Double border lines

[Pappy Hayes]

How did the old leather crafters cut the double line borders straight? Does it just take more practice and a steady hand or is there a secret to it?

[Skeeter Lewis]

If you visit the last page of 'Holster Styles and Variations' (see a few threads below) you'll find this subject under discussion.

You can either rely on your skills to cut two individual lines or use a double line 'beader' tool of some sort. Cliff has devised such a tool which he has posted.

[Slowhand Bob]

An easy way is with the use of your adjustable stitching edge groover and this give you total control over line spacing (think Chuck Burrows shows this in his excellent video).  If you want something that allows a more tooled appearance then start with a swivel knife in one of the edge spacing adapters, after which you can actually model the cut/cuts.     

[Tallbald]

A trick I learned early on is to take a pencil compass (mine is a General brand, sold at a lot of hardware stores) with the screw and nut type adjustment mechanism. I raise the pencil up above the pointer end maybe 1/8 inch and trace a stitch line  by running the compass with the point hanging over the edge as a constant guide along the seam. Open the compass a little to make a line farther away from the edge, but parallel to the first line. This gives me a second stitch line to follow. Be sure to keep the compass 90 degrees to the edge when tracing or the line-to-edge distance will vary. Don

[Slowhand Bob]

"How did the old leather crafters cut the double line borders straight? Does it just take more practice and a steady hand or is there a secret to it?"

Practice and observation!  Whichever method you select, practice on some scrap and study the results to figure a solution that works fer you.  For many of us, we are not near willing teachers so have to learn through trial and error with some verbal input here and there on the net.  Next besr are the great visual aids such as done by Chuck at Wild Rose, mentioned in above post.  I have seen some really beautiful double and triple borders displayed right here that were credited to beaders and or edge spacers BUT I have never done well with either tool, in particular when working on irregular borders.  I also have not seen the use of either style of tool being shown on any video.  Perhaps one of our really artistic pards will do a YouTube of this particular skill for us one day.

[Cliff Fendley]

Might be interesting but I'm not sure what a video would show. The beader blades with a swivel knife guide or the tool like I made for the stitch groover is used just like a stitch groover. Just like Chuck shows in his video.

The difference is you cannot cut the two small lines so close with the method Chuck shows with a stitch groove. I've tried and you don't get the same look. The old F.A. Meanea and some other makers original holsters and gear had a very small tight set of lines more like you get with a beader blade. Only thing is many times the lines dont appear to have been cut but are just a nice narrow impression. I've been told by many that they were originally done with a roller but I've not been able to get a deep enough impression with a roller.

I have a set of F.A. Meanea saddle bags that have four lines with an Osborn roll border outlining them. The two outside lines appear to be cut with the inside two look like they were impressed in the leather.

Another thing to note is when I look very close they do have some overlap in the corners and you can find imperfections in the work. The roll border is almost impossible to see now except on the areas that have been protected. I see that on holsters as well. Most holsters and gear we are able to observe is no where in the condition we see in books like Packing Iron. We strive to perfect it today way more than they did. They were building equipment to use and didn't have the time to spend three days making a set of saddle bags.

Much of the 19th century leathermakers work was no doubt top notch but I don't think even the best ones normally fussed over a slight boo boo in a working mans gear. Just the fact they were good crafters and more so the fact they were doing it repetitiously made their work what it was.

What I would give to be able to look back to 1885 and observe the work as it was being done in the Meanea shop.

[ChuckBurrows]

The old F.A. Meanea and some other makers original holsters and gear had a very small tight set of lines more like you get with a beader blade. Only thing is many times the lines dont appear to have been cut but are just a nice narrow impression. I've been told by many that they were originally done with a roller but I've not been able to get a deep enough impression with a roller.

That's because the roller is part of hand crank machine that gives the pressure needed - I used to have a Landis that did them and it was neat. Might check with some of the old tool guys on EBay or with Proleptic.

[Cliff Fendley]

I've looked at a few of those Chuck. It appears the problem is finding the old wheels to fit them. I don't see any new wheels available for embossing machines that look like the older ones that were used.

A double line would be an easy one to make but some of the border rolls used would be a trick to make.

[Pappy Hayes]

I saw the tool in Holster variations. I am not that crafty to be able to make something like that.