How to make a pancake ( saddle style) leather holster Andrews Custom Leather

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alright YouTube welcome back to the
channel this is Hank strange hanging out
with my buddy Sam Andrews you’ve seen
his beautiful exotic holsters featured
on the channel today we’re gonna do a
quick how-to video of how do you make a
specific Sam Andrews holster we’re good
our gun that we’re gonna use is the
Glock 19 I’m gonna turn everything over
to Sam and he’s gonna walk us through it
thanks for having us Sam one of the
things I’m asked most frequently is how
do you make these things and how does it
go from raw material to finished goods
and there’s no great secrets in leather
craft in two days I could teach anybody
all the basics of leather craft after
that it’s practice you start out with
just sheets of cowhide now this is going
to be a little bit of a time warp
because the real duration in making one
of these holsters is about three days
because there’s lots of drying time
finish curing time things where you
don’t have your hands on so this is the
highlights there’s two methods of
cutting out the leather on the things
that I make a lot of I’ll have a clicker
die mage kind of like a cookie cutter
for leather sharp on one edge and these
all have to be made to my patterns so
it’s costly and I only do it for things
I’m building a lot of okay you place it
on the leather and when this machine is
turned on which I’m not going to do
because it’s very loud and you won’t be
able to hear me speaking the machine
head swings over it’s hydraulic and it
punches down with tons of force and just
shears out the shapes okay what we’re
going to do today is a hand cut which is
still most of what I end up doing I’ve
got a pattern here for the Glock 19
basically pancakes don’t hold your
pancake style so this is a pancake style
which is going to be outside of the
waistband my catalog I call the de
saddle style because the word pancake is
copyrighted for holsters I couldn’t use
it okay so in it so if anyone’s looking
at this online it’s gonna be saddle
style okay cuz if it’s your size like a
saddle on a horse’s back the back is
smaller than the front because when it’s
all made you want enough bunched up
leather to create the gun pocket if it
was too
whole parts when you put it on its going
to tighten over the weapon to the point
have a hard time getting it out this is
the tough part of any kind of bolster
making is creating the patterns that’s
what took me years and years and years
of practice and trial and error with
heavy emphasis on the error part so I’ve
thrown away
reams of paper we trace it out mark
where the slots are going to go for the
belt and then I make my little stop and
start marks for the stitching so I don’t
overrun traditional leather craft they
teach you to cut with a head knife or a
straight knife and it’s usually drawn
toward you and very hard to control we
can take turns and you have to keep
going over and over the same cut
multiple times with this that I locked
on to the knife goes through in one easy
slicing motion and the point of the
knife is not hitting the hard surface of
the table it’s going into the carpet use
any budding holster makers out there go
down to the carpet market and grab some
scraps and it makes life very very
simple
oh and safety tip always cut away from
you a lot of people I show this to they
they try and turn their wrist to go
around the corners and you lose control
and if you do slip which does happen you
don’t want the blade coming back toward
you the next thing is to line the
holster because if I leave it all
leather inside it’s going to tear up a
weapon and even a tough finish like a
Glock I don’t want to do that to it to
linings I guess okay the common lining
is a suede lining soft suede then canal
hides been finished differently in a
tanning method or some people prefer a
smooth leather lining that’s really just
customer choice and you want to make
sure you don’t have the grotty side
where it’s going to show because on
tight you’ll have a good side on that
ugly side now we’re going to glue it to
the ugly side which has you know some
scars and things so that what shows will
be the pretty okay the lid just holds it
in place while you
shrim out that’s a serious leg had that
since I started yukata late you lining
with a good bit of edge because later
when we trim it you want something to
hold on and we glue them together this
is a special contact cement which
actually comes from the shoe industry
it’s called barge cement and it is so
incredibly strong when the bond dries
that you’ll tear the material rather
than the glue bond if you try to take it
apart so you put the glue on both
surfaces because it actually bonds to
itself and being that the leather is
porous it soaks in normally I’ll let it
sit just a few minutes to get the glue
tacky okay but it works even if you put
it together what’s left set up time on
it you can leave it sit for five or ten
minutes and it’ll still go together but
it’s not good to let it get too dry I
rub it down on the back with this piece
of smooth plastic just to make sure
we’ve really got a good tight seal
especially at the edges because you
don’t want the stuff peeling away in use
you can see the edge sort of appear as a
shadow through there that lets you know
you’ve got a good seal on it and I take
it just off the edge of the table so I
can put the blade through the suede
material okay and this is where you
needed the extra to grab on this is why
I have some edge it is important to keep
the finger away from where the knife is
coming through so I do keep a good
supply band-aids in the shot now the
lining is inside and ready to be
stitched in place it stitch it along the
edge because over years I wouldn’t want
to trust the glue by itself has
everything okay
we’re prepared for that by using the
groover to saddle makers groover this
has an adjustable width cutter and you
have a little tiny hole in the edge
there
put your sharp on the inner end and so
it creates a groove for the stitches to
lie in not only does it act as a guide
but it gets the stitches below flush so
they’re less liable to be worn off
the next is to sew it on the great big
of these many sewing machines they’re
beautiful now they were made in today
for steel bearings so they require a lot
of oiling and a lot of wiping down and
it’s got the needle up stitching through
the pre-made hole many different colors
of thread especially when I’m doing the
exotic materials as we want to match the
color to Oh getting sewn on if this
thread is a bonded now on the bonded
part means it feel to be used the longer
needle pointed knife so I can get down
in the hole with the thread to trim it
off you don’t want fill the ends of
threads sticking out it just doesn’t
look very professional so the end result
here it’s bonded by glue and thread it’s
bonded it’s stitched it’s never coming
apart tonight well as you see this edge
is very very square not only is it not
very pretty but it’s going to catch on
things now in through the bevelers these
are little v-shaped tools which are
sharp on the inner edge they come in
various sizes this is a 3 this is a 5
and what they do is they cut a round
edge on the material now we have this
all beveled the edges are rounded but
there’s still a little bit rough so the
next step is to slick the edges which is
done in two steps over here
I made a slipping bar for this liner
motor by shaping a piece of aluminum
with various booths
you wet the edge very thoroughly you can
make holsters with five or six basic
tools it doesn’t take a great deal of
cost and hence the automation helps when
you’re doing a hundred oysters at a time
it is a little more dampening and then
we go back to the workbench where I do
the hand slipping part again highly
technical just take an old smooth tool
handle and you give it the further
rubdown this is where you get that
really hard mirrored finish to the edge
okay it’s almost like polishing your
shoe leather one of the best benchmarks
for good leather work as opposed to more
mundane is pick it up and feel the edges
a lot of mass-produced holsters you’ll
pick up have rough raw edges maybe and
that just means they’re cutting corners
and they’re not spending the time that
they should be doing to get them
absolutely slick and glassy smooth oh
wow yeah that is classy submit with
indeed and then because you must room
the edge a little bit when you’re
pressing on it I again take the smooth
plastic kind of just flatten it out the
next thing is to put in the slots for
the belt loops that wanted a slightly
wider slot than the old narrow ones I
used to use it’s easier to put a heavy
belt through the wider slot so I’ve
drawn the place for the slops onto the
holster and I look down through the top
of the punch to align it with my pen
marks not sure if you can see that
inside with the camera so align that
with the pen marks and then I take my
very heavy mallet and apply it bristly
and these punches cut very clean very
nice slots it’s ready for the next stage
which is I put my makers stamp on the
back I just have to dampen it and tada
anytime you want to make an impression
leather stamping decorating whatever
needs to be down in that state it will
take a shape and it will hold it when it
dries here’s a little tip I learned the
hard way if you hit one of these steps
with a hard mallet even the rawhide with
plastic it will bounce and you’ll get
double impressions so my father brought
me from the automotive store a dead blow
hammer it’s got the powdered lead in the
head so it doesn’t bounce all the force
ends up dead low they’re awesome and it
makes a very clean step with no
secondary that you have to clean up
awesome but while it’s still flat I like
to put my stitching lines on okay
because it’s so much more difficult when
you’ve got the thing all tinted up back
to my little blue part actually so in
two goes because if I glue both sides
down the middle part gets tinted up so
much that the swingarm in the sewing
machine can sometimes hit the leather
and leave marks
so by sewing this front side flat and
then I come back and Bend this up and
glue it okay it’s less light and airy
though exactly is it’s another step but
it makes a better finished problem
another great combination for really
having the pieces that you’ve glued
sealed together well because you don’t
want them shifting under the pressure of
the stitcher now we’re back to our
Sadler’s tool to make the groove and
return to the sewing machine
if that postage started and just
pressure very good so again we trim the
thread down inside the hole get rid of
any fuzz and I’ve went the middle part
to make the leather malleable so I can
bend it and tint it up to create that
gun pocket in the middle makes it
simpler to glue the other side I’m going
to put this together you’re lining up
your edges the inner edges of your slots
check it by eye make sure everything is
where it’s supposed to be then apply the
framing and we’ll repeat the stitching
operation that we just did on the front
side
and now all the stitching operations are
completed we’ve sewn the edges for the
lining we’ve sewn the two sides for the
function of creating the holster shape
now we’re back to edging and these edges
are rough and very slightly uneven so
the very best way to chew them up before
the beveling is a belt sander belt and
you can do it by hand you can take the
knife and you can you know carefully
trim away what you don’t want which I
did on a hobby basis but it’s never
going to be absolutely perfect that way
so I’m going to step outside to the belt
sander
belt sander is lovely but it’s big and
you can’t get into tight little corners
my father set this up for me he took an
old drill press and put a couple of
sanding drums on a pole which makes an
absolutely amazing
either side places saves loads of tons
breaking away with so little tech inside
curves or close up to an edge marvelous
yeah I was wondering how you got into
the little closest turns like that
exactly right cool
now we’ll go back to the main table pick
up the hammers once more because this
edge is all true but it’s square so back
to every devil rounding the edges off
the most common function in making a
holster or any leather work really is
edges you’ll spend most of your time
doing edges because everything’s got an
edge and they all have to be dressed
beveled slicked sealed I mean that’s one
of the small things that the person who
buys this may not notice and they
shouldn’t notice right they should just
be able to pick it up and the smoothness
is there now go back to the spindle
slicker and give it a machine slick
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the secret to getting a sickie is very
very wet on the machine
if pull others too dry the friction will
actually cause leather to come off and
adhere in sticky gray wolves to the
aluminum itself which makes a very rough
on the helpful surface so I very often
re-wet it at it for it to be wet then
John yes now of course you don’t want to
weather to the point where it’s soft and
mushy but lots of water for the
lubrication as well as softening up in
leather and getting it to all lay the
farmers in one direction
and now back to give it to the hand
slick and finish off those edges again
just an old tool handle makes a great
slicker and if it’s somewhat soft
leather which tends to mushroom a bit
then I might press it down and then
slick it again mm-hmm this is good firm
leather and isn’t giving me that problem
but I’ve worked with a lot of material
over the years and learned how to make
do I find if you buy the very best
leather in the beginning we don’t have
to pups with it so much right now our
whole stream is completely assembled as
far as all the stitching slipping etc
okay from here we’re going to shape it
okay this is the shaping or it’s just I
don’t think you can get your gun in
there very easily no probably not it’s
not even gonna get in there as you can
see so we’re gonna change that right
absolutely
okay the wonderful thing about leather
is its plastic quality its ductile its
moldable mm-hm and the way we do that is
we wet it preferably warm water cold
water will do but you have to work
harder okay warm water softens it up so
over here in the molding corner I keep a
hot plate set on very low just warm if
it’s too hot you’ll burn the leather Oh
some people have read somewhere that you
dunk leather in hot water to fit it to
your gun okay one customer many years
ago used boiling water and then he sent
the holster back to me saying there’s
something wrong with it you could snap
it like a saltine cracker it had dried
out to a husk so warm yeah okay place it
in the warm water let that soak for just
a bit
yeah and I don’t want to leave it too
long because it will go mushy we just
want it moldable just pliable enough
right now when you’re doing a very
square gun like a Glock it helps to open
the leather up the block of wood or
something just so you don’t have such a
struggle getting that shape in there
okay and this is your Glock 19 blanks
the dummy of the lock 19 there’s a
company in Bay City Michigan Duncan
customs that makes these absolute
godsend for holster makers these are not
terribly expensive and when you’re doing
lots of different holsters I must have
250 of these things it’s certainly a lot
less investment than the real guns make
sure this bottoms out so that the muzzle
is close to the end the trigger guard
fills the trigger guard pocket basically
leaning on it’s a good way to get it
down there you don’t want to hammer on
it hit it or anything because the
leather is soft and you’ll create dings
and marks that you can’t get rid of okay
you just work it in right hand and you
notice as I said before the outer part
of the holster being larger creates a
pocket away from the body so that this
flatter side this curve fits my hip and
the pocket is molded away so that when
you draw the gun the holster doesn’t
collapse the way a flat holster would do
okay they rigid gun pocket still holds
its shape and you can reholster without
the strike without looking right now you
can see the little dent there that the
front sight is making we don’t want
front sights dragging so take the
screwdriver open that up and then place
a dowel in where I want that tunnel to
be for the site and apply the wax stick
so now you’re not only have the shape of
your weapon you have a tube a tunnel
made for that front sight to run in
absolutely say there’s an impede exactly
now we’re going to go right behind you
to the molding press again this is
something I use because of the
production but I do you could at this
point molded completely by hand but
ended up doing so many at a time and
this saves my poor arms this is very
very heavy dense rubber top and bottom
and it’s a hydraulic press with the 20
ton capacity being that this is curved I
put it on some stacked up rubber so it
doesn’t get flattened out okay a flat
holster life got a mcdaniel or something
I would just lay right down and mold it
flat because it’s equal both sides on
this we’re trying to retain that curve
that’s it rather Oh lots of rubber of
different thicknesses and hardnesses of
fire experimentation found of what gives
me the best impression so that the soft
leather really tends to move around the
lemon and when you take it out you could
dry and use it as this but it doesn’t
have the deep incised lines of the
molded holster so that would be the next
step as you see the pressure has put in
the basic shape of the weapon so the
next step the boning and they called it
that because traditionally pieces of
antler or bone were used as the tool to
mark the leather to the dampness ivy
non-traditional use these couple of
pieces of wood which I made out of all
tool handles if you’ve gotten a holster
for me in the last 25 years or so they
were molded with these okay and
everything that went through the shop
has come off this little scrap of
leather this is where all the molding
have
I use fully called the beaver tail first
to get basic shape you want to outline
the weapon and then I go back over those
marks with the needlepoint to sharpen it
up a Glock is easy when they designed
the Glock most things are done in
straight lines with right angles Thank
You Gaston and holster makers everywhere
are in your debt some of the things
especially the revolvers I’m old have so
many angles and pitches and different
heights things that they take a great
deal time Glocks are pretty simple by
comparison now one of the reasons I do
this on the corner of the table is being
that this is a curved holster and so I
don’t flatten out the curve I have to
kind of do it on the edge so now I’m
going to highlight the tunnel for the
front sight and you end up switching
back and forth back and forth on the
tools you can kind of see the gun taking
shape through the leather and for all
you plotting holster makers out there if
you’re molding a Glock pistol and you
want to highlight the shape of the
ejection port remember when you take the
gun out to reach a finger in and press
the leather back up because a Glock has
such sharp edges on the port that if you
leave the indented leather to drive that
way it will lock the weapon in place and
you’ll have a terrible time getting it
to draw okay so you’ve got to make that
pop that yes I learned that one the hard
way it’s how I learned everything well
if you if you just reach your finger in
and press that leather back up it will
still keep the shape for the looks but
it won’t interfere with getting the
weapon out of the holster again this is
one of those you can’t rush it steps
bank where I will often have tables full
of holsters sitting waiting and
everything has to go through this
also with straight holsters a straight
edge that makes a nice guide so don’t be
afraid to use a ruler or something
straight I’m trying to get those
diamonds in basically what you’re
highlighting is any difference slide 2
frame fit channels to the outside edge
now we have the basic shape in there but
this is a tension hold holster and so I
have to open up the little pocket there
where the tensioner is going to go so I
don’t have to struggle to take this
little wedge of wood again apply the wax
stick just mold that out
so you just brought the indentation back
up right so nothing hangs and now this
will go out in the Sun for probably a
day on each side so it thoroughly drives
so you can’t put on any finish either
die or oil if the leather is still wet
because the water won’t let anything dry
that this point is pretty much set up is
it as a lawyer so even though seduced
the Glock 19 fits in there very snugly
almost like it was made for now how long
does it usually take out here the phone
if you’ve got a good son a day on each
side a date will do it okay it’s
frustrating and rainy or very cold times
it takes much longer right so it is a
bit weather dependent now when the
holster is thoroughly dry and ready for
finishing we’re coming to the extremely
messy corner of the shop this is sort of
the mad scientist laboratory area think
bubbling beakers and mixing test tubes
it’s my favorite part with with the
colors I’m always mixing experimenting
finding things that aren’t available
commercially mm-hmm and most of the
things I finish in what’s called the oil
finish that’s the needs for oil and it
gives that deep russet saddle type of
color to the weather that’s just the
most popular the finishes okay
so when it’s dried it’s gonna go back to
this blonde kind of comes the the blonde
beige basic leather color the edge coat
is applied with a wool dauber now these
come from the store with little hair
sticking out all over them
I don’t know if you can see it on the
camera but it’s got lots of little
fibers sticking out this creates a
problem because the each of those little
fibers is a tiny paintbrush it’s gonna
make a groove well it’s it’s going to
make marks when you’re trying to just
coat the edge it’s going to be putting
things on the face so chapped Andy who
worked with me some years ago he came up
with a wonderful solution you seems them
his rotating that over the lighter and
brushed off all the ash and you’ve got a
perfectly fibrous little ball of wool
now this is called edge coat it’s a
flexible enamel for sealing the edge
because you know with years of use and
rubbing the fibers can come up and you
can get a rough edge to the leather
again so this does two things it looks
good by giving it a two-tone with the
darker edge and it also seals it and
holds it down so with where it’s not
going to become all rough again since we
put so much effort into making those
edges nice and slick I’d like it to stay
that way so basically this is almost
like pinstriping yes this is painting
the edges and I’ve come up with a
different formula by mixing several
different edge coating products I wasn’t
happy with any single one as they came
out of the bottle so I mixed different
ones from different manufacturers to get
a really dark and slick edge coat some
of them were too thick and they would be
soft and they could wear off others were
too thin and they bubbled when you put
them on so by putting them together you
get the best of all worlds you’re trying
to keep an even bead between the edge
and the stitching not too much not too
little again multiply this by a hundred
holsters normally doing these big racks
here will often be just fill top to
bottom at the end of a production run
and it’s another of those slow processes
like the hand molding that there’s just
no real way to speed up trying to do
this fast you’re not going to get very
hard edge coating by again careful how
you hold it when you change your grip on
these things because it will smear so
easily if you brush your finger against
the wet edge coat and once it gets on
the holster face you’re not getting the
stain out I desperately tried with
solvents and water and curses nothing
moves Oh
edge coated and then it goes on a peg to
draw
before applying the oil the final step
on coloring is to apply either oil or
dye in this case we’re going to make it
the classic russet saddle color which is
a nice foot oil finish now with oil you
have to be careful not to overdo one or
two coats isn’t going to do anything but
if you saturate the leather with oil it
will turn into a greasy dish rag and
bleed oil forever
so less is more when you’re doing an oil
finish to a nice even coat let that soak
in touch-up as necessary but a lot of
the very cheap holsters in the old days
used to be what was called hot oil
dipped they literally have a pen full of
warm oil stick the holster in there and
that was pretty well all she wrote for
that one now once this oil drives in it
will lighten up considerably so it takes
more than one coat of the oil and very
often if I have a nice sunny day I’ll
put the oil holsters out in the sunlight
because it helps penetrate and divide
the oil through the leather evenly and
the warming okay and the final step
after it’s been colored is to spray on
the sealer I use a product called
acrylic rezulin the feedings makes it’s
an acrylic sealer waterproof or final
coat it gives a soft shine but it
doesn’t look plastic or like lacquer
okay it bonds right into the pores of
the leather and the best way to apply it
is with an airbrush you can put it on
with a dauber and I did four years in
the beginning but you end up with tiny
little fibers from the daubers getting
into it and also streaks from them in
the brush strokes so if you have access
to an airbrush it’s but definitely the
preferred nothing
takes a fine misting of it give it an
even coat both sides very often I’ll do
a base coat then go back and put another
one over it to get a really good seal
again like with the oil less is more if
you put on too much it’ll puddled it’ll
drip it’s not nice so two light coats
much better than one heavy coat and it
dries quickly maybe five minutes or so
the very final step is the Assembly of
the retainer in this case it’s tension
holster it doesn’t have a thumb break
strap so the screw post goes in the back
the rubber grommet in the middle get
them lined up they all mix a good guide
in goes the screw and the advantage of
the tension retain holsters you can set
it tightly or loosely as you wish and
once the tensioner is installed the
holster is fully complete and functional
now it’s ready to accept the weapon and
you can adjust the tension to whatever
tightness you wish when you draw so it’s
resisted just that first little bit but
otherwise it’s going to stay in all come
bouncing it and this is ready to package
and ship to whatever lucky end user is
going around
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