When To?

[HCRider]

Hello,

I am fairly new to leather work and hope to begin making holsters and sheaths. As I will be focusing on semi autos for now, when do you use a welt?

Also, when you mold the holster to the weapon, do you typically mold both front and back?

Finally, is a sweat guard personal preference or necessary for types of holsters?

Thank you,

Tawnya

[camano ridge]

As for welt, to me it depends on the style of holster yoou are making and the gun it is being made for. If I am making a pancake style no welt. If I am making a fold over style holster, field use or duty style. I do add a welt depending on the gun. When I do use a welt it is primarily in the triggerguard area. Again for me it varies depending on the type of holster. As to molding again it depends on the style of holster. Most of mine are molded primarily on the front. If it is a flat back style holster I mold on the front. If I need a lot of retention I will do most of my molding on the front and some molding in the back. A sweat guard is a personal preference and a necessaty depending on the style of holster and the type of gun. If you put a large auto like a 1911 in a holster with out a sweat guard it may find away to gouge you int the side. If you have a love handle thing going and you do not have a sweat guard you are going to get gouged. If you have a non stainless finish you can get moisture from your body on the gun.

These are my personal opinions others may have a differnt spin on things. You will find there are many ways to do things, ultimately it comes down to what works for you.

[Lobo]

Tawnya: You will very quickly learn that there are as many opinions about what a holster should be as there are people talking about holsters. I am convinced that somewhere there is actually a "Holster Genius School" because just about every week someone will fill my inbox with long tirades and big ideas about the "perfect holster", which he knows all about and just needs to find someone to make it for him.

There are two basic approaches to the holster business. One is doing custom work, one-of-a-kind productions specifically to each customer's specifications. The other is operating a production shop, completing orders based upon standardized designs and patterns.

Custom work requires a great deal of time for each piece. Several hours might be required for discussions with each customer to establish what is wanted, the time period for completion, and pricing. Then each project will start off with a clean sheet of paper for the design, then a preliminary pattern for a prototype, prototype production and testing, revisions to the pattern and another prototype (sometimes repeated several times), then a finalized pattern leading to actual production. During these processes, and the remaining steps, you may find that what you have created does OR DOES NOT conform with your customer's mental image. Depending upon the complexity of the design and the degree of decorative work to be applied, you might expect to spend from a week to several months on each project, perhaps not all day every day, but certainly several hours each day. It may seem needless to say, but this type of work is in very limited demand simply because not everyone is willing to pay the price for all the hours, materials, and supplies involved.

Operating a production shop requires a range of products which might be broad or narrow, very general or highly specialized. At least some thought should be given toward coordinated groups of products (holsters, belts, pouches, accessories) since, at least in my experience, at least 20% or so of holster customers are interested in obtaining matching sets. Once you have defined your product line you can evaluate which firearms you will be accomodating. This might be limited to current production handguns that hold a large market share (the way the major holster manufacturers tend to operate) or specific makes and models, or vintage and classic handguns (which might be best served with vintage and classic designs). At that point you can begin work on your specific designs and creating patterns adapting each design to specific handgun models. This will take up considerable time; it is only very seldom that a pattern works out as intended in the first iteration, and it is not unusual to go through 2 or 3 prototypes before a pattern can be finalized in production form.

My shop is a small production shop offering 11 holster designs, with or without 4 common options, in 4 finish colors, left-hand and right-hand, for 142 different handguns. This results in over 60,000 possible variations, essentially allowing each customer to "customize" a standard design to personal needs or preferences. Thousands of patterns are in the files ready for use when an order comes in, and each of those patterns represent several hours of work at some time in the past. Whenever I decide to add another handgun to my offerings I know that it will take 10 to 20 hours to adapt each holster design to that piece and produce the necessary patterns to keep production moving.

This approach allows us (myself and one assistant) to complete 35 to 50 orders per week, usually about 2,000 products per year. I spend about 25 to 30 hours per week handling the website, responding to e-mails, managing materials and supplies, and other admin functions, and also about 3 to 6 hours per day in the production shop. My assistant works about 25 hours per week in the shop doing production work. We average one completed product (holsters, belts, pouches, accessories) per 47 minutes of shop production time.

I am a Vietnam veteran (US Army Airborne Infantry Pathfinders) and retired cop. Consequently I have a fair base of knowledge about "real world" applications for my products. My law enforcement career included about 12 years of uniformed patrol experience and about 12 years in plainclothes (investigations, supervision, and command), so I have some knowledge about how different holster designs need to function for different applications.

Your post indicates that your product knowledge is, at present, fairly basic. I see that you live in Washington State, which has fairly liberal concealed carry laws, so I would suggest that you obtain a concealed carry permit (if you haven't done so already). Then you can build on your knowledge simply by carrying different types of firearms in different carry rigs, wardrobe selections, and activities. This will help you to build more understanding about what works in which situations, and what does not. You can learn to evaluate the potential comfort and concealability of a particular design based upon those experiences.

The Internet will provide you with a vast amount of information about specific holster designs, their histories and development, and specifics of construction. You may also find that many gun shops and pawn shops have boxes full of used holsters of all types (some highly collectible) that can be purchased for little or nothing. These can be studies, used, even autopsied to learn more about how they were made and what the thinking of the designers might have been.

Then you will have to decide how you will advertise and market your products. Lots of small dealers will be happy to take your products on consignment, but I advise against this because it seldom works out well for anyone involved. A webstore or website might provide you with a means for displaying your products and allow customers to contact you with questions and orders. Some small producers rent space at gun shows to display and sell their products, which might quickly educate you on what people are willing to buy and what they don't want (no matter how good you think it might be).

The bottom line is that of the 50 US states all but one or two provide for lawful carrying of defensive sidearms. There are at least 300 million firearms in private hands in the US, including 100-plus million handguns, at least 40 million Americans now hold concealed carry permits, and the majority of US states provide some degree of reciprocity to honor non-residents' permits. The market is huge, far greater than any one producer can service and probably more than a hundred could.

More and more women are making the decision to be primarily responsible for their own safety and defense. Millions of women are purchasing firearms, training, and obtaining carry permits. There will be a significant niche market for the foreseeable future in products specifically designed for female use (not all holster designs that work well for men are particularly comfortable or usable for the ladies). My assistant is a young woman, college graduate, NRA-certifed handgun instructor, and regularly performs the required training for concealed carry permits. Many women prefer to deal with other women for their equipment and training needs.

I will close with something I have said and written a thousand times, but always find handy to keep in mind:

Everything in holster design involves compromises among the 4 basic factors of comfort, accessibility, security, and concealability. Whenever one factor is emphasized there will be compromises in the other factors. There is no "perfect holster" for every user or situation. What works well for one person will not work at all well for another.

Best regards.

[HCRider]

Thank you so much for the info. Lobo your information on the design and business aspect is very valuable.

I am a Correction Officer and former Reserve Officer so I am familar with handguns. Though to be honest, I have never put much thought into the holsters. My experience is only with the duty holsters assigned to me and the cheap plastic holsters which came with my personal XDs.

I have never owned a leather holster and like my horse tack, I didn't start thinking about how the items were made until I wanted to try working with leather. Now, I am studying leather items everywhere

I hope to build my skills to the point I can sell my items. Holsters are indeed a good product to develop but also more difficult due to the vast varying guns available. Knowing which are the most popular firearms to buy blue guns for is just beginning I know. It seems XDs are not as popular but since that is what I own then it is the weapon I will learn with.

I would love to snap my fingers and be a pro working for myself but I know it is a business to grow over time. I feel holsters are a good product to work on in order to refine my skills as well as develop products for a successful business. At the very least, I hope to at least be successful enough to pay for my hobby.

Again, thank you guys for the help.

[camano ridge]

Start out by making a holster for your own pistol. Show it around to co workers, make one for fanily member or freind have them show it around and orders will begin to take care of them selves. Since you have an XD you might get the holster pattern pack from Springfield leather it has a pattern for an XD. It would be a good starting point also look up Adams Leather, he has some patterns and more importantly he has some very good how to videos a couple of them are free the others the cost is cheap. All are down loadble. http://www.adamsleatherworks.com/product-category/patterns/

Edited January 6, 2014 by camano ridge

[HCRider]

Thank you, I will look into those options......