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I recently bought a Ruger Wrangler as my first handgun however it is a birdshead grip model and the barrel is shorter than the normal wrangler. since it’s a $200 revolver I figured I might as well make a leather holster instead of buying one for 1/2 the price of the pistol it not to mention it would be more fun. I am extremely new to this and practiced a little with some scrap but I’m having trouble sketching good templates myself. Does anyone know of any templates online I can print out and use? Im sure any single six, or rough rider templates would work just as well.

I’m trying to find a good plastic to use to make templates out of that I can also use as cutting guides. I’d like it to be fairly substantial (1/8” or so) and able to be used as a cutting guide as well. I would be using them to cut lining fabric, not leather, so it wouldn’t be important that I could get the cut super precise. If anyone has used a specific type of plastic for this application, or if you have any informed ideas, that would be great! Links to suppliers would also be helpful!

Tandy keeps an on-line digital resource of thousands of their old template/patterns, tips sheets, ideas from some of their tutors eg George Hurst. They even have digital copies of some of the Al Stohlman books and other books. Prices ranged from Free and upwards, many in the 99c and $1.99 brackets Recently I was keeping a load of these patterns and tip sheets in my 'basket'. Cost was to be about $40. I was waiting on a decent $ to £ rate before buying. Last night I went to buy them and found the system had deleted the 'basket' contents. I put the patterns I wanted back in, but the Library pages were slow in loading, up to 1 minute to change a page! But I discovered as I went along the hours [literally, hours] to go thru the Library and put the ones I wanted, plus more, was well worth it. All the patterns et ectrea are FREE, ~ as of the time I write this. (15.25 BST August 10 '19) I've no idea if this a temporary offer or what. Check it out for yourself: https://www.leathercraftlibrary.com/ But remember the website is running very slow right now, but after you buy the download of the pattern is as fast as your own computer allows

Here’s a thing for you,, I noticed there are a few posts looking for suitable software for doing leatherwork design on, I found only one post back in 2008 referring to the software I’m going to talk about, I am hesitant to even mention the words ‘Computer Aided Design Software’ because I know a lot of people (me included) really struggle with programmes like AutoCad which are immense and highly complex programmes for which you can do almost degree standard training courses. I spent quite a lot of time trying to learn that stuff until I quit in exasperation and chucked it out of the window – metaphorically speaking. A couple of years ago I had a go with ‘Sketch up’ and quickly learned it is useless unless you spend a fortune on the paid version, the same story with a few other packages; free to try - useless unless you pay. Then I found,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, QCAD!! (sound of fanfare and church bells). QCAD is an open source computer aided design software package, which I use but am not associated with in any other way. The program is free and open source but to get the best out of it you will probably want to spend about $30.00 on the pro version with full printing capabilities and one or two other things. There’s no real need to do that straight away though as it’s useful anyway. If you’ve previously looked at CAD software the thing will look a bit familiar, the differences are that it’s primarily a 2D package and it is massively simplified. Although I utterly failed to work out how to use Autocad after a LOT of effort I was actually printing usable patterns with QCAD in a day or so. It is now my first ‘go-to’ design aid in most jobs I do. I prefer it to pencil and paper. You can draw everything at 100% size which makes life very easy for pattern making. One of my favorite ways to use it is to print out a design done on QCAD, then laminate the printed pattern and cut it out. you can then draw around the pattern pieces with the added firmness of the laminated,,,, uhm,, laminatedness. Doing it this way provides a pattern or template which is reusable many times over, is extremely cheap and quick to make and doesn’t have the disadvantages of a floppy paper pattern. Also of course you can save the QCAD files in a format which is widely recognizable by pattern makers or click knife makers. (DXF format). You can also save as normal JPG, TIFF, PNG image files or PDF files. I confiscated my kids homework laminator for this, told ‘em it was too dangerous, what with it being hot and likely to drag their arms in and rip them off at the shoulders etc; (health and safety ‘concerns’ always work!) If you don’t have kids to rob, you can buy one for a few dollars, euros or quid. (or even rubles maybe, do they have such things in Russia?) Of course you don’t need to use QCAD to nick your kids homework laminator, it would be quite handy for hand drawn or any other paper patterns. Just thought I’d mention that before someone else did. Anyway before I get carried away, If you’re looking for something to use on a computer to help with your leatherwork design and/or pattern making, I reckon this has got to be well worth a good look, it doesn’t require any more than ‘normal’ or domestic computer skills, won’t slow your machine to crawl and is extremely useful. Here is where you can get it, https://qcad.org/en/ PS I will happily answer your questions about my experience using it for leather-working, but I’m not a help-desk of FAQ thingy. I’m not even an expert with it, I love it (but not carnally – Monty Python anyone???) and use it in a limited way for my own uses. attached are a couple of my regular patterns and a squiggle showing it's dead easy to make curvy things symmetrical, which I totally can't do with a pencil. On the attached patterns for example I first drew the whole thing up fully, then 'copy and pasted' individual elements out into separate items so I could make a very exact pattern including things like reference or location pin holes, pin holes through the pattern also make a good start for drawing up glue lines and things like that. Have fun!! small card wallet 01.pdf

,Just found this site on Etsy that has a large number of downloadable templates for bags and other items at in most cases about £5 or under. Downloaded template comes in both AO size and A4, and the one i have just downloaded, looks well thought out; and whilst it does not have instructions as such, the wording on each template is enough to show where it should go etc As most patterns will probably only be used once or twice, I don't think it matters much if pattern is printed on Paper/Card rather than the more expensive acrylic ones Link here https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/LeatherPatternCraft?ref=l2-shop-info-name

Okay, I have been wanting to try my hand at a padfolio. I took apart a really old plastic covered padfolio that was falling apart to see what weight of cardboard they used as a stiffener. Darn, that is some hefty carboard! It's about 2 mm. thick! I searched through the whole of Michael's (local hobby store chain) looking for something similar, and didn't find anything even close. The only alternative seems to be saving up Cheerio boxes, and gluing pieces together to get the necessary thickness. Anyone know a source of box board out there? I'd like to use it for making templates, too. Heh, the irony! When i was in my teens, I spent a summer making binders for Hilroy. Could have had alll the boxboard I ever wanted.... And just the right size, too!

So, say someone asks me for a case for an iPhone 7. I’m still using the 6, so how would one go about getting a blank or mold or really I dunno. I’m lost, nobody can run buy everything. So what do you guys do?

Hello everyone! This is my first post but I am in search of someone who does or sells clear acrylic templates for horse tack. I have one for bronc halters & spur straps but I am looking for one to do tack sets or headstalls & breast collars separately. Or even already cut out tack blanks would be great too! Any help or pointing in the right direction is appreciated!!

I am making tool holders as well as laser cut templates. Right now I have 2 models of tool racks. a large and a small rack. the small rack holds 60 tools and is 29.00 shipped in the US and the large Rack holds 118 tools and is 49.95 shipped in the US thanks for looking Lewis

Cutting dies are amazing... but they can be a big initial investment. If you're not ready to jump into such a huge commitment, I think it is time for you to check out some acrylic templates. I have used this company prior to getting cutting dies made and still occasionally use them for mocking up more complex designs. They are very affordable in terms of what you get and the turn around time is fantastic. Company Details The company I use for acrylic templates is called Ponoko. From their website: What Can They Do? They offer a *ton* of different materials you can laser cut into. You can cut into various thicknesses and colors of acrylic, cardboard, wood, leather, metal and pretty much anything else you can think of. You need to have a pretty good understanding of Adobe Illustrator / Auto CAD / Inkscape (free) / CorelDraw for this to work out well. They have various "templates" where you can place your designs and they have specific directions on their website you need to follow to get everything to turn out correctly. You can do some awesome things like etching into the material to show it's dimensions or lines (in this case I used it show it was a 20mm width design as well as where the "fold" lines are). Pricing I got all these designs cut out into acrylic templates for $56.59 shipped. This was on the 31" x 15" piece of acrylic but they have smaller sizes too which cost less. The designs were cut out on 3mm thick clear acrylic. Turnaround Time This was the fifth order I've placed with them. The most recent order was placed October 23rd, went into production on October 26th, was shipped on October 30th and arrived on November 2nd. So roughly 10 days from order to delivery at my front door. Pretty wild. Outcome Here are a few of the templates I've had made which help in either deciding if I'm going to get cutting dies made out of the designs or for more one off designs. - Tall wallet - Two piece watch straps which I ended up turning into cutting dies. - NATO straps Final Thoughts As I said -- this is a good company to check out if you're still cutting out projects based off hand cut card board templates. This will definitely help your game! I know this sounds like a company shill post, but I'm 100% not affiliated with Ponoko and receive nothing from this post. I just think more people need to know about them since they're so affordable. Let me know if you have any questions!

Hello fellow leather heads! Just wanted to share with everyone the process I use to producing a very nice leather handle for the product line I came up with. If you have any questions about my methods or what I produce, feel free to ask! -Alec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SKv_9FICwM

Hi, I just made a new template set that I am thinking about adding to my product list. It is for making dog collars up to 2" width tapering to 3/4" ends & is designed for a 3/4" buckle. I do not have any pets to make a prototype collar to try it on. I would like to send this template set for free to someone that is a leather crafter & pet owner. My hope is that you will give it a try out and give me your feedback. I only have a couple available right now so it is first come, first served. It will come with instructions on measuring your dog's neck properly and sizing the strap. Please message me if you are interested. Thank you. Stitch~

I finally got the big winter storm which gave me the time to make the Tandy 1911 Cavalry holster and template set. I bought the pattern set early this summer and put it away for a winter storm. We have had a lot of blowing snow yesterday and today, almost a Blizzard in northern Ohio. So my excuse to hold off on finally getting this project done was gone! It turned out to be a fun and fast project. This one's going to my brother in law who has begging me to make one for him. Thanks for looking! Joyce~ Back River Laser

I came across a sale that had some old leather craft books, magazines and several older Craftaid templates. Based on the dates of the magazines they are probably from the late 60's or early 70's. There were a couple of books as well, one is Projects & Designs by Al Stohlman and the other was General Leathercraft by Raymond Cherry. My question is, are these older Craftaids of any value at all? There are 10 or 11 for billfolds, a couple for belts and one is upper case alphabet. I haven't used Craftaids from Tandy but I had looked at a couple of new ones and these seem different. The instructions say to case your leather and rub over the template to set the pattern. The plastic is fairly thick but nowhere like an embossing plate. I didn't pay much for the entire lot and figured I might find a couple of patterns of interest. I may sell them if they are of any value and someone wants or needs them. Thanks

Hi, I'm an upholsterer specialising in leather and teach at university. I dabble in leatherwork at my home workshop and have been asked to do a 6hr block teaching "leather stitchwork for accessories. Would anyone be willing/able to help me with a lessonplan which is to include making as well as induction demo for students from the Anarchy Studio These are Yr 2 & 3 students equally from Textiles and Jewellery (Group Size 30 but we can identify how many spaces for each event). Some students are complete newcomers but all confirm that they're eager for more experience and advise. Students now have a good range of existing design ideas and sketchbook processes which you could use to drive sessions/ direct their making. Students would ideally be able to learn and practice one or two processes by the end of the day, and know enough to be able to later return independently to the area to practice further. If you are able to help (I really hope so!), I would be very greatful. This will be for just a 6 hour block

Hi! I am really starting to get into the leather making and was wondering if anyone has solid templates I could use/ get. If anyone knows of any place with the template or has them I would be grateful! I have made bronc halters in the past but would like to start making headstalls, breastcollars, dog collars, wither straps and much more. I have been googling all over and cannot find any! I am getting a sewing machine, and can do many different toolings, I also love to bling out conchos and such which is the main reason I love to do the leather work! I am a barrel racer so making my own tack and selling some on the side would be great! Please let me know if you have any templates, patterns, measurements, etc! Thank you for reading! Emily-Jo