Holster Guys, What's Your Leadtime On Customs?

[olds cool]

I learned a very valuable lesson last night, leadtime. I accepted a custom job from a guy at work. Although I've been trying to sell him a holster for months, he finally decided to come to me last Friday. We made arrangements for me to get the gun on Monday afternoon and he asked if he could have it for this weekend. He didn't own a holster for this gun yet and he wanted to carry it while out hunting bear. I really didn't account for the fact that I had to create the pattern, which took a full day off my time. I only get about 2-3 hours per night at most to work on things. I worked a little late every night and by last night, Thursday, I had everything done except the molding and applying a finish. I got everything molded and realized that I would need to dry it out fast and apply finish if I was to deliver it by today. I had stuck a few holsters in the oven before to reduce the moisture content when I oversoaked them so I figured it would be a good way to speed up the drying process too. I set the oven on the lowest setting and let it go for about 20-30 minutes. Checked it and put it back in, checking about every 5-10 minutes while I laced up another project. Everything seemed to be going well but then I opened the oven and found what appeared to be a shriveled up rotten apple peel that used to be a holster. Damn damn damn! Lucky enough, I happened to have a universal nylon holster that fits his gun perfect. He's a pretty cool cat so when I explained what happened and offered the use of my nylon piece for the weekend, he was ok with it and said we could set up another time for me to borrow the gun again. If it had been any other customer, I doubt that offer would have been ok. So, lesson learned...custom pieces need additional leadtime. I was thinking at least 2 weeks since I don't have a lot of orders right now and my main business is just bringing them into a local gun shop as I get pieces finished. For you guys that do this on a larger scale, what sort of leadtimes do you state and where is that line between acceptable and too long for most people?

[camano ridge]

Generaly, I say 3 weeks when I am not overly busy, Right now I am telling them at least 5 weeks as I have several orders. On a custom holster you do need to consider pattern making cutting dying oiling, wet molding drying final finish and so on. I generaly tell them three weeks even if I am not real busy, this gives some oops time and if I get it to the customer early they are far more thrilled then if I get it to them a little late.

[chiefjason]

All of my holsters are one off. I rarely have stock, and when I do it's to post or auction not sit around. 4 weeks is my lead time. I have a full time job and family too. So I need some time built in to loose a day or two. If things work out, I'll ship it as soon as it's done. But I give myself 4 weeks to buy some sanity too.

I was getting ready to build a holster to auction. Got a text from a repeat customer this morning wanting a holster. I took the pre cut leather and started his today. Got it molded, glued, and trimmed. I'll get a lot done tomorrow probably. So I'm ahead of the game on his. But sometimes it's nearly a week before I even touch an order.

It's always better to deliver ahead of time rather than late.

[Dwight]

Right now, I'm basically shut down, . . . remodeling the shop, . . . and only doing "what has to be done".

But generally, I look at my calendar (having programmed everything I'm doing out to a last date on the last project) and add whatever time is needed for that piece.

Belts I'll add usually 1 day to my schedule, . . . IWB or pancake is 2 days, . . . western gunfighter is 3 or 4 days.

So far it has worked out fairly well for me, . . . and I know not everyone has my problem, . . . but if I cannot viually interpret it, . . . see it on the wall in a calendar, . . . wellllllllllllllllll, . . . it may as well not exist.

My calendar is my scheduler, . . . can't live without it. Learned that in a factory I worked for 30+ years.

May God bless,

Dwight

[olds cool]

Thanks guys. Honestly, I know better than to rush but I did it anyways. I have no problem banging out one of my 1911 holsters because after doing enough of them, and having the patterns on hand, I know exactly what I am doing and I've figured out faster ways of doing certain tasks. When I did the ones for my personal Keltec P32, it took less than 4 days to get 2 of them done, granted some of that was weekend time and thy were concept pieces with less refinement. I guess I got a little over confident and thought I could pull it off. Like chiefjason, I have a full time job and a family too. My time at the bench is limited by a 2 year old that doesn't go to bed until 8:30. I need to make it a point to explain to the customers that there is a leadtime and that many parts of project need a certain amount of time to be done properly.

[jbossartcustomgunleather]

Once you get used to how long different projects take it will become easier to estimate. I work at this full time, so it is easier to estimate since I can spend unbroken time on a project. My wait time depends on what I have on the queue, but I keep myself a one-two week cushion just to allow for delays, material shortages, destroying an entire project etc.

I would avoid being in possession someone's pistol for legal reasons. Start buying blue guns...

[jackd942]

I usually tell them 3-4 weeks personally. I am usually done in around 2 which is nice to deliver early. Of course I'm off for the winter in my full time job right now (agriculture) so I've got a lot of time and I'm not backed up. I'll just have to adjust it out as more orders come in as well as when I have to get back to work at my day job.

[Jumpout]

I only do custom work although I have some patterns folks like and I make quite a few of them. My customers know I have a full-time job and I give them a lead time depending on how many orders I have when I take theirs. Unless I'm really slammed it's three to four weeks.

[katsass]

From the grumpy old guy: For everything -- it's thirty days. If I finish early, the customer is happy (I almost always finish early). If I'm on time, the customer has nothing to bitch about. If I'm late, I blame it on one of two things, either I had a bad case of needing to go fishing, OR, my age, because nobody expects an old fart to do anything in a hurry. Mike

[renegadelizard]

Same here, 3-4 weeks...i can usually get it done earlier, but i have 4 kids and a needy wife, so i have to build some extra time in...i can usually go from scratch to wet molding in 3-4 hours, thats designing the holster as well, but i save alot of time on pre-dyed leather...ive drawn up 150 or so patterns, so it doesnt take that long anymore to figure things out...once you have the pattern making down, everything else just sort of flows...not always, but usually...i had to cut apart a holster just last night because i forgot to add hardware between some layers on a gunfighter rig...in regards to drying, i stick mine in front of a fan after a short bake....it speeds things up considerably...good luck