Need Help With Shooting Accessories

[Grenadier1758]

A long time ago when the internet was still buried within a few colleges and small computer user groups, you couldn't find tutorials I was quite limited for sources for information. In fact I still find a good book with illustrations to be more helpful than text descriptions. Now we can easily Google or Bing a search for hand stitching leather and get a nice variety of instructions, some with video. We just need to know what to ask.

After many years I still like to look through my "Art of Hand Stitching" book. I'm not overly fond of Tandy Craft's modern tanning methods for leather. The book was good. Their book on black powder projects was a good tutorial those many years ago when I needed a good shooting pouch. Their instructions are for a bit larger than one may need. I think it made a pretty good pouch.

And after over 35 years of use none of the stitching has loosened.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Mighty fine bag. :hatsoff: The color of the horn is interesting. Looks like jade.

 

[Rifleman1776]

original sporting paintings tonight for inspiration

I have become sorta 'anti-paintings' for inspiration. Especially when the artists (ever hear of artistic license?) have horses taller than tipis. Men shorter than dogs, etc.
I prefer museums. Even that sometimes doesn't satisfy all the self made expeerts. My wife once made herself a dress that was as perfect a replica of one I extensively photographed at a museum. The first person who looked at it said, "they didn't make them like that".

 

[jbwilliams3]

original sporting paintings tonight for inspiration

I have become sorta 'anti-paintings' for inspiration. Especially when the artists (ever hear of artistic license?) have horses taller than tipis. Men shorter than dogs, etc.
I prefer museums. Even that sometimes doesn't satisfy all the self made expeerts. My wife once made herself a dress that was as perfect a replica of one I extensively photographed at a museum. The first person who looked at it said, "they didn't make them like that".

???? We're plainly talking about different paintings. There are a myriad of paintings made in the 18th century where the subjects are literally painted right in front of the painter... accoutrements and all (Google Image search "18th century hunting images"). Museums are great, but unfortunately we don't find any verifiable shot pouches from the 18th century. Horns, yes. At least the fancy ones. For bags, though, we are left to a little bit of conjecture and the fantastically realistic paintings that we have access to for starters.

 

[Zonie]

Artists are not to be trusted to present the truth in their creations.

An excellent example is in the latest issue of MUZZLELOADER (May/June 2017 issue) on page 56.

This engraving shows an Indian with a tomahawk in his left hand and a scalp dangling from his right.

There is no way the Indians face could even remotily look like any Indian, of any tribe that lived in North America.
If anything, it looks like a very young, English child.

If I had to give some credit to the artist I would guess he made a rough sketch of the scene and took it back to civilazation where someone who had never seen a NA Indians face made the engraving.

The point I'm making is, very often artists sketches are not accurate when they are turned into finalized paintings or engravings later.

That can lead to Aunt Maud saying something like,
"Why! That painting looks just like you did when you were a baby."

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Tandy was a great source of vegetable tanned blacksmith sides. When they had a sale I would buy a few sides and store them. I don't know of any tandy stores still open. All the ones I patronized are now closed. Thick hides I got from a tannery near Allentown PA, but that closed down decades ago too. I used Madison Grants book on hunting pouches for designs. But the one I made and sold the most was traced from the Tandy hunting pouch, which I put my own twist on. Pockets inside. Sheath on the strap for a patch knife. Also a sheath on the strap for the ball starter.

I cut and sold buttons for gear, but I did not just cross cut a piece of antler. I used a plug cutter to cut through cow horn and a diamond grit hole saw to cut through the flat part of antler. The buttons were sanded and sometimes buffed and polished. Antler can look like fine aged Ivory or as rustic as you want. IMO, cross cut antler leaving the weaker pith for the part for the thread holes is a modern Buckskinner shortcut. It takes only a little bit more effort to cut a proper button. Horn and Antler buttons I made have survived hundreds of cycles through washers and dryers without cracking or falling apart.

Right now I am a little miffed. There was an auction scheduled of an elk farm today and there were piles of sheds listed for auction. When I went to inspection yesterday, there were at least 200 elk antler sides up for auction and several sets of White tail and even what looked like a young impala skull with horns. Today was the second time the auction was cancelled because of weather. I was looking forward to getting some antler to work with.