TailGunner

What do you find the best ways of transferring a tooling pattern onto the leather?

Okay, my first attempt at a western holster, guns are a little hard to come by over here in England, but a friend who does re-enactment kindly lent me an 1851 Navy colt to work round, I bought a pattern for a plain slim jim holster of of etsy and then modified it from images on line. Its 6/7 oz veg tan, tooled with a water and saddle soap mix I saw on YT, not dyed just neatsfoot oil then a resist, antiquing and a finish. All hand sewn. Had great fun doing it and a few problems. There are some tight spots where I have made the pattern a little small had to add a gusset by the trigger guard and made a complete pigs ear of the toe plug. Will tweak the pattern a bit and then try version two.

Cheers Toxo, have to keep going, need to get good enough to sell a few bits and pieces to buy more leather and tools, dont seem to be able to get away with 'what this old (stamp, knife, dye or side of cow) its been in the wardrobe for years.

Thanks fredk, masses of info on here, looking forward to working through it.

Thanks for letting me join, Started trying my hand with leather at the end of last year altering and making a couple of bits for my bike. That got the bug started so I made myself a little work corner started with some cheap tools and watched a lot of videos. Mainly using commercially available patterns, pattern design is not my strong point. Enjoy the tooling side just need to keep practicing. Looking forward to learning more from the folks on here.