Working With Stingray/shagreen Hides

[eyeman]

As to the stitching, I have never seen it look good on singray. The stitching when pulled tight will channel itself around the beads and appear to be poor stitching when it is actually not, but instead simply unavoidable. The only way I have used it on holsters is to cement it over the completed stitched hide or inlet it and carefully finished off the edge by Dremel ginding and then painting. As a word of caution, the beads when cut are very sharp, so be careful to smooth them off on any edges. This is a paddle holster I did for my Kimber.

[jimmy eng]

The stingray holster is brilliant, Eyeman, it looks like a piece of alien technology but incredibly naturally formed.

[8thsinner]

Love that holster too.

I can offer only ideas on working with ray and what I have heard from places on here.

Holes can be drilled with a drill press for stitching, and it's gonna look better if it is inlaid.

Cutting can be done with a very fine toothed ban saw. And sanding it is a must to get clean edges.

I have heard of others scoring the back on a line they want over and over till you are completely through.

Stitching straight on the ray though, I have an idea, if you can accurately set up a diamond cutting blade on a dremel, and I would keep it at a low speed at just the right height cutting through the nodules enough to form a guide line might work but if your doing holsters or something, getting that straight curved line would have to be done by hand and a practiced one at that. Then you would hae to hand sand and polish each cut nodule edge so it doesn't cut the thread, Considering it's price thats a big risk and a hell of a lot of work.

And if possible I would go with baby ray as much as possible as the nodules are smaller and less intrusive if it's big enough for your project that is. Mind you a lot of people judge the quality of ray by the size of the nodules too...

Hope that helps a bit.