Forgiveness and Redemption: A Steampunk Holster Build from 2012
This is one of the first things I ever made. 2012. A belt, two holsters, the two guns that go in them and the matching bracelets, because at that point buying a prop and dressing it up was not an option I had considered.
The guns have names. Forgiveness and Redemption.
What the set is made of
A belt, two holsters hanging off it, one on each side, and the two modified Nerf revolvers that go in them.
And two matching leather bracelets, worn on the forearms. They carry nothing, they finish the outfit. There is nothing else to it.
Leather and brass
Dark oxblood-brown leather, shaped over the body of the holster, with brass plates set into the panels and held with brass rivets. Buckled straps for adjustment, so it does not slide when you walk.
There is no laser work anywhere on this piece, no engraving, no printed parts. In 2012 I had none of that. Everything here is cut, shaped, riveted and buckled by hand, and the brass was cut and drilled the same way.
The guns are Nerf underneath
Both are Nerf Maverick Rev-6 revolvers, stripped and rebuilt. Painted in brass and copper, grips wrapped in leather, an engraved nameplate on each side plate.
The point of a steampunk build is not to hide that it started as a toy. It is to make every visible surface belong to the same imaginary workshop. A revolver body reads perfectly well as brass once the plastic sheen is gone.
The sight line
Each gun has a row of LEDs running along the top of the barrel, standing in for a line of sight. One gun is blue, the other red, so you can tell Forgiveness from Redemption at a glance.
They run on two 1.5 volt cells hidden inside the grip, through resistors sized for the LEDs. Nothing clever, but it has to be right: LEDs wired straight to a battery are bright for a few minutes and then dead.
Putting the batteries in the grip was the constraint that shaped the rest. It is the only part of a Maverick with room for them, and it is the part your hand is wrapped around, so the leather wrap had to hide an access point without looking like a hatch.
Looking back at it
I have better tools now and a better idea of what I am doing. But the thing that makes this pair work is the same thing that would make it work today: the leather, the metal and the electronics were all designed at the same time, by the same person, for each other. Nothing was bought and adapted.
Want something like it?
There is no PDF pattern for these. If you want a prop and the leather that carries it built together, commissions are open.
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