[newfrontier45]

Cheap holsters (not "cheap leather"), as in Hunter brand holsters. Notice the straps are riveted to the back of the holster instead of being integral or sewn. Rivets have their places, but are often used as a manufacturing shortcut. A hobbyist should not need to resort to shortcuts. Hunter Brand = cheap holsters.

You said rivets are a sign of cheap leather (products, not materials ). I agree that cheap leather often has rivets but rivets do not always indicate cheap leather. I agree that rivets are used as a manufacturing shortcut by the lesser manufacturers but rivets do not indicate this all by themselves. As I stated, copper rivets are often used to reinforce stress points or to hold small straps in place. Freedom Arms holsters have a riveted retention strap but this is so the strap can swivel down out of the way when not in use. This is top grade leather.

Glue...one of the problems with it, is if it is used before dying, the dye will not take uniformly. The best thing that can be said for glue, is that it can be used to hold the leather pieces together for sewing. However, the more experience one has with leather working, the less one needs glue.

As I, and rayban, have said, glue makes for a stronger mainseam and cleaner looking edge. There's no way around that. This is 100% positive with no negatives. An unglued mainseam will eventually separate and if you're okay with how that looks, then don't glue them. I want mine to look like a single piece of leather and well done, glued and slicked edge looks like one piece of leather. You make the comment about experience and glue, yet every professional leathermaker I know of uses glue. If you glue your mainseam, then stitch it, then sand it down so that the edge is even, dyeing is a non-issue. If done right, there should be no glue on the surface to affect the dyeing process.

The purpose of lacing is purely decorative. If one wants a holster to attract attention, be on display, be gaudy as a 40's-'50's cinema cowboy (or as Patten would say: a New Orleans pimp), then by all means use lacing to attract attention to your holster. However, you will not see lacing for any serious application.

This is purely matter of taste. A lot of top shelf, old school leather work was done with a laced edge and to me, it is usually very tastefully done and beautiful. The old man has a wonderful floral carved H.H. Heiser holster for his High Standard with a rawhide whip-laced edge.

Not unlike this Heiser on www.vintagegunleather.com:
http://www.vintagegunleather.com/sho...roducts_id=760

Unless you are as the Gay Lt. Dangle on "Reno 911"...he would die for a two-gun Buscadero, black floral-carved holsters with contrasting White lacing and matching cowboy boots.

That was a rude and ignorant comment. I think your assessment was wrong, you're not too old or too experienced to learn something from me. Now if you like your leather plain and don't care for the laced edging, that is fine but to categorize it as "gay" or "pimp-like" is uncalled-for.