Craig44

I don't do linings as I don't particularly care for them. Pig skin would be my choice but it tends to wear out before the rest of the holster. I completely dye, burnish and finish my flesh sides as seen here. They're almost as smooth as the hair side.

Beautiful work, very well done!

If you don't have a smaller awl, you can always penetrate the plug with "just the tip" of your regular awl. Rather than pushing it all the way through.

My preferences mimic yours. Here's how I do a sewn toe plug, learning from Ghormley. I also set my stitch groove about 3/16" from the edge (on the holster). I pre-punch the holes in the toe at the same 7 stitches per inch spacing, before gluing/stitching the mainseam but I do it at a 45° angle. I make my plugs out of doubled 8-9oz with the flesh sides glued together. I make them a rough shape and then final shape them on the belt sander. Then cut my stitch groove closer to the edge than the rest of my work. I then glue the plug into the toe. I then carefully punch my holes with a smaller awl because the holes will be closer together than the outside. I still stitch with the same thread but use a smaller needle. I sometimes even work it out so that I stitch the mainseam and the toe plug with one continuous thread. I come around the toe and then backstitch four stitches up the mainseam.

Thanks! It's a double whip stitch. Rather than the double needle method of saddle stitching, you start at one end with one needle and a looooooong section of thread. Rather than looping your stitch from hole to hole on the same side, you loop over the edge of the seam from front to back. When you get to the end, you just stitch back in the opposite direction to form the cross. You may see in the pics where I ran out of thread.....twice. Did a poor job of estimating thread length, takes at least twice as much as saddle stitching. Done on something soft like deerskin or wet rawhide, it kinda puckers the edges up tight for an interesting look.

Thanks! It is tedious work. Now I know why Chuck charged so much for beadwork. The beadwork was completed on the deerskin cuff first, using a running or applique stitch. The cuff was glued and stitched to the body of the sheath later in several stages, with the lower dangles attached as I stitched along the bottom of the cuff. It's a complicated build process.

From the very beginning, this was the kind of work I wanted to learn how to do. So this, my first beaded knife sheath, is about three years in the making. I've drawn up patterns three times, started two other beaded panels and put it off several times. Until now. I drew up the pattern, cut it out, cleaned it up and started the beadwork months ago and just worked on it as I found time. Couple weeks ago I decided to get serious and finish it. While Chuck Burrows' videos helped me immensely with making holsters and knife sheaths, a lot of this I had to figure out on my own. There are books and videos on beadwork and knife sheaths but nobody shows you how to actually put a beaded knife sheath together. I've put more time into this sheath than full belt and holster rigs. After many hours of toil, it is finally finished. The body of the sheath is 8-9oz vegetable tanned cowhide from the most flea-bitten, scar covered hide I've ever seen, carved in a crosshatch/quilted pattern. The metal spots are antique brass. The cuff is deerskin. The stitching was all done with artificial sinew. The smaller pound beads are modern Czech made. The larger beads are a mixture of modern trade beads, crow beads and antique red padre beads. The tin cones were antiqued with muriatic acid and peroxide. The bone hair pipes were also antiqued. The fringe and tin cones are decorated with black horse hair. No less than four colors of both water and alcohol based dyes were used on the various components. All in all, I think it turned out pretty good. Beadwork detail. Fringe detail. Stitching detail. The knife in question is a 5" clip point from ML Knives.

Sorry for the late response. I don't get here much and only found it by accident. If it's purple, it's too much of the dark mahogany. What you'd need to do is add more of the range tan and experiment on scrap until you get the color you want. Range tan is a very light color so there's no need to add water. You might end up with as much as 70-80% to get the desired result. I never measured and had to make adjustments every time I changed hides. I've since switched to the professional waterstain and alcohol/oil dyes from Fiebings.

Not for long. Our illustrious president has signed an executive order banning the domestic ivory trade. Unless something is done to stop it, it will become effective in June.

I thought it was funny but you're the only one that would've gotten it.

I'm actually the customer and that was a tongue-in-cheek jab at Rob. Because it actually was for an ivory gripped pistol. Sorry about that, bad joke I reckon.

What kind of heartless idiot wears elephant hide these days? Probably has ivory grips on whatever death machine that he carries in it too!

Good lookin' rig!

Waxed nylon from Tandy. If it has too much wax on it, you can take it off by running it over your thumbnail just as easily as you can wax your own, which will probably never get as deep as the pre-waxed thread. I tried linen and didn't care for it.

That is some beautiful work!