CharleyS

Welcome from Washington state.

Beautiful knife and very innovative sheath. I like it a lot

If the felt is glued on with hide glue, it might come loose with steam or hot water, but that might also damage or stain the felt. Depending on the age of the case, H&H guns have been around for a very long time, hide glue is probably the glue used. If it’s a newer case it’s more likely they used a more modern contact glue, which would be very difficult to remove without damaging the felt. I’m not sure if you have the gun that the case goes to, but like old firearms restoring them usually hurts their value. If there is a place that you can try the steam method that won’t detract from the whole, I’d try a small section to see if it works. Best of luck.

Welcome from Bellingham. Nice looking wallet. Keep up the good work. Charley

From another new guy, welcome.

Well hello the Sequim, I’ve spent quite a bit of time there. Built a bridge on 101 over “Jimmy come lately” creek by the casino then I built the Right Aid in town. My folks lived there for a time as well. I’m already imagining using some of my woodworking skills on leather projects. Thanks for the local welcome.

Hello, I’m a complete newbie to real leather work. I want to focus on hand work and historically accurate items from the colonial frontier period through the end of the 19th century. I’m a retired carpenter and have spent years doing traditional woodworking with vintage hand tools. I’m really glad I found this site. I am blown away at the talented folks here. I can see there is so much I can learn from so many of you all. Thanks for letting me in.

Well if it is a marketing ploy it worked on me lol. No I’m not going to buy one of theirs, but it got my mind wandering and looking at everything in my wood shop for how I can use it on leather. Screwdrivers would work great on leather. Great idea lol

Back to what Bruce said, I can see the similarities to “finger carving”. I looked that up today and my highly uneducated guess is that it’s the same principle just that the antique I mentioned was probably just done with crude tools like a nail, compared to a swivel knife. Thanks everyone for great input. I need to do more research lol.

Only lack of imagination holds folks back. I have a rosewood foreplane that my great grandfather made and used in the 1880s and 1890s doing custom stairs in the Dakotas. He made his own because he couldn’t find one he needed in the hardware stores. There is always a way to find the right tool.

There is a picture of the original holster that shows a carving, not stamped, that they reproduced. The one I referenced is obviously a copy, but the reason I asked was mostly about the term of using nails to carve leather. As I said if it’s truly from the correct period and "nails" were used they would have been square nails which did not have sharp points. I’m interested in the folk art side as references by Chuck123wapiti. The only decorative work I’ve done on leather was to press and burnish the leather leaving a somewhat embossed design. It’s crude work but I was only 10 at the time. But thinking back on it now I like the idea of using what is at hand to do these kinds of work, and a square nail has some appeal to me. Im thinking the original design was not really carved in the traditional sense, but deeply scratched in and burnished to deepen it. I too have a copy of "Packing Iron" that I need to get back from a friend and go through it again. Thanks for your thoughts.

I’d love to learn more too. It has simple lines but has a very traditional design to it. My imagination is of a 49er relaxing in his camp marking up his holster. Probably not but it’s a cool image. I’m going to make a Slim Jim holster and see if I can do something similar. If a mail was used to do the original it was a cut nail. Or called a square nail. They usually had blunt ends.

That’s kind of what I thought. The original holster shown looked very subtle but the fact it’s probably 150 years old might add to that. The reproduction is much more defined. Thanks for your thoughts on it.

Hi, this is my first post. I’m just getting into leather work. I’ve done some in the past but now that I’m retired I really want to look into it much deeper. I am into historical work. Mostly western as well as mountain man eras. I saw a slim Jim holster on River Junction Trading Company site that caught my eye. Its states it is nail carved. I really like the look but what is nail carving? I am looking forward to learning a lot more. Thank you. Charley