Tag: natural

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First Monday of 2021.

GIBSON, 1911, LEATHER, OWB, HOLSTER, CONCEAL, BELT SLIDE, PANCAKE, KIMBER, PRO RAPTOR, RAPTOR, COMMANDER

Not a lot to talk about. We’ve got a brand-new year, and probably the weirdest one I’ve seen in this lifetime. The fear-factor we’ve all come to know and love is in full blossom. Thanks to folks like Steve Jobs and that Microsoft guy (Bill Gates) we have a million ways to spew terror and garbage that we didn’t have twenty or so years ago. The media can’t keep up, though they do their best. Anybody with a smartphone is now a reporter, analyst, photographer, and newscaster. Veracity be damned. Accuracy and reality are mere nuisances. If you’re a network of any sort or have a decent number of YouTube subscribers, then you can be sponsored/supported by a myriad of pharmaceutical companies.

Obesity, diabetes, stress, can’t sleep, can’t poop, issues with feelings, aging, skin issues, hair greying, aches, pains, emotions, depression, sugar, fat, cholesterol, fleas, ticks …we have drugs or vaccines for all of that and more. Invariably, once you’ve taken the drugs and vaccines, you’ll need a lawyer, or team of lawyers, to represent you and seek reparations for the side effects which range from cancer to bleeding from the ass.

It’s Monday. I needed a post for the blog here, and I didn’t really have anything to talk about. Clearly, I still don’t.

From what’s left of America …

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On the bench.

Gibson natural 1911 left hand carry OWB basket

This one’s sold, but it’s an example of what a natural basket stamped holster looks like right after a massage of 100% pure Neatsfoot oil. They don’t always look all that great, but after a few hours, or overnight, things tend to even-out and give us a head-start on patina, and the ultimate honey-gold finish. This holster was for a 4″ or 4.25″ Commander-length 1911 for a fellow left-hander.

Natural Hermann Oak, premium American-tanned leather and heavy white machine stitching. The Blue Gun in the holster is primarily for shaping, and the actual hand-detailing that is done on the back panel for retention.

Typically, a plain (un-stamped) holster will be placed in a press with a Blue Gun and squished with around 6-tons of pressure. After the “squeeze,” the detailing is done to both the face and back panels. With a stamped or carved holster, you can’t use the press because it will destroy the stamping or carving.

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All in the details.

stamping, basket, basket stamp, detail, tools, leather, belt, gunbelt, border, half flower, Hermann Oak, premium, leather, process, leathercraft, leather work, trade, craft, craftsman
You can click on the photo for a larger view in a new tab. This is stamping, as opposed to embossing. Each segment of the pattern is “set” as deeply as possible into the leather using a stamping tool and a maul.

“It’s all in the details,” is a pretty common statement, but it’s critical to making leather products one piece at a time. I thought I’d show a photo of a gun belt being hand-stamped with a basket stamp and half-flower border. This is the cleanest, longest-lasting way of putting a design on the leather.

There is another way I know of to do this. It is by embossing or pressing a design into damp leather using a press or a roller/wheel with an embossing machine. This is the mass-produced, inexpensive way of doing it. It also results in a fairly shallow imprint that is subject to fading away over time. It can be done quickly, whereas hand-stamping takes more setup, and much more time.

Embossing can be done in seconds. Stamping can take hours.

An embossing machine for straps or belts.

Here’s a video from Tandy Leather and George Hurst showing you some of how it’s done.