Mablung

Are you talking about something similar to the jigs sold for sharpening swivel knife blades, or something else?

Sounds like my tutorial on sharpening is entirely superfluous for you, then, lol. You’ve definitely got sharpening straight and have been doing it much, much longer than I have. And you have the right touch to sharpen it like that. If you can sharpen your round knife that well, then you’ll have no trouble With getting your trim knife that sharp, with a little bit of adjustment technique. My birthday is coming up, so I think I will get my wife to get me a better round knife. Was thinking of one of the CS Osborne ones that still seems decent.

I forgot, in writing my comments, that you mentioned you had been going in circles. That is a legitimate technique to use, although personally, I find it extremely difficult to keep the proper angle if I do that. So I don’t use the circular technique, but you can. I will say that I think Techniques big tip, especially difficult to keep the proper angle with round knives in particular. I have used it in working on setting the bevel on my round knife because I wanted to send it out from the factory, secondary bevel, but it is harder to get the edge right if one does that throughout.

Yep. If you're sharpening Side A and thus raising a burr on Side B, you then just do the same thing to Side B that you did to Side A—except this time, you're reducing the burr back down to the bevel so that the bevel is even again on both sides. In the process you have evened out the edge, making the steel uniform. That's essentially all sharpening is. That said, there is always a little bit of burr left on the very end of the edge, if you're doing your job properly. You polish that down with the later stones (and there are some more advanced techniques meant specifically to get rid of as much burr as possible to produce the smoothest cutting edge—I haven't tried them because I just learned about them). So if you sharpen Side A by sliding it along the stone as though you're trying to cut off a sliver of the stone, then you do the same thing to Side B until the burr has been removed. Then do the same on the next stone up.

Then you've got what you need already, including the procedure (just gotta call it to mind!). If you're used to sharpening your round knife, you'll just have to make a few adjustments to your grip and angle when sharpening the trim knife. I have to work myself back through the angle and approach whenever I change the style of knife I'm sharpening.

The edge of that trim knife looks like it has a consistent bevel, as best as I can tell. But it’s not nearly as sharp as it could be, which I can tell from how dully the bevel reflects light. Even the body of the blade behind the bevel reflects more. You need to work that blade up through some finer stones and strop it well. A knife truly sharp enough for leather work will glide through the leather—that is, the blade is FRIGHTENINGLY sharp. Watch the video in one thread in the sharpening forum about sharpening the round knife. Great explanation of the technique. At the end, the guy demonstrates the edge of his knife on some 10 oz. veg tan saddle skirting—the knife slides through like the leather is butter.

https://leatherworker.net/forum/forum/221-sharpen-it/ Link above. Obviously you’re not totally new to sharpening, if you know to feel for the burr. I will say, though, you’re wasting effort and possibly causing angle changes just through natural human inconsistency by raising a burr a second time. The general wisdom is that once you’ve raised the burr on one side and then cleaned it off so that both sides of the bevel are even, you’ve maxed out how sharp you’ll make the knife at that grit level. Then it’s time to move up to the next stone up, in whatever set you’re using. (Since you said you’re using a “coarse” stone, I’ll assume you’re using an oil stone of some species or a waterstone around the 800–1000 grit mark.) Each successive burr-remove-burr again cycle just removes more metal but does not refine the edge further. The next stone up will refine the edge by taking off finer bits of metal, on up to polishing stones and stropping doing exactly that, polishing and smoothing the edge. While still honing the blade, keep doing the burr-remove cycle, but pay attention to the consistency of each bevel. Keep the angle right and keep the pressure consistent. Raise the burr on one side, uniformly across the edge, then remove it uniformly. Then check the edge again to make sure all is consistent, then move on to the next stone. After working through your stones, polish on the strop. Use jeweler’s rouge, then green buffing compound, then leather without any compound (if you want—lots of people stop with green and get a wonderful finish on the edge that way). If you have done your job patiently, you should have a mirror-polished edge. That takes time, patience, attention, patience, elbow grease, patience, practice, and patience. It can be especially challenging with a round knife, because the geometry requires the blade be sharpened in portions, rather than the whole edge at once. (Or at least, you will likely find it much easier starting out by doing portions—trying to sweep the whole edge across the stone consistently in every respect with every stroke is extremely difficult to get right.)

The heat treat of my Al Stohlman head knife isn’t great, so sharpening can be a chore. Stick to it, though, being exceedingly careful with the edge angle and working the burr carefully, and they’ll sharpen up adequately. It’ll just take some time and patience. I think the steel is D2, which is relatively hard. You would probably find the discussion of knife sharpening under the Sharpening forum helpful. Lots of good videos and tips.

That sounds a bit like a step in the carbon infusion process for creating Wootz steel, described in another thread about round knives. That's interesting.

Ah, I must have missed that this was for a customer. Hey, if he wants it and is willing to fork over the dough, you make it. Agreed it's a lot for a .45 ACP. I enjoy the round but wouldn't want to carry that behemoth. I'd almost want it dropped into a crossdraw position along the left side, like a sword baldric. That would make the draw easier, far more like drawing a short sword than a pistol. That draw technique would create some problems of its own, but it'd be a bit easier than the chest draw. Hm. Interesting.

Holy crap. What’s the draw like from that rig? One heck of a draw length. I like the setup, though.

I haven’t used it as a resist specifically but have used it a little bit as a finish coat. It’s already fairly thin and dried very rapidly, without leaving residue. The sheath I used it on just looks like it had some extra gloss added to the color, but it seems to resist water well nonetheless. I would guess, therefore, that it doesn’t need to be diluted, but I haven’t tried specifically yet. Do follow up with your results.

Well, I can’t blame you for the eBay one disappearing, then, as that was the only one in that price range I found. Wasn’t willing to pay the price asked for a few others I found. Anyway, I also like shoes, especially the kind that fit well and don’t cause joint misalignment. And bonus points if I can say I made them myself.

Oh, it really is easy. I didn’t make the pattern from scratch, but adapting one was simple. So you’re the one who swiped the cheap copies I found! Man, I had internet issues and missed getting one. Lol. Anywho, these things are not hard to make at all. Go for it! Glad I motivated you to try. Thank you! They are very comfortable. The next iteration will be even better.

Turn-shoes are done that way, with a butt stitch. I have seen it done with other stitch-down styles (a friend's wife wears some that are stitched like that), but those soles are thicker than the ones on mine. But conceivably one could do that. With mine, I stitched all the way through because that's what the directions in the book I was using said to do and it was easier to do that way. I really should have stitched to the leather midsole and then glued the outsole, though. I'll do that next time around. That said, I did pull the stitches tightly enough that they dug into the rubber and are, for the most part, protected from wear (for now). I intend to make a better pair soon anyway and will make some adjustments then.

Yep, niche market, lol. Stick with what you know and are good at, then. Boning holsters is a different skillset (one I'm not good at yet).

Sounds like you're delivering what some market wants. If that floats your boat, there you go. What you could do is make a wood mold that falls within certain ranges of dimensions and mold it very gently so that it isn't boned closely to any one profile. That will only get you so far (1911 profiles are distinctly different from Glock profiles, and even more different from Walther PPQs, by way of example). Most people looking for holsters for the firearms you mentioned probably aren't going to want a holster that loosely fitted, though, so you'll have to think about whether it's worth offering. There might be a niche market, but I'd wager most will want something a bit different. You never know, though; might be worth trying.

That's fantastic. Thanks for sharing. While the lasted method has some advantages in regard to molding stiffer leathers and allowing welting to creates additional water barriers, that chap made a good point about the stitch-down style being easier to construct and repair as well as creating a bumper on the outside. Very cool.

^ This. I haven't made any clay lasts yet, though I plan to once I get a good handle on the stitch-down style. Then I'll do some lasted ones. The stitch-down is simply easier to start with. One can also get the seam running on the inside by doing a turn-shoe, but that's a somewhat different matter altogether.

To be honest, @deboardp, I think you might be slightly overcomplicating the oxidation issue with animal lards/tallows. I have bacon grease, which I haven't rendered into lard, sitting on my stovetop all the time, because I cook with it. I have never had any issues with it oxidizing, and I have it sitting out all the time. If the sandals smell, it will assuredly be because of sweaty feet, not oxidizing lard stuffed into the fibers, if I were to guess. Something like these sandals will need regular, if not necessarily frequent, reconditioning, so I don't think you need to worry about it to much. That said, it sounds like you have a good recipe going that doesn't rely on it. But I would doubt you have much to worry about.

Beautiful work. But I don't think I understand your question. Are you asking if there's one "universal" design that will fit all the major models? The answer is "not really," excluding a design close to some Safariland duty holsters that are more or less rectangular Kydex buckets with retention bail hoods. Conceivably you could design something that came close so long as it wasn't boned very closely and relied on a retention strap for retention instead of frame/slide friction retention. The holsters you showed in your original post appear to be long revolver holsters. The basic shape and characteristics of revolvers are essentially the same, with some differences in dimensions. I guess that can be said of semiauto pistols as well to an extent, but the retention of a revolver in a Western holster relies more on friction on the cylinder, length of the barrel keeping it in place, and a retention strap. The same is not true of retaining autoloading pistols. Another important consideration here is the use you have in mind for your holsters. That can change design pretty significantly.

No problem.

The Art of Boot and Shoe Making, John Bedford Leno (3d ed., 1889). Boots and Shoes: Their Making and Manufacture, various authors (multiple volumes—only found IV and VI). Then there is a collection under the title "Shoemaking" of a bunch of texts, all of which I downloaded in a .zip file.

I found a bunch of old books on making shoes and boots available on archive.org for download. They are all long in the public domain, so no copyright issues. Many are very dated, but they have some valuable information nonetheless. Searching for "shoe making" brings up a lot of irrelevant results as well, but scrolling along allows one to find the useful materials quickly.

I'm not experienced with sandal- or shoe-making, but my instinct would be to burnish the straps before installing, stitch the soles, and then do the last edging and burnishing of the soles. The other steps make sense in the order listed, and it probably won't make a ton of difference to change the order. I wouldn't worry about the stitching opening up the burnished edge, but you will likely find that the edges are not perfectly even after the stitching is done simply because of slight inconsistencies in cutting. Leaving the final burnishing until after the stitching will allow you to even up the edges with some trimming and sanding and then burnish. My $0.02, worth what you paid for it.