chuck123wapati

Interesting I've never cared much what other folks do or how they choose to create or finish their work as long as it doesn't effect me but I have to ask. Hilt as defined is usually the term for the parts of a complete handle assembly do you mean you take off the scales of your knives to see if the tang is polished, you must get really disappointed I've never seen one polished or even heard of it being done? I mean if you understand why jeweling holds oil then why don't you understand why a rough or sanded tang holds glue better?

i think a guy can stamp it the way he wants to and doesn't have to feel bad about any part of it. Personally I like a smooth leather against my body however and wouldn't want one stamped on the back. But if the customer would want it I would make it.

What Bruce said but you will want to put a sealer on the areas you don't want to dye dark so mistakes don't happen.

I truly hope you get the chance, i would love to see the Australian outback i think its a lot like the red desert here except its not 6000+ feet in altitude. We did well this year put some fish in the freezer and a ton of wild greens, most folks call them weeds. we have six or seven edible plants in our garden that most folks pull out and throw away. We use them all.

I may do that my area of the world is very dry humidity wise, so dry in fact i have found leather shoe pieces out in the old homestead dump's that have been laying on the ground for at least a100 years. Another thing to think about is viscosity of the oils used and its relation ship to the process. oils will at some point migrate out of the leather just due to gravity, lighter oils moving easier through the leather fibers may be lost sooner, its another reason we have to add oils over time. You may want to think about what your pieces are going to be laying on or in as they also could wick the oils away from the leather. I do have some rendered elk tallow I could try, as well as the manufactured product i use. wish i had some bear grease it was traditionally used as well.

cam buckle maybe an older type?

one thing is for sure not many people will know any different. I wasn't aware they even existed.

i found this picture on the net it is for a fordson

I even had to teach her how to put a worm on a hook but she has adapted after 40 years of following me around the woods and living a country lifestyle, she hunts and fishes and we butcher all our game our selves including the cute little bunnies we raise to eat. I don't think anything would phase her now.

lol really mine isn't that much lower maybe an inch. But isn't it really nice to be able to make a holster that fits your own personal needs.

dang i like that. its sits a bit high for my taste but who cares, I can see it definitely will work well and it looks great.

Its going to be an interesting experiment.

the county i live in at one time was the largest wool producer in the US, we have old shearing pens all along the railroad tracks. In school every year we would take a field trip out to watch the shearing process. Most of the herders and shearers back then were of Basque ancestry. I still have my great uncles sheep wagon, which i really need to paint before it turns to dust. It was built after ww1 when he returned from the war. A funny story when my wife and i first met I took her for a drive out in the country. We came upon a flock of sheep being docked and i was telling her how the Basques would cut the bag then pull out the testicles with their teeth. She was giving me the blues for bullshitting her then as we got closer to the process and as we went by i said just watch that guy over there and sure enough he did right in front of her lol, cut the bag pulled em out and spat them in a bucket. She about died right there and started gaging and i of course laughed my butt off, she never forgot that one. Btw sheep nuts are some fine eating!!!

lol only because you were never issued one. Seriously though your right it doesn't need one but the scoped version did because of the way the scope was mounted to prevent ejected shell casing hitting it. Mine is just because I can I really need one on my 54 cal bp.

so are you going to submit the test pieces to any form of natural variables such as the sun, the rain, wear, flexing? i have seen a half dozen discussions over this subject on the forum usually we end up talking apples and oranges. One person using such and such on a belt he uses only on Sunday going to church and it lasted forever and another saying he full of because he tried it on his motorcycle seat that he's rides out in the Arizona sun every day or some such. We are talking about a lot of variables in what, why and who owns and uses that particular piece of animal hide. its not a simple conversation IMO and no one is absolutely right and one oil or conditioner isn't going to work for every application. I apply a heavy water proofing type of product on my outdoor gear to keep the leather in proper order but not on my wallet.

did you read what i wrote?

lol i was a roustabout also only it doesn't mean the same, here it is a job in the oil field usually building or cleaning up oil rig locations digging trenches and basic hard labor. Once at the age of 18 my first job as a roustabout. me and two other guys were sent out to a location to make some repairs it was thanksgiving weekend and a storm blew in closing the roads, we made it to the nearest town the first night and were able to find shelter at a friends parents house but the second night our vehicle battery died and we were stuck over night in sub zero temps about 40 miles past nowhere. We made it by keeping each other awake and finally had to wrap our feet together in an extra pair of coveralls to keep them from freezing. The next day there must have 6 inches of ice inside the cab from our breath lol.

My dogs collars are still soft and flexible after three years of being dogs outside playing in the water, rain and dirt the only additional oils they have received since I made them are from the dogs themselves and the threads haven't rotted either. lol So my deductive reasoning kicks in and says animal oils would probably be best for conditioning animal hides. Any one ever have a dog collar that needed re conditioned?

i would love that!!!

my actual knowledge of oils comes from years of work not only on leather but construction, automotive, and various types of maintenance. I'll give an example i used to work in a prison, Many chemicals were not allowed for obvious reasons. Lubricating oils being one of them. the food service manager could not get oils needed to lubricate his meat slicers so he instructed his inmates to use vegetable oil for lubrication. In less than a month the veg oil had dried into a literal gum that could not be removed by any ordinary means of cleaning, it had to be soaked for hours in our garage in the parts washer. Not only that it was rancid as well soooooo........ its not for leather either it will dry out and stink,its for cooking only and only if you have decent health care coverage. neets foot oil comes from cows put it back in and you wont have a problem.

veg tanned leather has no oils applied after tanning that is what we do its called liquoring and it is the starting point of re adding oils to the veg tanned leather. What you may not realize is that liquoring is what we do when we apply oils on veg tan, until we do that no oils have been applied after tanning that is what we do and it is the long term.

To think the effects of various oils on leather has never been considered is silly, its been studied for centuries, you just have to look for the research its a multi billion dollar industry. Here is one i found in about ten minutes. I will add you will have to find old studies for reliable information, any new info will be tainted by the climate change agenda so I'm sure fossil fuel derived oils will not be on the top ten list in any new publication. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339328369_Leather_and_Textile_Uses_of_Fats_and_Oils I have more but my links were dropped when i re-set my box.

That is a very cool idea for a brush for any critter including people don't stop thinking at the barn door. You do need more practice making and to refine it. the background isn't to dark for your sunflower but it is for the pig as there is no contrast. I would suggest you use two pieces of leather, top and bottom, the bottom would have a oval hole for the bristles and come up tight around them then laced or sewn at the the rim of the handle to the top piece so that no plastic handle shows at all.

You made a very nice case!! but 400 bucks for a pry bar and who in the heck carries one every day? jeez I'm doing something wrong.

i knew when folks started asking if i could make them one of my holsters. Then it just grew slowly by word of mouth.