Fixing a fancy Colorado Saddlery two gun belt

[Wyatt Burp]

I bought this on Ebay a year or so ago. A beautiful Colorado Saddlery carved belt that fits me. But it came with horrible added bullet loops and the tongue restitched badly in a different position. I fixed all that and now have to make holsters utilizing the belt's tooling pattern. Pictured here before & after, and with holsters I made from another rig just to check them out here.

Before...

After...

 

[27 Man]

Very nice.

 

[Eddie Southgate]

Looks like good work to me .

 

[rednichols]

Well done . Did you stitch the new looping in place?

The Mexican carving is very 'Heiser'. They shared 'leather engravers' as time went on. Reviewing the Denver city directories back to 1875 (Heiser opened at 379 Blake St. in 1874, the number changed to 378 in 1877) I was fascinated to see that in 1948, after Denver Dry Goods had bought Heiser in '45, the company vanished from the directory's business section ('yellow pages' of sorts) and replaced there by Colorado Saddlery; and it remained that way. CS was founded by former (one assumes) Heiser employees.

 

[bronco45]

Nice job Wyatt, always loved the work you did for me.

 

[Wyatt Burp]

Well done . Did you stitch the new looping in place?

The Mexican carving is very 'Heiser'. They shared 'leather engravers' as time went on. Reviewing the Denver city directories back to 1875 (Heiser opened at 379 Blake St. in 1874, the number changed to 378 in 1877) I was fascinated to see that in 1948, after Denver Dry Goods had bought Heiser in '45, the company vanished from the directory's business section ('yellow pages' of sorts) and replaced there by Colorado Saddlery; and it remained that way. CS was founded by former (one assumes) Heiser employees.

I stitched the loops like on this gun belt below. I always wondered if there can be a problem with doing it this way since the cartridges are constantly rubbing againd the stitching inside the loop every time you put one in it. I don't bother cutting a stitching groove in there first but never had a problem yet. The loops on Co. Saddlery belt when I got it were attached to a strip of very thin leather then the whole thing was attached to the belt with three rivets. Really ugly.

 

[Eddie Southgate]

I stitched the loops like on this gun belt below. I always wondered if there can be a problem with doing it this way since the cartridges are constantly rubbing againd the stitching inside the loop every time you put one in it. I don't bother cutting a stitching groove in there first but never had a problem yet. The loops on Co. Saddlery belt when I got it were attached to a strip of very thin leather then the whole thing was attached to the belt with three rivets. Really ugly.

This one is really beautiful , not my style but the work is superb . Is this one you rehabbed or one you made from scratch ?

Eddie

 

[JimBianchi]

You should be very proud of the work you've done.

I've worked and made many holsters and that is very good.

 

[Wyatt Burp]

This one is really beautiful , not my style but the work is superb . Is this one you rehabbed or one you made from scratch ?

Eddie

I made this rig about 25 years ago. It was a major endeavor that I haven't tackled since. I replaced the cartridge loops and billets because a pet parakeet chewed up some of them when the rig hung on the wall. They, and the billets, were poorly done, anyway. I wasn't good at stitching loops back then. Oh. We gave that bird away the next day. I made it because I liked these B western rigs like this guy wears in this picture.