Mostly good alittle bad

[Sinbad395]

1st time showing my work on here.  Been soaking up the info on here and love it.  I worked really carefully on this one and messed up at the end. Got that figured out for next time. 

[DieselTech]

Looks great. I love the large basketweave tooling. That Welt too!

Great work!

[Sinbad395]

1 hour ago, DieselTech said:

Looks great. I love the large basketweave tooling. That Welt too!

Great work!

Thank you.  Saw the Don Gonzalez video on the weave and had to use it somewhere.

[Hags]

I saw that video as well.  Haven't tried it yet.  Looks good! Yeah the stitches had an oops but at least it's on the back! Good job. That is the problem with large welts. Hard to keep the a alignment straight. 

[AlZilla]

Man, there's a lot to love about that holster. The small kerfuffle with the stitching fades to insignificance compared to the rest of the details.  And a P series Ruger, to boot.  One of my very favorite handguns of all time.

[Sinbad395]

Hags.. yes that's where I messed up. If you don't start that awl perfectly you aren't going to change direction on 4 layers of 8-10 oz

[Sinbad395]

ALZilla..yup the mess is on the back. Gonna use it and make the next one better.

[Ddat]

There's a local guy with a leather shop in town. Occasionally I'll show him what I've been working on or ask him questions.  He's said "it takes just as long to mess something up as to do it perfectly"... I've messed up right at the end so many times and I always think of him saying that.

[Sinbad395]

10 hours ago, Ddat said:

There's a local guy with a leather shop in town. Occasionally I'll show him what I've been working on or ask him questions.  He's said "it takes just as long to mess something up as to do it perfectly"... I've messed up right at the end so many times and I always think of him saying that.

I usually mess something up in the process, but most of the time I can find a way to work it into the project. This was one I couldn't blend in. LOL  I just hate to throw away good leather and the time it took.

[rleather]

Nothing to worry about , like you said it is on the back . And that stitch will hold as well as all the rest. I think you did a great job.

[Bert03241]

Hey thats a beautiful holster and that stitching on the back who's gonna see it when your wearing it. No Big deal .

I have a P95 and its an awesome gun .

[Sinbad395]

3 minutes ago, rleather said:

Nothing to worry about , like you said it is on the back . And that stitch will hold as well as all the rest. I think you did a great job.

Thank You...it is kinda pretty.

[Sinbad395]

3 minutes ago, Bert03241 said:

Hey thats a beautiful holster and that stitching on the back who's gonna see it when your wearing it. No Big deal .

I have a P95 and its an awesome gun .

Thank You    I love the gun.  The more and more I research I did on it confirmed my Father in laws choice in weapons. Its handed down from him. He had quite a collection.

[DeWayne Hayes]

Wonderful work!  Beautiful. 

Some tips on those mega hoss welts I've developed over the last couple jobs.

1) I now use my drill press with a chisel hole poker thing chucked up and pre-cut all my holes in the welt before I glue it to one side of the holster. I pre punch my holes in the holster shell, and then use those holes to mark where the holes in the welt need to be. Then the drill press punches them nicely and perfectly straight. At this point, the welt is still a separate piece that needs to be glued in. 

2) I use sewing needles as locator pins pushed through the holster holes (3-5 of them) to make sure I glue the welt to the holster side with the welt holes and holster holes aligned. I lay my glue on both holster and welt in such a way that the holes don't get gunked up with glue - in other words, in two "strips" beside the holes but not over them. 

2) Once the welt is glued to one side of the holster, I then I glue the other side of the holster (holes pre cut) to the welt the same way - with locator pins in place so all the holes line up. 

I came about this method because the first one I did with a welt that thick, I hammered the chisel punch through the welt and, like you, had a few that went stray somewhere in those layers and came out the other side out of line with the rest. This made lining up all the holes a real battle! 

Dwight suggested using the drill press with a sewing needle to punch through, and I just modified that to using a chisel punch, which gives me a wider hole that's easier to maneuver through on those thick welts and gives a little margin for alignment error. I filed on the chisel punch to remove the shoulders so I could punch deeper holes. I can get through 4 layers of 8-10 oz. now.

It's really sped up my work and most importantly, no more wandering stitch holes on the back side! 

I hope this helps. Enjoy that beautiful holster!

 

 

[Sinbad395]

Thanks for the compliment----I had run across your post mentioning this before and saw your picture-excellent job of finishing it.  Unfortunately I don't have a drill press. I should have pre punched all the layers separately and lined them up with with pins as you have mentioned.  But I was too excited and impatient to keep moving forward, that I thought I'd just give the old awl a shot.  Lesson learned--slow up--take a breath and take a practice run at it.  Every piece is different and I do very little repetitive work.  Keeps things interesting

[DwightT]

5 hours ago, Sinbad395 said:

Unfortunately I don't have a drill press.

FWIW: You can also use an arbor press for the same results.  You just might have to be a bit creative in getting your chisel mounted in the ram.  You can get a sufficient press from Amazon or Harbor Freight for $50-$70.

    /dwight