Tutorial: ANH waist pouch construction (photo heavy)

[Arcturus1020]

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

Single shoulder 4-5oz
Sam Browne Buttons
Sam Browne Stud Anvil
Neatsfoot Oil
Rapid Rivets (Antique Brass is good)
Rotary Leather Punch (the deluxe one is great because you can take off the tubes)
Contact cement
Cowhide leather strip (belt)
Buckle*
Anvil

Misc. tools: Pliers, hammer
Other stuff: Acrylic paint
*I bought my buckle at Goodwill that was on a belt (cut off and put on new belt).

Photo album tutorial: 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/145219035@N04/albums/72157691018452514

Just know that if you don't purchase the Gold membership (or know someone with an Elite membership), expect to pay $181.86 plus tax for ALL of this. Having a membership does save you a lot of money...is it enough to offset the cost of a Gold membership (I used a friend's Elite membership phone number and spent just over $100 for everything)? I think it does...but you better do a little research yourself into this. It is a big investment, but if you plan on doing more leatherwork down the road, at least you'll have some things already. Now, you can also substitute the leather and go without a lot of these other suggestions and use a vinyl material and snaps in lieu of the Sam Browne buttons and just use contact cement to secure everything...the quick rivets just help secure everything even more so to withstand the rigors of trooping. These are just suggestions and you can use what you want...this is just what I used for this project....

Much like Noah, I decided to also try my hand at making waist pouches using a 4-5oz leather that was on the scrap pile at Tandy Leather Factory. I first created a template in Adobe Illustrator for a pouch that would measure 3" wide by 5.5" high by 1" deep. I'm going with a quick rivet type pouch instead of doing the stitching so it's a simple fold-over type pouch, but I'm wet forming them, and before you can ask, no, I have never wetformed leather or have done any of these pouches before now. I'm making this up as I go. I printed it out on 3 sheets of letter-size paper then cut it out and fold it up to check the proportions and overall look. It looks like a pouch, so I then transfer this to a more sturdy board (I'm using some scrap matte board) to use as my main template. I also drilled a hole on the flap of my board template and marked that as well on the leather when it came time to pencil out the templates on the back of the leather. Never mark up the front of your leather unless you plan on painting it. After I got as much out of the leather as I could, I cut them all out and got 7 pouches from this piece of leather. Not bad!

 

Edited April 8, 2021 by Arcturus1020
added list of items with links

[outrbnkr]

This looks really good.  Would you mind sharing your template?

 

- Paul

[M.J.]

James, thank you, looking good, I know it's fun trying to use as much as u can out of the leather, it's like a puzzle ....lol

[Ork'Grk'urr]

Very nice, this is a project I would like to try, thanks for sharing.

[Arcturus1020]

Thanks all! The pouches are slowly drying, though I've tried to speed it up a little with a heat gun on a low setting last night. I'll have to flip them and do the front tonight. They're all pressed together like this to prevent the sides from bowing out.

The JPG template also has the belt loop in 2 parts: the longer one is for the actual strap; the second nested template is for the holes to punch in the backside of the pouches. The idea here is to use 4 rivets in total on the back through the strap and pouches to help hold everything together. I'll use Barge cement to glue the flaps of the pouch on the inside to the inside back flap. Does that make sense? Probably not. I'll do more visual aids when I get to that point which should be right after the pouches dry. I also had to get some more Sam Browne button rivets because originally I only intended on doing 5 of these, so those should be coming next week. Ordered 'em through Amazon because the Leather Factory by me is about an hour away and I'm not gonna drive up all that way just for those. lol

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW FOR THE TEMPLATE:

 

[Ork'Grk'urr]

It does make since, and it's a great idea for creating the belt loop, I had not thought of added a second piece like that. Looking forward to seeing this come together.

[outrbnkr]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing your process and the pattern. Going to give this a try.

[Arcturus1020]

You're welcome!

 

I used the smaller strap template and marked the holes on the backs of the pouches (using a T-square to make sure they're all straight). The leather punch I have has removable heads so I removed the head and marked each hole then used a hammer and punched them all out. The same was done for the front of the Sam Browne buttons for the front.



Next I used some Neatsfoot Oil and rubbed some into each pouch. Nothing complicated here, just put some on a clean cloth or buffing pad and rub it in. You may want to try some out on a scrap piece of leather.


After the oil was dry, I put the Sam Browne buttons (rivets) in and now they're ready for the backs to get glued and riveted together with the belt straps. Unfortunately, the buttons don't all line up with each other perfectly because of how the flaps stretched and dried. Oh well . . . I'll put the ones that line up best next to each other and put the others that don't toward the outer edges.

[Grave Tusken]

They look good man, even , uneven, that will make them look aged already. Mix em up, run em over with the truck....lol just kidding , rough em up, and they will look fine.

[haplotk114]

nice job, great minds think alike

[Arcturus1020]

They look good man, even , uneven, that will make them look aged already. Mix em up, run em over with the truck....lol just kidding , rough em up, and they will look fine.

 

Thanks, much appreciated! In hindsight, I think the only thing different I'd do would be to cut and shape the flaps after the wet forming and after they've dried to prevent this from happening and so they'd all be a uniformed length. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle!

 

Thank you haplotk114! Yours came out great too!

[Arcturus1020]

Weathered the pouches with a bit more oil and then sandpaper. I also took the edge of a metal ruler to the pouches for the 'slash' marks before going over them again with the oil.

 

I'm just waiting on the Barge cement and button to come in to finish these now.

 

 

I'm going for a similar look to these:

[NastyNoah]

Looks Like I will be redoing mine now.

[hairball]

Great work, love this tutorial :-D

make them a little dirtier at the bottom, lots dirt gathers there.

[Grave Tusken]

Bottom and the flaps, grubby Tusken fingers...

[Arcturus1020]

Oh, I'm not finished with the weathering on them yet! Once I get everything fully assembled then I'll go to finish on them.

 

*edit* Looks like the mail carrier delivered my goodies today—looks like I'll be wrapping this up today then!

[Arcturus1020]

I finished the pouches last night! I received the Barge cement and the other Sam Browne button I needed for the 7th pouch and put them all together. I found that you need to go slow when putting the two sides of leather together with the cement on them. Once it's together, that's it so you need to line up your holes as perfectly as you can otherwise you're punching new holes. LOL


After talking with Arturo (aka "Seeker") on his pouches for Fett and RMQ TK, he sometimes can't get the wood blocks out so he needs to put a hole in the bottom and push the wood out. To prevent me from having to do that, I didn't put the block all the way in and left enough room to pull it out with pliers. Good thing I did this and it worked!


The belt straps went on next, and you can get a good idea of what I was talking about earlier. Put the top of the strap on first, finished side to finished side. I added some Barge at the top only to strengthen it rather just relying on the rivets alone. The bottom rivets were indeed tough to get in, as Turo said they would be. I couldn't get my big paw in there and neither could my daughter, so I had to get some scrap wood, drill some shallow holes at the right distance apart and far enough down to the edge of the wood and drop the male rivets into the holes so the post stuck upward. Being careful to insert that into the pouch, I was able to get them all through the holes with much difficulty. I'm not gonna lie . . . there was a lot of trial and error and it took a long time.


After that, I took some watered down acrylic paint and dirtied them up a bit, though I need to do quite a bit more with some sepia paint as soon as I can find that. Otherwise they're finally finished.




I also added a crease to the sides on each pouch by just folding the leather in. It looks pretty good!


This was a fun project, but would I do it again? No, probably not. I hope at the very least that this helps and encourages others to make their own.

 

 

*edit*

Here's the back of the pouches:

 

And here they are all dirtied up with some acrylic paint:

 

. . . aaaaaaannd fin.

[outrbnkr]

Thank you very much for the great tutorial.  I am going to give this one a try.

 

 - Paul

[Khan]

It's so cool seeing so many people do these new custom jobs!

Maybe I'll get back to work on mine.

[bdgr]

The final pouches look great.  Fantastic job!  One day I hope to give it a try.

[jundland_outlaw]

good work!

[Tusken1217]

Thank you very much for the great tutorial. Looks awesome!

[Socker_Suenl]

Is a great work and tutorial, with your permission I will use it to make mines =)

 

[Arcturus1020]

Go ahead Ruben; it's why I put it up after all. Just make sure you cut your flaps after it has fully dried!

I bought the buckle (it came with a really old braided belt) for this from Goodwill (99¢). I dirtied the belt up with the same acrylic "mud" wash.

 

[Arcturus1020]

Here they are in action!