River Cities Business Journal: Business Profile

River Cities Business Journal

KINGMAN - Retirement was a little too boring for Tom Dyer so he began making custom hand-tooled holsters for a few friends.

That was more than a decade ago and since then he and his custom-made holsters have been the subject of at least a half-dozen articles in national magazines - but he's still relatively unknown locally.

The 73-year-old Dyer makes his holsters one at a time to the customer's specifications. He is one of the few true custom makers left in the country.

“I don't have any cookie cutters. I just make one at a time. I finish it before I start anything else,” Dyer said. “There are probably only a handful of true custom makers left.

“I'm so custom, at one time I made a blue suede holster - to go with blue suede shoes, of course.”

Dyer, originally from Cygnet, Ohio, began making leather goods when he was a boy.

“I finally got old enough to join the Boy Scouts, and like many other scouts, I got hooked on making all that Indian stuff. I started going after merit badges, so that is how it all started,” Dyer said. “I never did quit making things out of leather after that; I guess it was a hobby I worked at when I wasn't doing some other job.”

Before he retired from a second career as a truck driver he made custom knife sheaths for fellow drivers.

After he retired and moved to his home a dozen miles north of Kingman he took a small section and dedicated it to being a workshop.

“I started making holsters for a hobby about 14 years ago,” Dyer said. “I don't work every day. These days, I don't work eight hours a day. I get tired. I quit for a while. I've got arthritis and my hands get sore. “And, there's days when I don't have any orders.

“All this does is make me pin money. Like and old lady sewing - she makes pin money.”

He may only make “pin money,” but he makes among the finest holsters in the world and uses only the finest materials.

“I make them basically the same way they did 100 years ago,” Dyer said. “I use Barbour's No. 6 thread. They've been in business since 1784. It's pure flax sinew. Then you have to rub it with bee's wax.

“I have this book. All the holsters in this book were made 100 years ago with this thread. I make mine the same way.”

He also uses only premium leather.

“Hermann Oak, it's just a tighter, denser leather. That improves wear,” Dyer said. “I use the No. 1 center cut of the back. The belly is worthless. They make garment leather out of it. It's more pliable. The back is pretty tough stuff.

“Just the leather costs more than an ‘Uncle Mike's' sells the whole holster for.”

Although most of the holsters he makes are what are referred to as concealment holsters, he can make any kind of holster.

Concealment holsters became popular after states began to legalize concealed carry for private citizens about 15 years ago. Now 43 states have some version of concealed carry for civilians.

Most of his orders come from out-of-state.

“I can't remember the last time I made anything for anybody in town,” Dyer said. “I get a lot of orders from New York and Pennsylvania.”

Rob Jones, from the magazine ‘Combat Handguns,' reviewed one of Dyer's holsters and was impressed, but had a couple questions.

“He said ‘Is this the best you can do?' I said no,” Dyer said. “He said ‘When are you going to do the best you can do?'

“I told him that will be my last holster. The one I make the day before I die.

“You learn all the time. You never stop learning. Every time I make a holster I think ‘Gee, I should have done this or that.' I learn more with every holster.”

For more information about Tom Dyer's custom holsters visit his Web site at www.saguarogunleather.com.