Amateur, hoping to go pro. someday.

[justice0165]

Here's a holster a recently made.

[CastleLeatherWorks]

i applaud your efforts. i dont make holsters so i dont know the challenges , but just from looking at your work i would like to offer some advice from a purely leather working perspective.

1) work on your stitching. try to keep your stitch lines as straight/even as possible also thread looks way to thick in my opinion.. did you use pricking irons or an awl?

2) your edges looks very rough. have you considered sanding and burnishing them. i believe it would improve the overall appearance of your holster.

3) what is the purpose of the extra stitches around the border? if they serve a purpose i would try to make them as symmetrical as possible.

Hope i don't sound to harsh. just trying to offer some advice to improve your finished product.

Take care -

[justice0165]

Castle,

Not to harsh at all and thank you for commenting.

1) Stitching- I starting out double stitching at first and then switched to single. I used a combination of pricking irons and awl. My irons aren't very good, in my opinion. The small(& large) stitches around the edges are for the back piece that allows the holster to be worn on a belt in multiple directions. It was poorly planned and executed for sure.

2) Edges- There are multiple layers of different types of leather and I agree that it should have been sanded and then burnished properly. 

I may revisit the project and improve upon the things that I can.

Thank you so much for your honest feedback!!!

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by justice0165

[byggyns]

With that information, Some additional advice if you are making a similar design in the future:

Set up your assembly process so that the stitching will be done once, and the support system(back piece) will be stitched at the same time as the front to back holster pieces. An alternative is to stitch the support system first onto the holster back, then stitch the holster front on, which will hide the prior stitches.

regarding the aesthetics, I like to get my pieces cemented together and the outer borders of the piece set (both cutting and sanding the pieces even) before I lay out the stitch lines for the perimeter of the holster. You can use a divider or stitch groover to keep the stitch line at a consistent distance from the edge, then come back and edge bevel, hand sand, and burnish/finish the edges after stitching.

[justice0165]

Byggyns,

 Thank you for your feedback as well. I plan to apply all that I learn here to my future endeavors.  Honest feedback and instruction, like yours, is highly valuable to me. I look forward to showing off my next project.

Thanks again!

[JLSleather]

If'n you fixin'a make holsters, we got sum free learnin's vailable.  If'n ya don't like it, 100% refund

https://www.jlsleather.com/leather-diy/making-patterns/

 

[Hags]

Ditto jls, I use his methods and have great results. One other thing I didn't see covered, watch going over the top of the cylinder.  With softer leather it may not be too much of an issue, but with mine, 7/8 oz wet molded hermann oak it will lock that gun in like you wouldn't believe. You should also look at Adamsleatherwork on Youtube. That and jls' free instructions has helped me tremendously.