Littlef

It was a rewarding project. It’s definitely sparks a lot of conversation when people see it.

Thank you very much! Thank you sir!

Leather stretches with age. You want them fairly tight from the build. When you are fine tuning the loops…. Use new brass. Don’t use fired brass, because they’ve expanded…. Then new brass will be loose. If you start off loose, as the leather breaks in, you’ll wind up losing rounds. rimed rounds will rest on the rim, but you should be able to make loops for 45acp and have them hold. Realistically I think modern gun belts with bullet loops are far more for looks than truly expecting to be reloading from the loops all the time. If I was reloading on the clock, I’d be inclined to keep a handful of loose rounds in a dump pouch, rather than trying to reload from bullet loops. If you are just practicing, having an extra box with you is more practical. The only time I might worry about losing rounds would be if you have a day hunting on horseback.

I used to use those same home depot shop lights with print paper taped over them. I found on Amazon and eBay they sell cheap lighting setups with tripods and umbrellas in the $40 range. The light socket itself is in the same quality range as a shop light… but then you have umbrellas to diffuse and a tripod with height and angle adjustments. It helped my lighting being able to easily reposition, and a white umbrella gives you more control over how it diffuses, for a pretty small price tag. https://www.ebay.com/itm/201868646712?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=JxFZRo4fQxa&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=_kGbz7lnTvS&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

If you shoot in raw, you can salvage some quite mediocre shots From under or overexposure. You’ll never turn a Trash photo into a prize winner. 1. shoot a lot. 2. Check your histogram and image preview often. It’s good to turn the “blinkies” on, which show over exposure or under exposure. That gives you a quick reference when you’re shooting fast, so if the preview has a lot of blinking parts… stop and fix your exposure. more direct answer… you should never intend to have bad lighting, and hope to fix it in post. If you’re shooting your product… with the intent to sell. Spend a few bucks to improve your lighting. When people are are shopping…. People skip over bad photos that are hard to tell the details.

thanks. I saw the description of these possibles bags, and the front flap was referred to as a beaver tail, because of the shape. I thought, I wonder of a I could get a real beaver tail and what does it look like. It wasn’t very expensive.. maybe 20 -30 bucks-ish, from a guy on Etsy. When I saw that neat deep grain pattern in the tail, I was immediately sold.

Those reins are spectacular.

Thanks! I love the deep grain pattern in the beaver tail. It’s really holds the antique to make it pop. I was amazed how much some simple scrimshaw added to the look. I’m definitely gonna try to incorporate some more of it in future projects. Thank you sir. I truly appreciate that. I’m kinda excited to start a horn, and work through the process.

Thank you very much!

I have a whole bunch of stuff I've never tried before. Here's my first bag. A possibles bag. I made it out of 4-5oz leather, with a pillow ticking liner, then added rabbit to the front. I sewed it inside out. I never thought I've get it turned right side out. I took me almost an hour, and I had to beat it with a mallet to get the corners to collapse in. But I got it, and the seams didn't rip. It a beaver tail front flap. I thought I would be appropriate to actually get a beaver tail to make it. At the bottom of the strap, I picked up a few pieces of trade silver. The front flap is I could get them to attached directly to the strap, so I wetted some 2-oz leather pinned them to it, and then sewed the 2-oz onto the strap. I attached a patch knife and a powder measure to the straps. Then, I made a flint wallet, and a carved a moose in the front. First time for trying to make an animal type carving. Trying to push myself to do some different stuff. Finally, its not really leather work, but I made a turkey wing bone turkey call, and I tried doing a little scrimshaw in the bone. At some point, I want to make a powder horn for the bag, and I want to scrimshaw it. Needing to get some scrimshaw practice before I tackle that.

Thank you very much!!

Leather is pretty flexible when it’s wet. When you stamp leather, it spreads. The more you stamp … like in a basket weave pattern, it keeps spreading. By the time I stamped the diamond pattern, the stitch lines n the back of the holster no longer lined up. They were close, but the front absolutely spread out. If you masking tape the back when you stamp, it holds the leather in place, and keeps it from spreading out.

I’m kinda confused. I don’t recall ever saying the antler was cut off. Doogmeister asked if this was mule deer. I said I didn’t know.

Thanks! Not 100% sure on the antler. I bought it from a maker on Etsy. the seller didn’t say.

Thank you very much sir. Now I’m planning out how I want to design the possibles bag. Thank you very much.

I’ve had this knife laying around for a year … maybe two. I’m planning on making a possibles bag for shooting muzzle loaders, and I’m going to attach it to the strap, when I make the bag. Figured I go ahead and get the sheath knocked out. I gotta learn not to be in a hurry. There’s a couple little mistakes in the stamping cause I was going to fast. Also, I didn’t tape the leather before stamping. I figured it’s so small it won’t make a difference. It makes a difference, and the leather still stretches. I was able to make some adjustments, and it works fine. I gotta learn to just stop working when I get to a point where I just want to be done.

I normally pour it in a big Tupperware container. I dip the leather in it. I’ve noticed that if I let the leather sit after dipping for 5 to 20 minutes, it continues to get darker. Also, when you put some neatsfoot oil on it, it also gets darker.

That’s good clean work. Well done.

It’ll still blacked the leather, My guess is, if you look close, you’ll probably still see the markers. From a distance, you probably won’t see the markers. The lighter green will probably be masked more than the darker purple. Hard to say 100% until you try it.

Thanks. I didn’t think of that, but now that you say it, they absolutely look like stock checkering. Even better

Absolutely!

Quick little project. Made of pair of handle covers for small iron skillets for a Friend of a friend.

thanks, my friend said the same thing. Happy little accidents

So, I have a replica of a medieval handgonne. It’s basically the first iteration of a handheld firearm. The term literally means hand cannon. We were firing it using a linstock, which is a pole that holds a slow burning piece of rope. It was really windy. When we were done shooting, the match didn’t get fully extinguished. The constant 15-20mph winds stoked the match, and it sat there and smoldered against the linstock, and burned about a 30% percent the way through it. To fix it, I took my chisels, and cut the burned section out in a squared off channel. I glued in a new patch of wood, and reshaped it back to match the handle. I sanded off as much of the burned wood as I could without changing the shape of the handle, and then I put a leather wrap around it, and baseball stitched the seam. Looks good as new. Back in business.

Thank you very much. It’s been a really fun project, that I’ve been slowly adding to for a couple years, One little piece at a time.