Started A New Gunrig

[dirtclod]

Skippy looks to me like your doing a fine job. Is it perfect probley not, but the way i look at things if everthing you made was perfedct their would never be any room for improvement. I bet if a person had somebodys work that are real good at tooling in their hands and wanted to nit pick they could find mistakes. Might not be a lot but their are mistakes. No body is perfect. I know for sure i'm not !! Do i ever make something that gets cut up and hits the trash can you bet i do. But thats part of learning and it doesn't matter if your just starting or have been doing it for years it happens.

You did take on a big project with a double gun rig. But it's your money and your time to do with what you want. All i can say is make what you want no matter what anybody else says. I do agree with what was said about looking at your first work a year or so down the road. You will see improvement. I seen some of the first breast collars i made a few years ago wondered how in the world i ever sold any of them.

When i started doing leather work i was thrown in the deep end of the pool. Never had done any kind of leather work except for a Tandy billfold kit that wasn't finished years before. All i told was don't mark on the leather with a ink pen, this is how to edge, this is a round knife it's sharp and this how to use a strap cutter and i started repairing saddles. Couple of years later i was lucky enough to have a saddle maker take me on and show me the way he built saddles.Sense then i have adapted other ways of doing some things just because they work better for me. And i'm not above borrowing a ideal from somebody else. But i tell who i borrowed from and why.

Edited July 24, 2010 by dirtclod

[Ferg]

Skippy looks to me like your doing a fine job. Is it perfect probley not, but the way i look at things if everthing you made was perfedct their would never be any room for improvement. I bet if a person had somebodys work that are real good at tooling in their hands and wanted to nit pick they could find mistakes. Might not be a lot but their are mistakes. No body is perfect. I know for sure i'm not !! Do i ever make something that gets cut up and hits the trash can you bet i do. But thats part of learning and it doesn't matter if your just starting or have been doing it for years it happens.

You did take on a big project with a double gun rig. But it's your money and your time to do with what you want. All i can say is make what you want no matter what anybody else says. I do agree with what was said about looking at your first work a year or so down the road. You will see improvement. I seen some of the first breast collars i made a few years ago wondered how in the world i ever sold any of them.

When i started doing leather work i was thrown in the deep end of the pool. Never had done any kind of leather work except for a Tandy billfold kit that wasn't finished years before. All i told was don't mark on the leather with a ink pen, this is how to edge, this is a round knife it's sharp and this how to use a strap cutter and i started repairing saddles. Couple of years later i was lucky enough to have a saddle maker take me on and show me the way he built saddles.Sense then i have adapted other ways of doing some things just because they work better for me. And i'm not above borrowing a ideal from somebody else. But i tell who i borrowed from and why.

Please understand, I am not nit-picking. Skippy needs to work on carving, stamping, etc. If everyone told skippy the work was great, what do you think that would accomplish?

I have helped many young and old begin their leather crafting, telling someone they are doing fine when they aren't "Just Don't Get It"

ferg

[dirtclod]

Well the way i read your first post was he might as well hang it up because he had done a terrible job. Maybe i was wrong but that's the way i read it.

If a person wants to start off on bigger project than coasters then that's their business. Their paying for the materials. Making mistakes is part of learning.

A person needs some praise to. And i do get it. If all you ever get is negative feedback you have ruined any confidence they ever had. Back when i was doing carpenter work a guy i worked just about ruined me. It was let me take a look at that before you put it up, or you did that wrong can't you learn anything. I was so beat down by the time i finally quit and went top work for another contractor i had no confidence in my self of being able to do anything. But he brought back by telling me he had hired a carpenter not a laborer. Sure i screwed some things up but he never flew off the handle. In the end i think i turned out to be a pretty good carpenter, made a living at for several years anyway and was never fired.

Edited July 24, 2010 by dirtclod

[Ferg]

Well the way i read your first post was he might as well hang it up because he had done a terrible job. Maybe i was wrong but that's the way i read it.

If a person wants to start off on bigger project than coasters then that's their business. Their paying for the materials. Making mistakes is part of learning.

A person needs some praise to. And i do get it. If all you ever get is negative feedback you have ruined any confidence they ever had. Back when i was doing carpenter work a guy i worked just about ruined me. It was let me take a look at that before you put it up, or you did that wrong can't you learn anything. I was so beat down by the time i finally quit and went top work for another contractor i had no confidence in my self of being able to do anything. But he brought back by telling me he had hired a carpenter not a laborer. Sure i screwed some things up but he never flew off the handle. In the end i think i turned out to be a pretty good carpenter, made a living at for several years anyway and was never fired.

Don't get your shackles up. LOL

Read my posting again. Constructive criticism!

I told him to keep trying, I guess you didn't read that part.

I can relate to your "carpentering". I was a building contractor for 50 years. My teaching made a lot of carpenters and builders into fine men without slobbers.

ferg

[Sam Colt]

Hey Skippy,

If you're using tracing paper, why can't you just make 2 copies of your pattern and use 1 as a left and 1 as a right just by flipping it over?

I haven't done a double rig myself yet cuz I'm more into the historical correctness of things. Carrying that much iron around your belly gets

heavy very quickly.

As far as people critiquing your work, you are your own worst critic, but from my own experience, I believe I've learned more in my life

from those who drove me hard because they saw potential and I still carry a wealth of knowledge from those old hard asses.

You'll learn !!!!