Chakotay

Lining adds thickness (and stiffness). Things you may not want on certain items. In particular, I'm always trying to get my wallet as thin as I can.

Very nice. An alternative (and cheaper) route is to print your own stamps with a 3D printer.

Selling my Tippmann Boss heavy duty leather stitcher/sewing machine. It comes with the optional material guide, standard pressor foot, center pressor foot, LED light, and a custom-made flatbed attachment for working thin materials. Works fine. I'm selling it to help fund the purchase of an electric machine. Local pickup only in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Needing $1,000 for it. This machine has been featured prominently on my leatherworking YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQUJVflNHF5wd5GgyBX167A

goes into sharpening the blade at the end:

Video on just this subject: https://youtu.be/0e45BfmwJqE

Check at the 4:10 mark. This what you're referring to?

they're all over e-bay. That's where I buy them in bulk. Here's just one listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/50pcs-Solid-Brass-Round-Head-Stud-Screwback-Leather-Bag-Chicago-Screw-Nail-Rivet/153353252327?hash=item23b490ede7:g:lREAAOSwlkpcTD2M

Here's a video I made making and aging a cartridge belt. It's the same techniques I use for holsters.

This.

9 - 10oz. I suggest Wicket & Craig tooling sides. Tools beautifully. Tandy stuff is garbage. Took me years to figure that out.

I'm scheduled to get an online order today. It'll be sad to see their retail stores go away. Hopefully they at least maintain an online presence. But it does make me wonder how they screwed this up: You're practically the only 'player' in the leather game (yes, I know there's other sources . . . you know what I mean). Was it just mismanagement? Poor quality? Bad customer service? Just a dying craft not enough people are interested in?

As already mentioned, you have to glue it around something. I use a large dowel rod. Check out around minute 7 of my most recent holster build (video link below.) You can never really lay it out flat afterwards or you'll run into the same problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKFv-VbEgJ4

Coincidentally, I just posted a video on how I age leather...

I have a fairly large (1.5") custom makers mark that I very proudly put on every piece . . . when I first got it. Now it usually gets left off because I just forget . . . or maybe I'm just lazy.---j

Thanks! The skull was from Thingiverse. It's Celtic style, so it has scrollwork on it which I thought would go well with the tooling: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2834954 I had to modify it in Meshmixer by cutting off the back and giving it the curvature of the holster. I also added a flange: then sliced it in Slic3r: The holster is fully-lined. I cut a window in the outer leather smaller than the flange. Once the liner was glued on I sewed around the flange to "lock" it in. I then dyed and weathered per normal.

I made this holster for Halloween on a whim... The skull is 3d printed out of white ABS so as it wears it will just show off more of the "bone".

Hoping this is OK to post here; I'm wrapping up a multi-part Youtube tutorial on making Will Ghormley's "Hand of God" holster (all props to him). It's part of my fledgling channel devoted to leatherwork (one of my many distractions). Full disclosure; I don't make any income from it or anything. It's just sorta my effort to contribute something to the site and the leather working community. As such, comments, critiques, smash/trashes are certainly welcome!

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.