a bit over the years (plus we've had a lot of rain recently so there's some mold/fungus in the mix). So natural sunlight, but in the shade. I've discovered that is the key to decent photos. After tooling, I dyed with Fiebings and finished with neatsfoot.

...Sheridan-style specifically for an 1851 navy or 1860 Army.

4 oz is what I normally use. I buy sides especially for this. You can also adjust the width. Usually I make them around 3/4 inch, but lately I've been making my cartridge loops about an 1 inch wide.

Just posted on one of the other forum topics about my main cutting knife and realized I should prob mention it here as well. Another useful print is custom finger grips. I designed a couple of different styles in Tinkercad for my primary knife. Greatly increases grip, leverage, and control.

I'm a little late on this topic, but may I suggest some of the various wood carving knives from Pfeil? I bought mine from Woodcraft, but looks like you can get them in a lot of places. They're Swiss-made, come in a variety of sizes and blade profiles, and whatever metal they're made from holds an edge for a LONG time. They come razor sharp, but I find the edges need polishing (they're intended for wood so maybe a smooth, mirrored edge isn't important for that?) Prices range from around $15 to $30. I bought this size #10 for $20. It's my go-to knife for 90 percent of all my cutting.

Is the back board going to be pegboard? You can hold just about everything once you get your hooks/holders. But if you can't attach it to the wall, it's going to be a bit difficult. As someone already alluded to, attaching it to the desk is going cause problems when you start pounding on it as the vibrations transfer to the back board. Can you attach it to that dresser(?) on the right? Small space, but don't know how many tools you have. I like to have my workbench cleared of everything. Especially helpful when you're cutting a side or double shoulder

A perimeter is one wall of plastic filament the width of the printer's nozzle. Theoretically, it's the thinnest structure the printer can create. My printer has a standard 0.4mm nozzle. So "2 perimeters" would be two walls of plastic (I'm guessing it'll be 0.4mm x 2 = 0.8mm. Though I've never really tested my printer for accuracy.) I can measure it with a micrometer when I get home. But it's a bit of a moot point; while I was carving the lines didn't seem too big at all. They were about the same width as my swivel knife blade. You can see the two walls in this slicer close-up:

Yes, the lines are thick, but the they're only 2 perimeters wide. I don't think a 1-perimeter wall would survive being hammered into leather. For a quick, customized, repeatable guide, I think it works perfectly. Beats having to trace it out each time. I've already done the tooling (pict below . . . not the greatest work, but you get the point). Just regular PLA (cheap Inland brand from Micromart), 100% infill. I wasn't really paying attention to the extrusion height, but looking at the file it's 3.5 mm total height.

Been thinking about it for a while for holsters I make on a regular basis, so I finally decided to give it a try. For those into 3d printing, you know it can be a process... 1. Traced my holster in Adobe Illustrator and designed my pattern. Once done, I exported the files as an .svg. 2. I then imported the files into Tinkercad, extruded, and export as .stl 3. Import the .stl into my slicer (I used Slic3r Prusa edition). 4. Print the file! My printer is a Prusa Mk2.5S. The print is lightly wet-sanded to get the stamping surface flat. I discovered it was better to lightly hammer the pattern onto the leather rather than just trying to press the impression on.