My first carved holster.

[Wild Bill46]

That's really nice in every way. 

carving, tooling, Color execution, stitching, even presentation. Great job !

[Davm]

Post a photo of the belt if possible.  I'm working on a similar project and finished a double loop holster for a 4 3/4" gun.  One fortunate thing, the loops cover some of the carving, so... between the loops and the border my "so-so" carving ended up looking better than I thought.  The carving on the belt, that has been actually more difficult, I'm trying to come up with a pattern and have taken a little from various things I've seen and so far I am practicing sections on scrap pieces of leather.  I have a problem with scrolls. The Tandy book has you use a camouflage stamp around the perimeter and you can get things "out of round" and then the background stamp sort of blends in- in any event re-thinking the pattern all the time.  But having fun.

[dikman]

Belt??? I still have to make a couple more holsters first but it's all come to a grinding halt as I can't come up with a design I'm happy with. I've also been thinking about the belt and looking at various designs. My feelings at the moment are no edge tooling, carving only, maybe just flowers and leaves. Scrolls fall into the same category as basketweave for me - while I can appreciate a well executed pattern they don't have a lot of appeal for my projects.

[AzShooter]

Great job all around.

 

[Davm]

Well laugh :) if you must but this belt, it is the tapered end style, so the section with the bullet loops is about 2" wide and the buckle and tongue area 1 1/2" wide.  I have drawn out flowers, leaves, scrolls etc. but there seems to be a lot of background area.  The holster, I use rawhide lace which is a different color, then a border (stamped) and it is a double loop, so there are loops over the pouch area. In short, there is a lot going on so if the flowers, etc. aren't perfect, you can "sort of" get away with it.  Besides you have a large area for the pattern. But on a belt, everything has to be stretched out in a long skinny line and I just don't like what I've come up with, I've redrawn a lot and I practice on scraps.   I've searched the net and actually a lot of the carved belts in my opinion don't really look that good.  BUT I'll go on going on. This is the best hobby I've ever undertaken, love it.

[alpha2]

Ah, you have discovered the secret, grasshopper!