There’s one decent leather shop here in Perth, pretty much there will be a shop/shops in most cities, I know most east coast shops, not to sure about NT and act.
You’d actually be surprised what you can make do with stuff around the house
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There’s a mob in Melbourne called Lefflers, used to buy a lot of gear through them. There’s a bunch of cheap Chinese crap on evilbay. You’ll get away with it for most hobby work. Like always, get what you pay for. A quality round knife will last you a lifetime if you look after it. Mine’s an old English made one, still a great knife after 40 years.
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I have a mate in South Africa that makes these ammo patches …Can do any calibre you want but mainly does african dangerous game calibres
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Yes I think i could make a lot of the punches, and rivet tools
Everywhere mate. Some ebay, some japan and some from Aliexpress. And France. And Russia.
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You could start off with a basic leathercraft kit from eBay or AliExpress for well under $100
You can make a very high quality belt with just the ability to cut, sew and glue.
An ammo pouch might require you to wet form on top of that.
A stock cover like the one above, the croc sling as well would require you to be able to set rivets/eyelets/studs/buttons as well as the previous techniques.
The saddle that DanMac made adds tooling, burnishing, lacing, skiving, coloring/sealing/treating and probably a few other techniques.
Main things you need are to be able to sew:
something to make holes like a drill OR a set ‘pricking irons’
the right sewing needles
the right thread
Contact adhesive like vinyl flooring glue.
And the right leather to start with is ‘Veg’ or ‘Veg tanned’ or ‘Vegetable Tanned’. Its basically the most natural of the tanned leathers. No oils or solvents are added in this process to change the properties of the leather, but tannins extraced from bark (hence the name ‘tanning’ ) are used to stop the skin from rotting as opposed to just drying it which gives you the product called ‘rawhide’.
Veg tan can be wet formed whereas nearly all the others cant. It also takes dye and loves to be nourished with neatsfoot oil afterwards.
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Veg tan leather comes in weights which tell you its average thickness.
The average 30mm leather mens belt is about 5/6oz
A decent starting points for a thicker stronger Jeans style belt at 44mm would be to use 10/11oz
This guy is really good to watch, in this video he specifically uses an AliExpress/eBay type kit to make a wallet. Making a DIY WALLET with a $100 TOOL BUDGET! - YouTube
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I do like the look of Els leather, but I don’t know anything about their quality. They sure like nice though, some cool gear they have on that site.
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Those are aimed at guys who own Rigbys.
Add it to the list of “shit Ill never own”. Still looks good though, but the quality is a bit iffy for me.
I like my leather rugged. For the ultumate in rugged I look at this dude:
https://www.wolfwindleatherworks.com/products.aspx?id_idioma=1&id=19
He’s got some cool stuff, a kind of hybrid of kydex and leather. Black chicago screws give me a bit of a hard on. Nice. A quality dress belt from wolfwind will set you back 59 Euros…whatever that is in ozzy shekels.
https://www.wolfwindleatherworks.com/products.aspx?id_idioma=1&id=19
That seems more value for money and good quality by the looks of it.