(laid back music)
- All right, YouTube,
welcome back to the channel.
This is Hank Strange.
I'm hanging out with my buddy Sam Andrews.
You've seen his beautiful, exotic holsters
featured on the channel.
Today we're going to
do a quick how-to video
of how do you make a
specific Sam Andrews holster.
Our gun that we're going
to use is the Glock 19.
I'm going to turn everything over to Sam,
and he's going to walk us through it.
Thanks for having us, Sam.
- Thank you.
One of the things I'm
asked most frequently
is, "How do you make these things?
"How does it go from raw
material to finished goods?"
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 cow hide.
Now this is going to be a
little bit of a time warp,
because the real duration
in making these holsters
is about three days,
because there's lots of
drying time, finish curing time,
things were you don't
have your hands on them.
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 dye made,
kind of like a cookie cutter for leather,
sharp on one edge.
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.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] You place it on the leather.
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 hydraulinc.
It punches down with tons of force
and just shears out the shapes.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] What we're going
to do today is a hand cut,
which is still most of
what I end up doing.
I've got the pattern
here for the Glock 19,
basic pancake-style holster.
- [Hank] Pancake style?
So this is pancake style,
which is going to be
outside of the waistband.
- Exactly.
In my catalog I called it a saddle style,
because the word "pancake"
is copyrighted for holsters.
I couldn't use it.
- [Hank] So if anyone's
looking at this online,
it's going to be saddle style.
- Saddle style, because
it fits to your side
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 two equal parts,
when you put it on it's going
to tighten over the weapon
to the point where you'd have
a hard time getting it out.
This is the tough part of
any kind of holster 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.
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.
Very hard to control, can't take turns,
and you have to keep going over and over
the same cut multiple times.
With this, that I lucked onto,
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.
If there's any budding
holster makers out there,
go down to the carpet
market and grab some scraps.
It makes life very, very simple.
Oh, and safety tip,
always cut away from you.
A lot of people I show this to,
they try and turn their wrist
to go around the corners,
and you lose control.
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 raw leather inside
it's going to tear up a weapon.
Even a tough finish like a Glock,
I don't want to do that to it.
Two linings I use.
- [Hank] Okay.
- The common lining is a
suede lining, soft suede.
The cowhide's been finished differently,
- [Hank] Oh, very nice.
- [Sam] It's a different tanning method.
Or some people prefer a
smooth leather lining.
- [Hank] Oh, okay.
- [Sam] That's really
just customer choice.
You want to A) check you don't have
the grotty side where it's going to show.
Because on hides you'll have a good side
and an ugly side.
Now we're going to glue
it to the ugly side,
which has some scars and things,
so that what shows will be the pretty.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] The lead just
holds it in place while you
trim out the lining.
- [Hank] That's some serious lead.
- [Sam] I've had that since I started.
You cut out your lining
with a good bit of edge,
because later when we trim it
you'll want something to hold onto.
Then we glue them together.
This is a special contact cement,
which actually comes
from the shoe industry.
It's called barge cement.
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.
You put the glue on both surfaces,
because it actually bonds to itself.
Being that the leather
is porous, it soaks in.
Normally I let is sit just a few minutes
to get the glue tacky.
But it works even if you
put it together right away.
- [Hank] What's the set-up time on it?
- [Sam] You can leave it
sit for 5 or 10 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
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.
I take it just off the edge of the table
so I can put the blade
through the suede material.
- [Hank] Okay, and this
is where you needed
the extra to grab onto.
- [Sam] This is why I have some edge.
it is important to keep the finger
away from where the
knife is coming through,
though I do keep a good supply
of Band-Aids in the shop.
Now the lining is inside,
and ready to be stitched in place.
I stitch it along the
edge, because over years
I wouldn't want to trust
the glue by itself to hold
- [Sam] everything down.
- [Hank] Absolutely.
- [Sam] We prepare for
that by using a groover.
It's a saddlemaker's groover.
This has an adjustable width cutter.
You have a little tiny
hole in the edge there,
which is sharp on the inner end.
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 in use.
The next is to sew it on the great big
- [Hank] Machine.
- [Sam] Industrial sewing machine.
- [Hank] They're beautiful.
- [Sam] They were made in the
days before sealed bearings,
so they require a lot of oiling
and a lot of wiping down.
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,
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] because we want to match the color
to what's being sewn on.
This thread is a bonded nylon.
The bonded part means it's sealed to be
chemically proof against ultraviolet,
oils, solvents, etc.
Just raw nylon can rot over years of use.
I use the longer, needle-pointed knife
so I can get down in
the hole with the thread
to trim it off.
You don't want frilly ends
of threads sticking out.
It just doesn't look very professional.
- [Hank] So the end result here,
it's bonded by glue and thread.
- [Sam] It's bonded. It's stitched.
It's never coming apart.
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 enter 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.
What they do is they cut a
round edge on the material.
Now we have this all beveled,
the edges are rounded,
but they're still a little bit rough.
The next step is to slick the edges,
which is done in two steps.
Over here I made the slicking
bar for this grinder motor
by shaping a piece of
aluminum with various grooves.
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 or expense.
The automation helps when you're doing
a hundred holsters at a time.
Give these a little more dampening,
and then we go back to the work bench
where I do the hand slicking part.
Again, highly technical.
Just take an old smooth tool handle,
and you give it a further rub down.
This is where you get that really hard
mirrored finish to the edge.
- [Hank] 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.
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.
- [Hank] Oh, wow.
Yeah, that is glassy smooth, indeed.
- [Sam] Then because you mushroom the edge
a little bit when you're pressing on it,
I again take the smooth plastic,
and I just flatten it out.
The next thing is to put in
the slots for the belt loops.
I 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.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] I've drawn the holes
for the slots onto the holster,
and I look down through
the top of the punch
to align it with my pen marks.
I'm not sure if you can see
that inside with the camera.
I align that with the pen marks.
Then I take my very heavy mallet
and apply it briskly.
These punches cut very
clean, very nice slots.
It's ready for the next stage, which is,
I put my maker's stamp on the back.
I just have to dampen it a touch.
Any time you want to make
an impression in leather,
stamping, decorating, whatever,
it needs to be damp.
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
stamps with a hard mallet,
either the rawhide or the 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 -
- [Hank] Dead blow.
- [Sam] There.
- [Hank] Awesome.
- [Sam] And it makes a very clean stamp
with no secondary that
you have to clean up.
- [Hank] Awesome.
- [Sam] But while it's
still flat, I like to
put my stitching lines on.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] Because it's
so much more difficult
when you've got the thing all tented up.
Back to my little glue pot.
I actually sew it in two goes,
because if I glue both sides down,
the middle part gets tented up so much
that the swing arm 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,
- [Hank] Oh, okay.
- [Sam] it's less liable -
- [Hank] Gets a better result.
- [Sam] Exactly.
It's another step, but it makes
a better finished product.
Another dead blow hammer
and this old anvil
make a great combination
for really having the pieces
that you've glued seal together well,
because you don't want them shifting
under the pressure of the stitcher.
Now we're back to our saddlers
tool to make the groove,
and return to the sewing machine.
Get that first stitch
started, adjust pressure.
Very good.
Again, we trim the thread
down inside the hole.
Get rid of any fuzz.
I've wet the middle part to
make the leather malleable,
so I can bend it and tent it up
to create that gun pocket in the middle.
Makes it simpler to glue the other side.
When you put this together,
you're lining up your edges,
the inner edges of your slots.
Check it by eye and make sure everything
is where it's supposed to be.
Then apply the framming device smartly,
so that it stays where
it's supposed to be.
We're back to our groover.
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,
creating the holster shape.
Now we're back to edging.
These edges are rough,
and very slightly uneven.
so the very best way to true
them up before the beveling
is a belt sander.
- [Hank] Belt sander?
- [Sam] You can do it by hand.
You can take the knife and you can
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.
I'm going to step outside
to the belt sander.
Belt sander's 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
little inside spindle
sander, to get to the places
that I can't get with the big belt sander.
Saves loads of time scraping
away with knives and so forth.
Little tight inside curves,
or close up to an edge.
Marvelous thing.
- [Hank] I was wondering how you got into
the little close turns like that.
- [Sam] Exactly.
- [Hank] Very cool.
- [Sam] Now we go back to the main table.
Pick up the bevelers once more.
Because this edge is all
true, but it's square.
So back to -
- [Hank] Want to re-bevel.
- [Sam] rounding the edges off.
The most common function
in making a holster,
or any leatherwork, really, is edges.
You'll spend most of
your time doing edges.
Everything's got an edge,
and they all have to be
dressed, beveled, slicked, sealed.
- [Hank] That's one of the small things
that the person who buys
this may not notice,
and they shouldn't notice.
- [Sam] Right.
They should just be able to pick it up
and the smoothness is there.
- [Hank] Absolutely.
- [Sam] Now we go back
to the spindle slicker
and give it a machine slick.
The secret to getting the slicking
is very, very wet on the machine.
If the leather's too dry,
the friction will actually cause leather
to come off and adhere
in sticky gray blobs
to the aluminum itself,
which makes a very rough
and unhelpful surface.
I very often re-wet it.
- [Hank] Better for it to be wet than dry.
- [Sam] Yes.
Now of course, you don't
want to wet it to the point
where it's soft and mushy.
But lots of water for the lubrication,
as well as softening up the leather,
and getting it to all lay
defined as one direction.
Now back to give it a hand slick,
and finish off these edges.
Again, just an old tool
handle makes a great slicker.
If it's somewhat soft leather,
which tends to mushroom a bit,
then I might press it down,
and then slick it again.
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 you learn how to make do.
I find if you buy the very
best leather in the beginning,
you don't have to futz with it so much.
Now our holster is completely assembled,
as far as all the
stitching, slicking, etc.
- Okay.
- From here, we're going to shape it.
- Okay, this is the shaping part.
- I don't think you can
get your gun in there
very easily right now.
- No, probably not.
It's not even going to get
in there, as you can see.
So we're going to change that, right?
- [Sam] Absolutely.
- [Hank] Okay.
- The wonderful thing about
leather is its plastic quality.
It's ductile. It's moldable.
The way we do that is we wet it,
preferably warm water.
Cold water will do, but
you have to work harder.
- [Hank] Oh, okay.
- Warm water softens it up.
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.
Some people have read somewhere
that you dunk leather in hot water
to fit it to your gun.
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.
Place it in the warm water.
Let that soak for just a bit.
I don't want to leave it too long,
because it will go mushy.
You just want it moldable.
- [Hank] Just pliable enough.
- [Sam] Right.
When you're doing a very
square gun like a glock,
it helps to open the leather up
with a block of wood or something,
just so you don't have such a struggle
getting that shape in there.
- [Hank] Okay, and this
is your Glock 19 blank?
- [Sam] This is the dummy of the Glock 19.
There's a company in Bay City, Michigan,
Duncan Customs, that makes these.
Absolute godsend for holster makers.
These are not terribly expensive.
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 leather is soft,
and you'll create dings and marks
that you then can't get rid of.
- [Hank] So you just work it in by hand.
- [Sam] Right, and
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.
The pocket is molded away so that
when you draw the gun the
holster doesn't collapse
the way a flat holster would do.
- [Hank] Oh, okay.
- [Sam] The rigid gun pocket
still holds its shape,
and you can reholster without a struggle.
- [Hank] Right, without looking.
- [Sam] Now you can see
the little dent there
that the front sight is making.
We don't want front sights dragging.
So I'll take a screwdriver, open that up,
and then place a dowel in
where I want that tunnel
to be for the sight
and apply the whack stick,
get that dowel running
right down through there.
So now you not only have
the shape of your weapon,
you have a tube, a tunnel made
for that front sight to run in.
- [Hank] Absolutely, so it doesn't impede.
- [Sam] Exactly.
Now we're going to go right
behind you to the molding press.
Again, this is something that I use
because of the production that I do.
You could, at this point, mold it
completely by hand.
But as I'm doing so many at a time,
this saves my poor arms.
This is very, very heavy,
dense rubber, top and bottom.
It's a hydraulic press
with a 20 ton capacity.
Being that this is curved,
I put it on some stacked up rubber,
so it doesn't get flattened out.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] A flat holster, like
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.
- [Hank] Lots of rubber.
- [Sam] Oh, lots of rubber
of different thicknesses
and hardness I've, by experimentation,
found what gives me the best impression.
Slide that under there.
Commence the pumping.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] So I get a workout
on top of everything else.
Sorry about the squeal.
- [Hank] That's okay.
- Now we leave it in there
for about five minutes
- [Hank] Okay.
- So that the soft leather really
tends to mold around the weapon.
When you take it out,
you could dry it and use it as is.
But it doesn't have
the deep, incised lines
of the molded holster,
so that would be the next step.
Now, as you see, the pressure has put in
the basic shape of the weapon.
The next step, the boning.
They call it that because traditionally
pieces of antler or bone were used
as the tool to mark the leather.
Get a little dampness.
I, being nontraditional, use these
couple of piece of wood,
which I made out of old tool handles.
If you've gotten a holster from me
in the last 25 years or so,
they were molded with these.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] Everything that
went through the shop
has come off this little scrap of leather.
This is where all the molding happens.
- [Hank] Okay.
- [Sam] I use what I call
the beaver tail first
to get the basic shape.
You want to outline the weapon.
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 were done in
straight lines with right angles.
Thank you Gaston.
Holster makers everywhere
are in your debt.
Some of the things, especially
the revolvers I mold,
have so many angles and pitches
and different heights, things that -
They take a great deal of 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,
so I don't flatten out the curve,
I have to kind of do it on the edge.
- [Hank] Oh, okay.
- [Sam] Now I'm going to highlight
the tunnel for the front site.
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.
For all you budding
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 dry that way,
it will lock the weapon in place
and you'll have a terrible
time getting it to draw.
- [Hank] Okay, so you've got
to make that pop back up.
- [Sam] Yes, I learned
that one the hard way.
It's how I learn everything.
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
- [Hank] Right.
- [Sam] Where I will often
have tables full of holsters,
sitting waiting.
Everything has to go through this.
Also with straight holsters,
a straight edge makes a nice guide.
So don't be afraid to use a
ruler or something straight
when you're trying to get those lines in.
Basically what your
highlighting is any difference,
slide to frame fit,
channels, the outside edge.
Now we have the basic shape in there.
But this is a tension hold holster.
So I have to open up
the little pocket there
where the tensioner's going to go,
so I don't have to struggle.
So I take this little wedge of wood,
again apply the whack stick,
and just mold that out.
- [Hank] So you just brought
the indentation back up.
- [Sam] Right.
So nothing hangs.
Now this will go out in the sun
for probably a day on each side,
so it thoroughly dries.
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.
- [Hank] but at this
point it's pretty much
set up in it's finish shape.
- [Sam] It is a holster.
You could dry it and wear it as it is.
- [Hank] So even the Glock
19 fits in there very snugly.
- [Sam] Almost like it was made for it.
- [Hank] Now how long does it usually take
out here in the sun.
- [Sam] If we've got good
sun, a day on each side
- [Hank] A day?
- [Sam] will do it.
It's frustrating in
rainy or very cold times.
It takes much longer.
- [Hank] Right.
- [Sam] So it is a bit weather dependent.
Now when the holster is thoroughly dry
and ready for finishing, we come into
the extremely messy corner of the shop.
This is sort of the mad
scientist laboratory area.
Think bubbling beakers
and mixing test tubes.
- [Hank] That's my favorite part.
- With the colors I'm always
mixing, experimenting,
finding things that aren't
available commercially.
Most of the things I finish in
what's called the oil finish.
That's the neatsfoot oil.
It gives that deep russet
saddle-type color to the leather.
That's just the most
popular of the finishes.
- [Hank] So when it's
dried it's going to go back
to this blond kind of look.
- [Sam] It becomes the blond
beige basic leather color.
The edge coat is applied
with a wool dauber.
These come from the
store with little hairs
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
each of those little fibers
is a tiny paintbrush.
- [Hank] it's going to make a groove.
- [Sam] Well, 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, a chap Andy who worked
with me some years ago,
he came up with a wonderful solution.
You singe them.
Just rotate that over the lighter,
then brush off all the ash,
and you've got a perfectly
fiberless 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.
This does two things.
It looks good by giving it a
two-tone of the darker edge,
and it also seals it and holds it down,
so with wear 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.
- [Hank] So basically, this
is almost like pinstriping.
- [Sam] Yes, this is painting the edges.
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.
I'm 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,
what we're normally doing.
These big racks here will
often be just filled,
top to bottom, at the
end of a production run.
It's another of those slow processes,
like the hand molding, that there's just
no real way to speed up.
You try to do this fast
you're not going to get
very good edge coating.
- [Hank] Right.
- 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.
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 it.
All edge coated, and then
it goes on a peg to dry
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 neatsfoot 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 dishrag
and bleed oil forever.
So less is more when
you're doing an oil finish.
Do 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
pan full of warm oil.
Stick the holster in there, and that was
pretty well all she wrote for that one.
Now once this oil dries 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 oiled holsters
out in the sunlight
because it helps penetrate
and divide the oil
through the leather.
- Evenly.
- In the warming.
- Okay.
- Then the final step
after it's been colored
is to spray on the sealer.
I use a product called acrylic
resolene that Feibings makes.
- Okay.
- it's an acrylic sealer,
waterproofer, 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.
The best way to apply
it is with an air brush.
- Okay.
- You can put it on with a dauber,
and I did for years in the beginning,
but you end up tiny little
fibers from the daubers
getting into it, and also
streaks from the brush strokes.
So if you have access to an airbrush,
it's definitely the preferred method.
It just takes a fine misting of it.
Give it an even coat, both sides.
Very often I'll do a base coat
and then go back and
put another one over it
to get a really good seal.
- [Hank] Right.
- [Sam] Again, like with
the oil, less is more.
If you put on too much, it'll puddle,
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 a 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.
The awl makes a good guide.
In goes the screw.
The advantage of the
tension retained holster
is you can set it tightly
or loosely, as you wish.
Once the tensioner is installed,
the holster is fully
complete and functional.
Now it's ready to accept the weapon.
You can adjust the tension
to whatever tightness
you wish when you draw so it resists
to just that first little bit.
But otherwise, it's going to stay in.
It won't come bouncing out.
(laid back music)
This is ready to package and ship
to whatever lucky end
user is going to wear it.
(laid back music)
