5 hr holster challenge!

[donohueleather]

Had a request to design and build a holster for a coworker's Taurus Tracker. I had limited time to put something together (<5hrs from start to handing it over) and since none of my other revolver templates would allow for the extra tall sights on the tracker, I had to start from scratch.

In light of the timing I'm happy with how it turned out. There are a few oopsies, but I'll leave those for you to find

Before anybody yells at me for leaving a gun in a wet holster, I did plastic wrap the revolver before molding, and put a good coat of gunoil on it as well as cleaned it afterward. So no throwing me into a gun god's volcano for sacrilege today.

Also, the holster will have dry time while he's driving out, so there shouldn't be an issue there. The inside of the holster was buffed and sealed, the outside was dyed and finished in multiple coats of Resolene.

The trigger guard stitch line runs along the edge of the reinforcement piece, hard to see from this angle but it's there.  The rivets are mostly cosmetic, the only actual function is for the one closes to the belt slot to prevent any separation should the glue decide to stop doing it's job.

 

[donohueleather]

Backside showing the kydex thumbreak. I use a round punch to create a hole in the leather big enough to recess the female snap head  so the snap doesn't ride the frame on draw, preventing very unwanted scratches.

Stitch line around trigger guard much easier to see here.

Edited July 26, 2021 by donohueleather
hit submit too soon

[AzShooter]

Great looking holster.

[YinTx]

5 hours pushing it, nothing would be dry around here by then to even consider putting any oil or resolene!  Looks pretty good.  Think I might try to go for a bit more coverage on the trigger guard, but maybe just a preference thing?

YinTx

[sbrownn]

15 hours ago, donohueleather said:

Backside showing the kydex thumbreak. I use a round punch to create a hole in the leather big enough to recess the female snap head  so the snap doesn't ride the frame on draw, preventing very unwanted scratches.

Stitch line around trigger guard much easier to see here.

That's really nice.  

Can I ask where you get your thumb breaks?

[sbrownn]

15 hours ago, donohueleather said:

Had a request to design and build a holster for a coworker's Taurus Tracker. I had limited time to put something together (<5hrs from start to handing it over) and since none of my other revolver templates would allow for the extra tall sights on the tracker, I had to start from scratch.

In light of the timing I'm happy with how it turned out. There are a few oopsies, but I'll leave those for you to find

Before anybody yells at me for leaving a gun in a wet holster, I did plastic wrap the revolver before molding, and put a good coat of gunoil on it as well as cleaned it afterward. So no throwing me into a gun god's volcano for sacrilege today.

Also, the holster will have dry time while he's driving out, so there shouldn't be an issue there. The inside of the holster was buffed and sealed, the outside was dyed and finished in multiple coats of Resolene.

The trigger guard stitch line runs along the edge of the reinforcement piece, hard to see from this angle but it's there.  The rivets are mostly cosmetic, the only actual function is for the one closes to the belt slot to prevent any separation should the glue decide to stop doing it's job.

 

How did you mold it?

Any gun can stand being subjected to wet leather for awhile...it's no big deal.

[donohueleather]

1 hour ago, sbrownn said:

That's really nice.  

Can I ask where you get your thumb breaks?

I make them out of 0.8mm kydex. two rivets and a line 24 snap. The kydex is 1.5" x .75", I center drill for the snap and each rivet hole is approximately 3/8" from end end. Then i scribe the round end, trim with sheers and finish with a dremmel. The process of setting the snap also bows the kydex slightly which helps to pull the snap into the corresponding hole I cut in the leather

.

Edited July 26, 2021 by donohueleather
added picture

[donohueleather]

1 hour ago, sbrownn said:

How did you mold it?

Any gun can stand being subjected to wet leather for awhile...it's no big deal.

I use a press I picked up from holstersmith dot com a while back. - like this >

On bigger items I just stack some weights on top of the metal plate instead of using the slots to avoid gripping one area tight and missing the front edge.

I'll be upgrading to a pneumatic press at some point.

[donohueleather]

15 hours ago, YinTx said:

5 hours pushing it, nothing would be dry around here by then to even consider putting any oil or resolene!  Looks pretty good.  Think I might try to go for a bit more coverage on the trigger guard, but maybe just a preference thing?

YinTx

Yes, 5 hrs was kinda close, but we've also been over a month without rain, so the drying wasn't too much of an issue surprisingly.

I agree on the trigger area, I was trying to balance grip / space with gloves on vs. coverage. so I opted to run the top edge just over where the back of the trigger sits. On the next one I'd bring it up just a bit more, it didn't need all that space once the forming was done.

[sbrownn]

23 hours ago, donohueleather said:

I make them out of 0.8mm kydex. two rivets and a line 24 snap. The kydex is 1.5" x .75", I center drill for the snap and each rivet hole is approximately 3/8" from end end. Then i scribe the round end, trim with sheers and finish with a dremmel. The process of setting the snap also bows the kydex slightly which helps to pull the snap into the corresponding hole I cut in the leather

.

Thank you.