Holster Project Update #2

Mexican Loop

Well, two things are going on here. I finished fabricating the brass plates for keeping the holsters open, and put together the tools for the copper rivets.

On the other hand, I plastic wrapped my guns and wet-molded the holsters last night. This morning I pulled the Vaqueros out and the leather was very stiff and hard in the shape I wanted.

One side note, if you're going to wet-mold cheap leather you can not give a crap about the appearance. I ruined the finish, but fortunately I'm going for a beat-up look.

Soooooo... I'm going to let the holsters dry completely and give them a try. The problem I'm seeing is that these are mexican loop holsters, which means the buckets get crushed between two layers of leather. So, I'm going to convert these holsters to my version of a Hollywood holster; the bucket of the holster is riveted to the backflap, so the bucket doesn't get crushed. This isn't a problem with holsters that slide onto your belt, you just feed the belt through. On my drop slides though, it's a permanent installation. I could install snaps instead of rivets, but, well, that's not period. 

However, I've set aside the brass plates and I'm keeping those in reserve, just in case the wet molding idea doesn't work.

As I get further down this project, I'm beginning to see myself shelling out money for new holsters. But that's OK, these crappy holsters will get mounted inside my bucket.

Holster Project Update

"Skin that smokewagon and go to work!"
~Fictitious Wyatt

Holster Collapse

I think I'll go ahead and wet mold the holsters. I read up the trick of wrapping your guns in plastic wrap to protect them.  I'll do that tonight.

I strolled down to the hardware store and picked up a couple brass plates, a scratch awl, tin snips, and a leather punch. Cost: $30.

If I had purchased new holsters, the cost would have been $300 and would have taken 3 to 6 weeks for delivery. So I'm already $270 ahead, plus I'll have unique holsters. Victory is mine!

I had no idea how easy it was to shape brass plates with tin snips. This project is going a lot easier than I thought. The snips also made short work on the holster leather that needed trimming.

All I'm waiting on now are some copper rivets and a riveting tool from Tandy leather. There are no leather crafting stores in the South Bay, so I had to order them online. This raises the cost to $46, but I'm still $254 ahead. I also will have yet another tool, and about 50 extra rivets for other projects.

I also installed a panel in my bucket that lets me separate out the empty cases and hulls from the rest of the bucket. I used the zenith of the civilized world, shoebox cardboard and duct tape. Cost: Negligible.