Alamo Fast Draw Episode 31 Part 4

30 September, 2008 (23:23) | Fast Draw Talk Show

Alamo Fast Draw: Dennis Robinson my guest one of these days, if I had my way.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Pardon?

Alamo Fast Draw: He's going to be one of my guests on the show some day if I have my way.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: You know, and he should be he's a neat guy. He's full of knowledge and he loves fast draw and always has and I actually cut my first holster (fast draw)out on his floor in the kitchen. My problem was I didn't know the knife was going to go not only through the leather but the linoleum too, so his wife, Karen, was not overly happy with me.

Alamo Fast Draw: Well, I had heard that story, and if it didn't get in there, I was going to get it in.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Oh, it was very true, it was just priceless. I thought she was going to kill me, but anyway, we got through that and I managed to live and I built that first fast draw holster and then I went and I critiqued it again within probably a month to two months. I critiqued it and I built another one but I changed things again and that's when I started understanding patterns and working with patterns and the second holster that I built – incidentally the second one that I built is on my shop on the wall here.

Blackbird: Does it contain any linoleum?

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Pardon?

Blackbird: Does it contain any linoleum?

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: No, that was the first one. [laughs] I don't know what happened to that first one. I'd sure love to have it though. Anyway, the second one that I built, I went down to a shoot in Kenmore, Washington and I set my first world record ever, it was a sanction fast draw contest, records were available at that time and it was a vice-chairman, they had records available and vice-chairman contests in those days and I set a world record. Well, I set the world record and somebody that I had never met before came up to me and he says, hey! Where did you get the rig, and I said, I built it, and he said, can you build me one? And I said, sure! So there it started. And that was, oh god! That was in probably the early-to-mid seventies so

Blackbird: You really sound like a person who likes things just-so you have a picture in your mind of something special and you just can't wait to make it happen.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Oh yeah, that's me, and the funny thing is I'll have people like phone me up or ask me about something and they have a requirement or whatever, because we do a lot of different things in our shop and sometimes I'll say look! Let me call you back, and it'll take me a month. And I'll call them back and I got it it’s in my head now. And sometimes they think, I thought you forgot about me and I go, no. I just have to figure out what I got to do. And sometimes you can't just jump on it you got to tink (sic) about it and sometimes when you're thinking about it if you think too hard you can't figure it out and so I keep it on the back burners until all of a sudden I start seeing a picture. Once I see the picture in my mind, then I can do it, and then I just got to start

Blackbird: Sometimes you sleep on it a little bit.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah, oh yeah. I haven't done it for years, but I used to sleep with a pen and paper by my bed. I haven't done it for years, now, but I used to sleep with it, because I would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea because I was sort of the up-and-coming holster builder and I was trying to – I don't want to call it create a name for myself because it really didn't have anything to do with that – but I wanted to have a product line that people would remember and I didn't want to just be another holster builder. I wanted to do my own thing, and that's why I've always done that, and I still am to this day and anything and everything you ever see on the my site is that way, and I'm hands-on. I'm constantly hands-on. I have.

Gunfighter Jim Martin: Well, you don't get to go out and shoot as often as you used to.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: No.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: No kidding! I'm sitting here as I'm speaking to everybody and I'm looking about a hundred feet away from me, we have a double French doors in our office here and I'm looking through and a hundred feet away from me there's a big black opening if if I turn the light on. I have a 16-32 indoor climate controlled shooting range in my shop that I hardly get to walk into.

Gunfighter Jim Marttin: That's pretty funny.

Blackbird: You mentioned Alfonso earlier?

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah.

Blackbird: When Al first went into business, just a little bit of history here, he had been with Ojala for years, as had Andy before that too, and they moved over on to Sunset Strip. You remember the old show 77 Sunset Strip?

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah.

Blackbird: That was an actual restaurant, that wasn't a site.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Oh, isn't that something.

Blackbird: The shop was right down from that, and then Alfonso got a backer, I can't remember his last name now, but his first name was Dick, and Alfonso moved and left Ojala and went back into the old Ojala shop back across from Andy's shop there on Lankershim. The very first double carved rig he ever made he made for me.

Bob Mernickle: Oh wow!

Blackbird: And you mentioned carving down in the pockets. He did.

Bob Mernickle: Yeah.

Blackbird: And then he went on to put my initials or my name on it, and I said, no, I don't like that. Alfonso says, look! Well, of course his English was very broken, and he says, I'm building the holster, I want to build it my way. I says OK, fine, we'll build a whole holster your way. I don't want my name on it. And so finally we agree that he would carve my initials above the holster in the belt there and blend it in with the carving so it didn't stand out. I shot out of that rig, I can't remember how many years, but I donated that rig to Bob Arganbright.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Oh cool.

Blackbird: His museum and it’s stamped Al & Dick's Holster Shop before it became Alfonso's of Hollywood.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Oh, isn't that cool.

Blackbird: That's the very first one he ever made and the thing I never really understood thoroughly is he says don't let Andy see this rig. And I said, well why? He says, well I don't Andy to know that I do all this carving and all this kind of work, I never understood that. So I never said a word to Andy about it, but Bob Arganbright owns that rig today, he's got it there in his museum.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah, he has a number of – Bob Arganbright and I go way back and he's a really nice man, and he's got a number of holsters of my really early stuff in his shop as well as a lot of new stuff that we're doing, and I've been fortunate that he's somewhat of a fan of our product line and in specifics, anything to do with western right, and so as a matter of fact I just sent him here, there's an article coming out on it, and it’s not even out yet, but I just created a sort of our version of the roughed out spaghetti western, whose holster that Clint Eastwood wore in a high-ride though that sets the gun and the grip frame above the beltline, and but it’s all roughed out and with the stitching and the gunfighter stitching on it and stuff like that but it’s our rendition of it, but at the same time capable of shooting extreme contests and cowboy fast draw which was really important that I got that balance in there, and he just took possession of it and he said he fell in love with it so we'll see how much on the article [laughs]

Blackbird: You're aware that the gunfighter stitching was originally designed by Andy?

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Was it really? I see, I didn't know that.

Blackbird: That was one of his trademarks there, he's the one that came up with that design of stitching across the rear of the belt and around to the holster and everything.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah, you know, I've seen it on his. I've also seen it on John Bjanke early stuff before he sold the company and I don't take anything away from anybody, and here I am critiquing something I shouldn't be, but anyway, I found that the gunfighter stitch was too wide. I wanted a balance between space between the border stitching and the gunfighter stitch so that the space was sort of equal all the way through so I created something that would create that stitch throughout, and to me it looks balanced. Some, and I don't want to throw names out there, but some of them made the stitch too wide. They ran it to the edge of the belt and back down again.

Blackbird: Yeah, I know what you mean.

Gunfighter Bob Mernickle: Yeah, and then some went too skinny and they just had these sort of zigzag lines going through the center of the belt almost, and so I found that, that wasn't my way either, but and I'm not taking away from anything anybody ever does, I would never do that. But it’s just kind of neat to see all these different types of holsters and where they've evolved too.

If any of you Gunfighters would like to hear more of this interview you can listen to episode 31on the audio player(red) on the right side of this page. If you would like to join in the show live or listen live to the Alamo Fast Draw show or call 1-724-444-7444 show#16056. Whether you are a gunfighter or not its a fun show.

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