My first powders horns and bags

mrclean89

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Nanaimo, BC
Ok so the last couple weeks after and before class everyday Ive been switching between leather work and horn work to try and teach myself something.*

A friend gave me some old leather working tools and artificial sinew and a huge box of scrap leather.*

I had a cheap 20 dollar horn that ive used for a while and decided to try my hand at scrimshaw. The "RULE BRITTANIA" was done with a patch knife and all the rest was done with a large leather awl.*

The date on the other side is the battle of the plains of abraham and them my name*Around the base. Got the tacks at the local hardware store and made the staple from some steel in the shop. The strap I made from some scrap leather I had. I tried to dye it with some fabric dye similar to rit dye but it turned it green, so i sanded it back enough to get the colour out and then stained it with walnut stain.*

Here is a picture of it with my Haversack type bag with african red haarsbeast on it.*
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Next up is my first horn completely from scratch. I built this as a thank you for my football coach from highschool, he taught me alot and is one of the greatest men Ive ever known. *He was also in the 82n airborne years ago and saw combat morethan once.*

*I cut it and scraped the outside down with the dull edge of an old hacksaw blade. Then I scrimed "82nd AIRBORNE" "ALL THE WAY" on one side and our team on the other "JOHN BARSBY BULLDOGS"
"GO! DAWGS! GO!"

Then finally his name around the base with the same tacks as my horn. *The plug is made from an old gunstock and I cut it all with hand tools as I dont have any electric tools with me in QC. I inset a Challenge coin for the 82nd in the base. It was stained with some rit dye once I found some.*

The strap was made from 3 separate parts of leather with red leather lacing alternating on the main part.*

Here is some pics of the horn with my first attempt at making a bag from small peices of scrap leather. Ill get some dark brown leather dye and finish the bag.*

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Let me know what ya'll think!*

Cheers, McLean
 
Couple items - sorry my photography skills are not great. Yours reminds me that I need a 'hawk :)

I made the rifle there as well, Lyman Great Plains kit. I did NOT make the horn though - wish I had (but that one works very well).
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Closeup of the holster. I got it as a kit from Tandy but had to assemble it, stamp (pattern it), punch some holes, and dress it/finish it. Pretty good intro & so far, it's held up very well at the range. The .45 sees it's share of blackpowder cartridges.

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Wow thats an awesome gunbelt!

I wanted to make something similar but all the leather I have is fairly small scraps so nothing big enought to do that or it will look like frankenstien haha
 
Thanks - yeah those loops are handy...wish there was more of them. I bought a left handed belt in Mexico this year that has twice as many, but...not so confident in the stitching on that one.

If you haven't already, check out Tandy Leather Factory (Canada). They have a ton of gear and leather there, course even our local craft store seems to have a lot of the same basics (including decent leather). But Tandy has a better stock of leather than (our local) craft store, plus some handy tools, like oblong punches suitable for punching the belt for those cartridge loops.

I've been meaning to make a possibles bag like you've done there, I've been saying that for 20 years now....but now that I made the holster I'm debating it more seriously :)
 
Yeah ive been on the tandy site im a broke ass right now though so havent bought anything haha the possibles bag was actually pretty easy and only took me a couple nights to finish.

The longest part was punching all the holes haha that takes forever!

McLean
 
It is, I was never one for that kind of craft (no cutting, filing, grinding or welding) but I must agree it really is fun - and worthwhile.

Great skill to have, especially when you are up against possibles bags, holsters for C&B revolvers, hawks and such - not the sort of thing you will necessarily find on the shelf of your local sporting goods store :)
 
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