Pancake Holster - Feedback Please

[Steven Kelley]

So two weeks ago I get the itch to make a holster. There's a Tandy down the street, so I go and buy some leather and a few tools. I have never worked with leather before. After playing with a few designs and figuring out how to put a holster together, I came up with this. The boning needs some work. I've made a few changes to my pattern since completing this one, like widening it a bit to allow more room between the belt slots and side stitching, and adjusting the stitching closer to the trigger guard. Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Steven Kelley

[TwinOaks]

Looks pretty good for a first holster. From what I can see, you've pretty well spotted your own areas of improvement. Other 'little details': It's kinda hard to see from the angle of the pictures, but pay attention to where the sweat shield is in relation to the slide. If you have a good frame safety, there will be little problem with the holster deactivating it- still, it's something to pay attention to. Also, where the sweat shield meets the body of the holster, I've found it best to trim it a little (before stitching) to ensure that there's nothing there that could contact the mag release. Just a little cut out of the leather, blended with the lines. On the front of the holster- again, it might just be the angle of the photo- be sure that you can get a full firing grip on Ol' Loudmouth there, while it's still in the holster. It looks like the leather under the trigger guard may be carried a little higher than it should be. On your belt slots- They look a little wider than you might need (unless you're wearing a double layer belt) and that could cause some instability by allowing the holster to move on the belt. The easiest way to do the slots if you don't have a large bag punch (slot maker) is to use a standard punch at each end of the slot, then connect the holes with a chisel of the correct width.

For your boning of the leather, instead of relying solely on modeling tools, styluses, etc., try rolling over the majority of the frame/slide with a rolling pin. That should help compress the leather enough for you to 'get the lines'. For the finish on the holster, you do need to pay attention to the edges. Even if you don't have an edger, you can lightly sand the edges to remove the corners. From there, dress the edges per Bob Park's (aka Hidepounder) tutorial. It can be found in the "How do I do that" section. You may not have all the tools, but you can substitute with what you have. In place of a rotary burnishing tool, some scrap denim from an old pair of jeans works very well. (It just takes a bit more time and a lot of elbow grease)

[Steven Kelley]

TwinOaks,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. The belt slots turned out wider than expected. I drilled the ends with a 3/8" forstner bit, and used a chisel to finish the slots. After sanding and burnishing, the slots grew to 1/2" wide. I'll definitely narrow those down in the future. Sorry I didn't get a pic of the back. The back of the holster, where the mag release is located, is lower then the front edge, so that the mag release button doesn't contact anything. The sweat guard positioning needs to be adjusted a bit, like you said.

I used Eco-Flo "Bison Brown" dye. When I applied the dye, it turned green. It was almost like military olive drab green. I had to apply 4 coats, and each brought out a little more brown. The pictures don't really show it, but there is still a slight hint of green in the coloring. I put the same dye on a scrap piece of leather, from the same cut, and it was perfectly brown. The only difference was the scrap piece hadn't gone through the wet forming process. Has anyone else had this issue? I think I'm going to ditch the Eco-Flo dyes and go with Fiebing's Pro Dyes in the future.

Thanks again for the comments. I was almost embarrassed posting pics of it. The pics you guys post of your holsters are incredible. There's a lot of talent out there!! I'm trying to learn, so don't worry about hurting my feelings. I know it's not that good, but everybody has to start somewhere.

[Big O]

That's a very respectable first holster.

I see you've discovered the sweat shield conundrum - the way it ends up farther forward than you planned. I've taken to routinely shifting it back 1/4 inch on the pattern, which seems to work fairly well.

[TwinOaks]

The trick to the sweat shield is to anticipate the 'movement' of the leather as it's stretched around the weapon. You've got to think in terms of curves.....you know, some of that math that you swore you'd never have a real world use for. Or you can do what I do, and guess enough times that you get good at guessing where to put the shield!!

[Rayban]

How bout when you cut the pattern out, leave the shield part plenty over-sized, then as you're fitting the leather around the gun, you can just start snipping leather away til you have the correct placement, size and shape of the shield. No guessing involved.

Edited April 27, 2011 by Rayban

[Big O]

How bout when you cut the pattern out, leave the shield part plenty over-sized, then as you're fitting the leather around the gun, you can just start snipping leather away til you have the correct placement, size and shape of the shield. No guessing involved.

I hate hate hate having to re-burnish and touch up the dye job, and avoid it whenever possible.