Hey all, Spent some time today making a sheath for the new skinning knife I finished yesterday. It is only my second one ever so I am well aware it is far from perfect, but I am really quite pleased with how it turned out. The blade fits in nice and secure and the snap strap holds it tight. Any feedback from you more experience leather guys would be appreciated!
Looks good ! I hope to be tackling the sheath thing soon .... I have some basic tools but no leather yet
Looks good Bob. I am certainly not a leather guy, but here are some tips I have picked up along the way. Glue with contact adhesive and true the edges with the belt sander, say 150 grit. I don't know if you have a groover, but those things make a nice uniform trench for the stitching to sit in. Once the edge is square, the guide on the groover keeps the groves the same distance from the edge on both the front and the back of the sheath. The edge has to be square. Then I use a regular table fork in the groove to mark the holes. Once marked the drill press with a 1/16" bit keeps the holes nice and square to the leather. Then the dye. Once the dye is dry I start stitching. I used waxed braided cord (fake sinew) from Tandy. All the best! Dan
anything that you can use for even stich spacing goes a long way to making work look real good. Always feed first thread through hole from the same side, seems weird but it makes a small difference. (imaginary or otherwise) It is how I rock it Always use a welt to protect the threads. and if you coat the edges with Edge-Kote or Gum Tragacanth and burnish with wood, plastic or bone it creates a beautiful finish. Still all in all a good second sheath in any book. time to start very basic tooling or shading, minimal tools needed and you can get pretty fancy with carving and a simple stamp for flattening. look up "repousse leather" or carving leather
Hey guys! The issue with the stitches came largely from using too big of a bit so the thread didn't fit in super tight. I definitely used a welt to protect the stitches. I will say I took this pic before I treated the leather with mink oil and it really surprised me how much better everything looked after. I took it to work today and left it there but will try and grab another pic tomorrow. All great info for improvement! The next will be better...
oversized holes (hate that) tossed one out near Christmas all because I forgot to change up the bit. hours of tooling went out the window
