In reference to my title on this one, if you haven’t seen Oh, Brother Where Art Thou, get thee to the movie kiosk or the Netflix stream, or whatever flavor of movie rental you prefer!

I believe it was the first Christmas Jenni and I were together. We were recently married and had not known each other for very long in the grand scheme of things. Many people were betting against our success, and it was hard to blame them. In the first year of our marriage, we bought a house, had a kid, and our net income put us comfortably in the poverty bracket. I wouldn’t trade that year for anything.

I’ve got sensitive facial skin. Gillette ought to run the census, because their demographic intel is incredible! When I got to about shaving age in my teens, I started getting Mach 5’s in the mail. They were useless to me. None of those multi-blade monstrosities have been any good on my face, but lead to endless razor burn and breakouts. I found that Grandpa’s old safety razor made for a beautifully close shave without side-effects, but I was not comfortable using it. Teenage boys are not well-known for their minute dexterity, and it took me half and hour and several cuts to get a shave with the thing. So, I went electric. In my adolescence, I had an electric shaver that served me well, even if it didn’t ever shave very close.

Then, on that first Christmas of my marriage, my new wife gave me a really nice Panasonic wet/dry electric shaver. I might add that she doesn’t particularly like me to wear facial hair. Now, that would make the little shaver 11.5 years old. It has served me well for over a decade. But, in the last few months, its performance has suffered. The battery would need to be charged more often, and the blades were showing clearer signs of their age. A couple of weeks ago, it finally deteriorated to the point of uselessness.

I was shaving one morning, and the old motor was giving its hum, albeit a few steps lower in pitch than when it was younger. When I got to the tougher whiskers on my chin, rather than being cut, they got jammed between the blades and the screen, and pulled hard. No amount of turning the switch off would make the shaver release its death grip on my facial hair. I wound up gritting my teeth and yanking the wayward device from my face. That was the final straw.

The Panasonic has gotten to the age that blades and batteries are no longer readily available, and would likely require a seal kit to install. I don’t even want to think about trying to obtain that! A new shaver would probably be a better option. It appears that this early gift from my young bride deserves a Viking funeral at long last. As Murphy’s Law would have it, a new shaver has exactly zero priority in my life right now, as we are pinching pennies in every conceivable way, with the start of the business and all. So, I took up Grandpa’s safety razor again.

I have a few blades for the antique razor, and when they run out, replacements are cheap. I didn’t realize exactly how dilapidated the Panasonic’s blades had gotten until using a real blade again. Where I was shaving every morning with the wet/dry, I can achieve similar results with three mornings a week using the safety razor. With the repetitive use, in my adult life, I’ve gotten a lot more efficient using the blade. What took thirty minutes as a goofy teen takes five now – and that’s with a whole lot more facial hair. I’m starting to think that I won’t own another electric, even when I am not feeling so thrifty again.

Over the last week or so, I’ve been a bit of a slug on grooming. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still showering and using deodorant. I just haven’t bothered to shave. Over the last couple of days, I was noticing that my head was getting a little fuzzier than I like it as well. So, this morning I decided to fix it. I got out the Wahl clippers and the #1 guard and went to town. I don’t often cut my own hair since it’s difficult to see whether I got it even in the back, but I thought that it would be far more likely to get done if I only had to ask Jenni to even up the back when she gets home from work.

Once I got all trimmed up, I looked really funny (to me anyway) as the hair on my head was roughly the same length as my stubble. So, out came Grandpa’s safety razor and I took care of that as well. Now, I look more like a respectable business man than an insane bum – always a good thing. Funny enough, I have not cut myself once in this round of using the old single blade. I’ve often mused about going to a straight razor, and I think I’d like to try that one day. The problem is that you don’t just need the razor, but all the peripheral stuff as well – the strop, stone, brush, cup, soap, etc. The initial investment is significant but well pays for itself in savings on supplies. There’s simply no cheaper way to shave in the long run. Until I do make such a jump, it appears that I’ll be using the old safety razor.

If you want to do things that others have already done, dot them exactly like others have achieved their success. If you want to accomplish things that nobody else ever has, you may have to go about it in ways that no one has ever done before. There are moments in which it will seem like insanity. But, there is a narrow line between insanity and genius, or so I hear. I won’t claim either until I either firmly accomplish my goals or fail miserably. So far, everything is going well, thank God.

In order to make top-quality luxury products, you need three things; skill, tools, and materials. I’m not necessarily writing this as a tutorial or a how-to, but for personal introspect. No, this is not advice. I’m way too early in the game to give any. Hopefully, when I get to the other end of the tunnel, I will write pretty much this same thing as advice, and add, “This is how I did it.”

The tools are anything that enable you to physically produce, or allow you to produce more efficiently. There is an overlap between tools and skills. I’ve accumulated a couple of sewing machines that allow me to stitch everything from fine silk and lace all the way up to saddle and strap type leather.

There are multiple cutting systems in my arsenal that include specialized scissors and shears, rotary wheel cutter and mat, knives, skivers, and other blades. I have made several tools, and modified others. I’ve gone from free-handing patterns onto lined yellow legal pads with a pencil to precision drawings using graph paper and a protractor, and transferring that to other media to translate it to leather. I have two vastly different rulers, two measuring tapes and a tape measure – each that get used on a regular basis. My work requires dummy guns precision cast from plastic and aluminum. It is safe to assume that this will be an ongoing process of accumulation, and weeding out of tools that proved to not be as useful as I originally thought.

All the best tools in the world are themselves useless without the skills to operate them properly and effectively. Anyone can gain skills with practice and experimentation. There are only two ways to gain skills quickly – formal training or purposeful practice and experimentation. I’ve taken the route of the latter. If I don’t like how something has turned out, I figure out what went wrong and how I must do it differently next time to get the results I want. My close friends and family have been impressed at how quickly I’ve picked up the necessary skills. My response, “I had to.” I don’t have the money or time to go through school, and I don’t have the time and luxury to learn this stuff on my own at a slow pace. Therefore, I’ve pushed myself to pick up the skills quickly. I’m not there yet, but what I lack in skills I can get with patience at this point.

Jonathan Swift coined an old saying that goes, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” This is to say that you can’t produce a luxurious product from crappy materials. This is one of my biggest irks about the direction American retail is going. It was not that long ago that Jenni could buy Italian-made, all-leather shoes at the discount store on any given day. Now it seems that all the shoes are mostly (if not all) made from cheap, artificial materials. It’s not just the shoe industry either. Clothing is poly/cotton blend (if you’re lucky), furniture is particle board with a veneer, sprinklers are plastic, watches are battery-operated and largely disposable. Home electronics are designed to be obsolete in a few years. I have an antique chrome toaster with bakelite handles on it that just keeps on going. Any modern toaster that I’ve owned burns out after only a couple of years. Where are the things that last? The luxurious things? They are being driven out by the flashy and cheap. I know that I’m not the only one that doesn’t want to participate in a disposable lifestyle. Hence, the materials that I like to work with. I have made practice runs with cheaper materials simply because I didn’t want to screw up the good stuff, but I don’t want to make a real finished product with anything less than great materials.

Recently, I was commissioned to make a purse by an internet friend. Like me, she wants something special, unique, and luxurious. We settled on a basic concept and a price, and I went to town gathering up the materials necessary. The bag is to be black, because black goes with everything. So, I will start with buttery-soft, top-grain, black leather.

This stuff is soft and strong. Many of the factory-made bags are made of mystery cloth or vinyl. Even when they are leather, often they are a finished split instead of top-grain hide. Usually a top-grain bag is going to be expensive when you can find one.

She asked if I could line the bag in the brightest magenta that I could get my hands on. I scoured the local fabric stores until I sourced this heavy, tightly-woven, imported silk.

Not only is this stuff beautiful, silk has a tensile strength greater than steel, and it is highly abrasion resistant. As delicate as it feels, it is incredibly rugged and durable. At sixty inches wide, a yard is way more silk than I need to put a lining in this bag. But, there are other things it will be used for in this project. I’ll get into that more in a later post.

She asked me if I could do some accent work on her bag in stingray. She was open to color options on it, but wanted something extra to give it a little extra spark. So, I sourced this ivory-colored, sanded and polished stingray pelt.

(in sunlight)
(under fluorescent)

Here are the three materials together:

Of course, the whole thing will be stitched together in Kevlar thread where it doesn’t show, and bonded nylon where it does. I’ll finish the bag off with nickle findings and more pockets than you’ll find in a typical bag (including a couple of specialized pockets at her request). I’ll be working on this one next week. I have a feeling that it’s going to occupy most of my time over the course of the week to get everything just right. Of course, I’ll post more pictures when I’ve got a final product to show off!

Some people (and you know who you are) have been bugging me to see the new, non-holster wares that I’ve been working up. I was kind of dragging my heels on this until I had a few examples of stuff that I’ve done for review. So, without further delay – Lady and Gentleman, the original prototype designs from Haute Couture Leather and Sac De Cuir by Michael…

Part 1: Sewing Machines

Well, maybe just a little delay… In all fairness, I have to give a little disclaimer/back-story before proceeding. When I got the sewing machine, I jumped right in and attempted to start making leather bags. I knew that the first one wouldn’t be perfect. Heck, I didn’t know anything about sewing! The ‘practice’ or ‘learning’ leather that I originally bought are four upholstery hides. These are not top-grain hides, mind you, but they are what is called a ‘finished split.’ This material is still attractive, but it is not nearly as tough as top-grain leather, which is the material from the top of the hide, as you might infer from the name. Split is more of an under layer of the skin. Usually split looks like a suede, but they will apply a finish to it which makes it look like grain, and that is an excellent, economical material for upholstery or other applications where you may want the beauty of leather, but it doesn’t need to be as tough as grain leather.

The first couple of ‘bags’ that I made were not ready for prime time. They were valuable classes in the School of Hard Knocks. Because I’ve been letting the creative juices flow freely, and unabashedly sewing away with all kinds of materials, I’ve quickly gone from not knowing beans about sewing all the way to producing viable products that have piqued the interest of those that see them.

I told you about the Juki industrial walking foot machine that I purchased. That machine is a brutal beast. At first, I kind of hated her. The machine stitches 1,800 stitches per minute and operates full-throttle on a clutch motor instead with a throttle-controlled foot pedal like a home machine. As in, it is either on or off. There is no slow going with it. It pulls like a horse. It will stitch through pretty much any material from light weight cloth all the way up to bone (I have heard stories). Imagine learning to drive on a supercar that runs either throttle open or throttle closed. Wrecks are inevitable. After using it for long enough, I have eventually learned how she works. Now, I’m beginning to enjoy stitching with this machine. That being said, I quickly learned that she shines on the heavier material. Although she is capable of stitching lighter fabrics with lighter threads, the settings to do so are touchy. It would be a major slow-down to go between light materials and heavy materials and back just because of all the setting adjustments and everything. It quickly became clear that I needed a light-duty machine.

Jenni and I have tended to be pack rats in the past. We don’t drag crap home like we used to anymore. Now, if we don’t have a clear and present need for whatever the object is, it’s not coming home with us. There was a point in time that we had three dining room tables. We don’t have a singular dining room to speak of. Jenni inherited her grandmother’s sewing machine – a Pfaff 130. I inherited my grandmother’s sewing machine – an Adler 589A. We still wound up picking up three other vintage sewing machines since then – two of which we believed to be a pair of Singers, but turned out to be a Singer model 66 made in 1926 and a similar vintage Japanese knock-off. The third machine was a Kenmore made by the White Sewing Machine Company in the thirties. This is a bizarre straight stitch sewing machine that actually spins backwards from anything else I’ve ever seen.

As far as I’m concerned, Jenni’s Pfaff is out of the question for my purposes. Although the Pfaff 130 is widely considered the toughest dressmaker machine ever made, I very simply will not risk breaking her grandma’s machine. When I got into my grandma’s Adler, I found that the timing belt has rotted out. Where we stand with it right now, I can order the belt out of Germany for some $35.00 (which I don’t really have right now), and anybody that can work on the thing is apparently dead. I’m hunting for a service manual for it to see if I can perform the replacement myself. I’m mechanically inclined and don’t see how it could possibly be all that complicated. If I had properly documented instructions, I ought to be able to git-er-dun. But, I can’t very well count on that for my upstart business either.

We douched out the old Kenmore with Gun Scrubber and reoiled it. The machine is strong. I need to rebuild the light, but it happily stitches through over 3/8-inch of calf or pig skin. Since I learned to hang on to my material tightly running the Juki, I wound up thinking that the Kenmore wouldn’t stitch a straight line, and concluded that the feed-dogs were worn out. So, I shelved it and got out the two ‘Singers.’

I quickly discovered that the one was a cheap, Japanese knock-off of a Singer and that the bottom end of it was rusted solid. So, I salvaged the motor off of it and threw the rest of the head in the dumpster. After a little research, I discovered the other to be a Singer Model 66 from 1926. I douched it out with Gun Scrubber and thoroughly oiled it. When I went to stitch with it, it reduced its motor wiring to a smoking, gooey mess. I replaced its motor with the one off the Japanese knock-off. It worked like a charm! We purchased extra bobbins and a light bulb for it. The check-out girl at the cash register asked us what we were working on. We told her a Singer 66. Even though the bobbin package was labeled ‘Singer 66′, the check-out girl seemed surprised. Apparently, this machine has been the benchmark for many machines in the last century. As I continued working with it, I found that it was skipping stitches. The hook is damaged. I can get a new hook for about $20.00, and replacement doesn’t look fun, but certainly more straight-forward than the timing belt on the Adler.

I started thinking that I needed to get a zig-zag machine going for some of my finer work. My mom has a Bernina 830 record that her mom bought for her in 1978. That has always been a fine, well-used machine. In fact, her mom purchased five copies of this machine at the same time in 1978. They were gifts to her daughters and daughters-in-law. Since this machine has a bit of a track record in my family, I decided to see what I could get one for. They seem to be selling on ebay for between $500 and $800. I found one that had been dropped and had some cosmetic damage for $200. I had just brought in some money for a job that I’d just completed, so after thorough investigation and research, I purchased the machine.

The Bernina 830 is a great machine, and will serve me well when I need a zig-zag. But, the model is really not capable of running some of the thread materials and weights that I want to with a light machine. So, although not exactly what I was hoping it would be, it promises to have a place in the industry that I’m currently setting up. Plus, it has a damaged hook, so it skips some stitches. The hook costs $70 and takes two seconds to install. I have used it on several of my projects, and will continue to use it, but I’m honestly looking forward to replacing it with better equipment.

I went back to the Kenmore for my light-heavy-duty (if that makes any sense at all.. medium duty?) work. Now, I’ve discovered that it stitches perfectly straight if you work with it instead of fighting it like you have to with a true industrial walking foot. The feed dogs are nice and sharp, but I was pulling the fabric and fighting the feed without realizing it. Frankly, I can see a place for all three – the Singer, Kenmore/White, and the Bernina. I still want to get my Adler fixed and Jenni will keep her Pfaff. Basically we have six goram sewing machines in this house that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I’d really like to find one machine that will do what all three of these will. Until I can afford that, I’m stuck with the three. *Sigh…*

Part 2 – Goods

Alright! Here are the goodies! After fighting and cursing with my first few prototype bags, I got pissed off and made a realization. I get too elaborate. The first couple of concepts were simply too complicated for me to do right the first time around. After much cussing and throwing and hating the world, I decided to go back to basics. What’s more basic than anything else in the realm of a hand bag? How about a checkbook cover?

This one is made of red upholstery leather and lined in black pig skin. It is stitched together in Kevlar thread. We are actually using it for our checking account.

It’s possible that both of you have seen the picture of my trifold wallet on MyFace.

This one is lined in pigskin with pigskin pockets. But, the shell is in a carbon fiber/Kevlar twill cloth.

The entire thing is stitched together in Kevlar thread. This one is a promo piece for one of my buddies to take to his auto clubs. I’m sure they will want it badly.

Of course, I had to do a little testing on the concept for myself. Here’s a pic of the wallet that I’ve been carrying in the same materials:

I don’t carry a billfold. Here’s the interior of the wallet:

Behind the cards, there is a bill pocket on the left and another long pocket on the right. I have done a couple of hat bands as well. Here’s one that I did for a Marine friend of mine:

The hat is mine, and here’s the hat-band that’s normally on it. (Also made by me):

But, I know Falnfenix didn’t come here to read all about the sewing machines I’ve accumulated, or to look at pics of wallets and hat bands. She wants to see purses! Here is the first bag that I will reluctantly let see the light of day:

This one is lined in matching red wool under the red leather and red zipper (going for a theme):

The closed-end braided strap attaches to the bag with beautiful, round, nickel buckles:

Overall the bag is about 13-inches wide.

Next, I decided to design and sew a mini-messenger satchel. This is what Jenni is currently carrying, and it is incidentally my second prototype:

Much like the first, I attached the strap with nickle buckles.

The robin’s egg blue exterior is nicely balanced by the genuine silk fuchsia lining. Load-bearing side seams are stitched in heavy Kevlar thread and all the black top stitching is in top-quality, bonded nylon.

I attached pockets that hang from the top in the same leather as the shell.

There are three of them in there in different sizes.

This is the foreshadowing of what I’ve got up my sleeves. I can say with absolute certainty that these things will greatly improve quickly, but this is what I’ve got to offer right now. If there is anything that you specifically want in a top-of-the-line leather product, feel free to contact me.

Nope. I’ve decided to branch out into ladies’ handbags. This weekend, we worked out the details on the purchase of an industrial sewing machine, started clearing a spot for it to live, and registered domain names for the new website. Ladies, I desperately want to hear from you. My comment section is yours for the taking. Whether or not you ever intend to purchase from me, I want to hear exactly what you love or hate about any bag that you have carried. I want to do this once and do it right. I don’t carry a purse, so I will take any and all input I can get.

All that being said, I am not – repeat NOT giving up the holster work. If anything, this new sewing machine will allow me to produce my great holsters faster and possibly more economically – if all goes well. Keep your eyes peeled. This thing is going to get real big real fast.

To that end, if you are a woman who would like to have a truly custom, hand-made purse, beautiful enough for the runway, tough enough for extended daily use and artistically made to your exacting specifications, I suggest you contact me immediately.

I have started production on several prototypes that will go into testing (and modeling) when ready. If all goes well, I’ll have pictures and durability reports very soon. I want this to be a shock to the industry, and I believe that even I’ll be shocked by my final results. You have undoubtedly seen my holsters. My handbags will be more bold and dramatic if anything. These beauties will make a statement, and yet be built plenty tough enough for the demanding stresses of real life.

I’m very much looking forward to showing you what I can do. Until later…

To both my readers – I’m sorry. I haven’t been a very good blogger lately. If you have been following my rants, you both probably know that I haven’t been very good at keeping up with my online presence. You probably also know that I’ve been working – A LOT!!!!! If you haven’t, you can pretty much catch up on the antics here or here. If you haven’t already, GO, READ!

As you can already tell from the preceding, I’ve been worked really hard over the course of the last month’s time. I’ve been on my feet on a shop floor for a good ten hours a day. This is no excuse for my absence in my blogging, but I hope that you will forgive me and understand that there has been some other pressure.

I learned a lot at Appleseed when we went, but it was a real disaster to me in the present state of things. It was a real lifter to Jenni, and you can read about it here. Once again, I learned A LOT. If I skip the part about my failure (or my lack of mastery) can I skip on to the part about bad equipment without guilt? Frankly, I feel like the equipment challenges forced me to learn a whole lot more than the other students of the workshop. This won’t be my last Appleseed, as I WANT THAT PATCH!!!!!!!!

Jenni and I are still in the one-income mindset for some reason. This means that we’ve been living on the cheap (a.k.a. like poor people), and I’ve been working a lot of hours, and dragging the cash home. So, we found ourselves with a household export deficiency.

When Christmas was coming around, we had this grand idea that we were going to have a gunny Christmas. The fat man was going to come down our non-existent chimney with a bag full of shooty goodness, and he was going to leave a precision air rifle for the kiddo, a DAO Beretta PX4 Storm .45 for Jenni, and a Saiga 12 for Your’s Truly. But, that didn’t happen. Life got in the way, and we took care of life instead. We made it right for the kiddo, but we vowed that we’d take care of each other later.

Valentine’s Day came and went. I was unemployed. This weekend, we found ourselves together with a little excess cash. So, we took care of each other. We found a great Nikon camera that Jenni couldn’t go on without, and we made our way to the range to return some loaner gear to my friend, Will.

While we were at the range, I looked over that 12-gauge AK that I’ve been imagining owning. They didn’t have the exact model that I’d like to own, the price was a little higher than I remembered, and I was thinking of all the mods I’d have to do to it before I loved it. So, after much deliberation I didn’t go that route. Instead, I bought a brand new Smith & Wesson M&P45c.

“Why that particular gun?” you might ask. Well, I’ve been a fan of Smith & Wesson since I’ve been even fascinated by guns. They haven’t let me down yet. Jenni has the 9mm equivalent of this gun, and although I was thinking about getting a nine, it made more sense for me to get a different caliber if I was getting the same model – and I don’t believe in .40 or .357 Sig. Bang for the buck, it’s really hard to argue with S&W’s M&P guns. They’re really fantastic firearms for the green they command.

While at the range, I rented a S&W M&P45 full-sized model, just to get the feel for the thing. The rental gun was well-abused, with many thousands of careless rounds put through it. And, its countenance showed it. The sucker was visibly mal-handled as a lifestyle. The polymer frame was warped away from the muzzle, and everything in it that could rattle was. And yet, it returned fuzzy hole after fuzzy hole in the way of groups. The gun felt remarkably solid in the hand and all actions were consistent – safety, slide, trigger, etc.

Smith & Wesson is currently offering a $50 or two-free mags mail-in rebate on this line of guns, so the economics made perfect sense. I went to the young man who had showed me the Saiga and broke the news that I would not be buying that shotgun – but asked him if he would sell me a pistol instead.

Over the weekend, Jenni and I took the little big bore to the range. She performed perfectly over the course of 200-rounds. I resisted the urge to be horribly stingy, and let Jenni shoot her a few times. Although the users weren’t perfect, the equipment itself performed flawlessly. There were fuzzy groups returned when we shot our wellest, and adequate-to-kill-teh-BG for our worstest of shooting.

This evening, when Jenni was out to church choir, I walked down to the range at the corner and picked up some defensive .45. It’s the Bonded PDX – or whatever bullet, as loaded by Winchester. Now, I need to work myself into my holster-making schedule. My real customers come first, but this girl will have a name and be riding in good leather in no time flat!

Jenni has taken some very impressive pictures with her new camera, and the new pistol shoots wonderfully. So, for a VERY late Christmas present, Jenni took some nice shots at my new pistol. I very wisely did not reciprocate. There are pics of the new gun which will come out shortly, but you aren’t missing anything as it looks like a very generic, polymer, striker-fired auto-chucker.

So, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Happy St. Patrick’s Day and Merry Christmas to both my readers!

To both my faithful readers: I give my sincerest apologies for not writing a blog entry for over two weeks. These are the actions of a n00b, and I hope you can forgive me. Now, please allow me to explain myself. Right now, I’m receiving my 100-proof therapy after my fifteenth consecutive day of work at the new place. I’m not much worried about getting Dooced right now, as I don’t think anybody there has any time to find my blog, much less read it. Week one wound up around fifty-two hours of labor. Last week tallied in at a little over sixty. Fortunately, I will not be working this weekend. I’ve made comment and had coworkers say that they thought ‘we’ would be working. I’ve explained that I have scheduled the time off, and will be taking it, as I have already purchased my tickets to the Appleseed shoot that I’ve been wanting to go to for two years now! I’m friggin’ excited and dead tired all at the same time. The weather looks like it will be great (although I don’t put any faith in a forecast beyond 72-hours).

The wife, child, and I will be well-overdue for some challenging rifle action. I hope to learn some tricks that will make my shooting go from adequate to astounding. From what I’ve heard and read from other Appleseed attendees, this is exactly what I should expect. It was about two years ago that there was an event near my home, and that’s where we are going next weekend. I inquired, and there were no assurances that there would be another event at said location in the foreseeable future. So, we ponied up, paid the admission, called in some favors to complete our gear, and we will be storming our stores for the remainder of what it will take to go to this magnificent event. With our awesome .22lr’s in hand, we will drive to the gun range where the three of us will learn to reliably hit a man-sized target at 500-meters with a rifle equipped with iron sights. Yeah. I’m psyched! The range also has an area reserved for some real-life, 600-yard shooting, so I imagine that we’ll also drag our AR’s along for the ride. We’re going to have a really nice, soopah awsom, rifley weekend!

Besides the obvious complaint about the hours, I REALLY like the new job. I thought that I was working with an outstanding group of people at my last job. But, this company is 10x bigger than the last, and I can’t find anybody that I have had any significant head-butting with. Having crammed three weeks worth of work into two, that’s really saying something! As far as the hours are concerned, my one saving grace is that it is temporary. The factory is:
1 – Moving from one computer system to a distinctly different one.
2 – Changing warehouse and manufacturing locations to streamline production.
3 – Going through a meticulous inventory of like a quarter million distinct part numbers (I may be exaggerating a little there).
and:
4 – Implementing a massive overhaul of the part numbering system.
The bottom line is that they need all the help they can get. My position is the obvious help there. Salaried employees put in free overtime, and they perform accordingly. Hourly employees must legally get paid time-and-a-half for their overtime. Consultants (a. k. a. ‘contract labor’), such as I, may be paid straight, hourly pay for any and all time over the Federally allotted, forty per week. Therefore, they will make their hardest attempt to work the snot out of me for the duration for the ninety-day contract. I must say that I don’t mind the extra pay, even if I do mind the extra hours. I am rapidly wearing thin, but I don’t think that it will be a problem to deliver at least their money’s worth through the end of the week. I have even managed to get a little of my holster work in on the side! Granted, I have not completed a huge amount of that work, but it has been progress… As far as more traditional work is concerned, I like them a lot, and they seem to like me as well. The people at the new company express in many ways that they are really impressed and appreciative of my presence there. Apparently, I have not offered disappointment since my interview. I don’t plan on offering any.

On the holster end of things, I’m just about to unveil my first exotic-skinned holster as well as the much-requested, much awaited, pocket/IWB convertible. And, I’ve got a few tricks in store there! I’ve also freshened up my belt-optional IWB holsters and added a matching magazine carrier for the weak side. True to my previous promises, I’m about to show off some beautiful new products! For a teaser, please look at what Caleb has to say about his new Red Racer! I’m trying my hardest to make the best holster you can get, regardless of price – and a .2-second drop in draw speed over kydex for a Bianchi Cup competing IDPA shooter is nothing to scoff at!

Yes, friends. I’m very tired. But, the ride has been a good one. I’m looking forward to some much earned R&R, but for now, I believe I’ve got enough fuel left to get through the demanding part. Once again, I’ll try my hardest to not let it get to two weeks before my next post. Thanks for reading. Regards,

ERM

Tonight, at 2000 my time (Central Time Zone), I will be the guest on Gun Nuts to talk about my holsters! I’m really stoked about this, as this may be the push I need to really make a living out of this endeavor! Caleb sounds really stoked about the holster I made for him, even if he hasn’t yet seen it in real life…

The holster can be seen here. Make sure to read the comments! Note that last sentence:

That is EXACTLY what I had in mind.

Folks, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. That’s my goal in this business. I want to make holsters for people. I’m not at all trying to make holsters that you can buy, I’m trying to pull the most fantastic creations out of your head and make them reality.

Anyway, please tune in to Gun Nuts this evening and hear me stutter and ramble on live broadcast! (J/K, of course!) It ought to be fun!

In my latest attempt to feed my family, I’ve got two new holsters up on the holster site! Check it out:

By now, anybody who has been been reading my blog is aware of my watch experiments. For anybody else who doesn’t feel like following that link, here’s a quick update: My Seiko and my Tag Heuer were both significantly losing time, after relatively fresh overhauls. The reason I’m wearing mechanical movements is that something about my body’s chemistry quickly kills quartz watches. Since both automatics were losing time, I decided to demagnetize them and see if that fixed the problem. With the Seiko, it very much did fix the problem.

I’ve been wearing my Tag for six weeks now since the demagnetization. I set it to the time on my phone, which as you probably have assumed is set by the atomic clock in Colorado. At this point, the Tag is eight minutes fast, according to the same reference. So, it appears to be gaining 1:20 per week, which although not perfect, is a significant improvement over what it was doing prior to the demagnetization. Until this writing, I have not attempted to start the timer on the watch. But, I will now start the timer and run it for a minute as a preliminary test.

…

The one minute test functioned correctly, except the reset seems to be jammed on the minute hand of the timer. I’m going to reset the time, turn on the timer and run it for a couple of hours see if that corrects the problem. I’ll let you know what happens!

…

UPDATE *cheesey telegraph beeping sound*

The Tag’s movement got completely jammed when the timer had hit about half an hour. The minute hand still doesn’t reset. I’m really annoyed. I’m going to call the jeweler who rebuilt it and give them a piece of my mind!

I know I’ve mentioned on an occasion or two that my sis in law is working at the gun range. At this particular range, the employees are encouraged to open carry while on the premises. She’s got her CCW license, and a couple of handguns, but she hasn’t really had a holster that’s suitable for the job. I have on my to-do list a couple of CCW holsters for both my brother and his wife (as well as another few for Jenni), but I’ve really been focusing on getting my SIL into a holster that she can OC on the clock.

Incidentally, I’m about to debut my new holster page which will supersede my current holster page. I’ve been working on a few, pretty radical designs to debut the new site with. So, I took the opportunity to stretch myself a little and cobbled together something quite unique for my bro’s bride. I’m probably not going to post this one on my current gunleather page, but rather save it for the debut of the new site. However, for both of my loyal readers, I thought I’d throw in a sneak peek.

Being girl-to-the-core, my sister in law loves her pinks and purples, and if it sparkles, even better. The gun in question is a S&W 686 SSR from the Pro Series. It’s got some beautiful model stamping and etching on the side of the frame and a slab-sided barrel that I wanted to leave visible while holstered, but I still wanted to fully enclose the trigger guard and provide enough retention that it wouldn’t fall out if she ran or jumped while wearing the thing.

After scribbling on graph paper for quite some time, I decided to go with a rig not unlike some of the competitive holsters that I’ve seen used by the likes of Jerry Miculek. I also wanted to give it flash. I’d been dying to try out a solid color with a thin, decorative panel in a complimentary color overlayed, in much the way of a toe-cap on a pair of wingtip shoes. so, this is what I came up with:

There’s just enough retention between the muzzle, trigger guard, and body side of the cylinder that the gun sticks nicely in the holster. since it rides right under the arm, it’s quite defensible. I wouldn’t recommend anyone wear a contraption like this in the general public, but I’m quite pleased with how it turned out for its purpose. Upon reholstering, it latches into place with a satisfying ’snap’. At that point, the gun won’t fall out even when inverted and shaken.

To draw, it takes a rock forward…

…and then a slight lift for the muzzle to clear the bottom of the holster.

Do you feel lucky?

The gun even rides surprisingly close to the body!

The next time I build a holster in this style, there are things that I’ll do differently. Most of that has to do with the way I layer the leather, and what weights of hide I use where. I feared that with the spartan openness of the design, I’d have to err on the heavier, thicker side. As it turns out, that may have been a pretty major detriment to the molding process, and I’m not convinced that it evenly traded out for rigidity – which was the original objective. The stitching hurt. Period. I had to do all my stitching in several phases, as my hands kept cramping up.

Even still, there are a couple concepts that I was testing out with the construction of this particular piece: I wanted to see if I could successfully do the wingtip-style overlay, and I wanted to see if I could successfully build a functional holster that was radically different from my standard pancakes. Mission accomplished on both fronts! I will be testing some other concepts with some of the ‘family’ holsters that I’ve got coming up. For instance, I’m going to try my own, unique concept of the ‘tuckable’ IWB. I’m also going to be experimenting with some new, exotic materials that are certainly not widely-used in the holster market. Once I go live with the new website, I hope to have several new show pieces to provide some eye-candy for the debut. Wish me luck!