rawcustom

Very nice!

Clip point hunter with bone handle and carved skirting leather sheath.

That is a point. I was actually more concerned with the vegtan holding too much memory, that it would resist being rolled/unrolled. But I do agree with everything carved and stamped, sometimes and some items, less is more.

Hello all, I've decided on a project for myself, to make a knife roll for my butcher knives. I have been looking at pictures and have some ideas on assembly, but I'm wondering what would be a good choice for leather. Most of my work deals with vegtan tooling leathers, but I'm thinking this project might be best suited to an oil tan or harness leather. I'll attach a couple pics from the internet on what my basic idea will be (my pattern will be a bit different but you get the idea), and appreciate any suggestions.

I have not had a problem with "dry" leather for tooling/carving, but I have experimented with using an oil before tooling. If there was a gain from the oil, it wasn't enough for me to make much notice of, compared to proper water casing. I was more curious if a very light coat of oil would aid in carving by providing some additional lubricant to the SK blade on the leather, and help prevent the small oil stains that can happen when handling. I don't think you would ruin a hide with sparing use of oil, as the leather already has oil's in it, but of course you wouldn't want to soak it in EVOO or similar. My experimentation was a very limited use of oil (tried both before and after casing), pretty much just a single wipe of an oil rag over the top to add an even, but small amount. It may be more of a benefit on the dry leather you have, it didn't cause any negative affects on my projects. It seemed to have the best affect prior to casing in that I think it allowed the oil to distribute better in the leather.

The handle is exhibition grade rosewood. Halitech, the eyelet is well within a welt. The sheath is squared on the outside, but the interior welt matches the profile of the blade.

Just like the title says. Scandinavian style knife, seemed like something celtic or viking would be fitting.

This one is easy for me. Headknife, skiver, trimknife, stitching awl, awl diamond blade, are all my own design and build since I'm a knifemaker. I'm a bit of an edge head so I use the best steel and the best heat treat for excellent edge retention and performance. For other vendors I really like my Osborne sewing palms, and there is a good chance I will invest in a decent SK in the near future as well. I have toyed with plans to make one for over a year, but it's hard to take the time off of other knife builds for my own and would be close to a wash on price compared to many commercial options.

Negative, I didn't do any forming. It's a folded pattern I drew up, like the picture.

Thanks Stu, I just free handed the designs for carving and was happy they turned out fairly even. TreeReaper, saddle stitched at 7SPI. I trimmed fairly close on the seem and then used my burnisher to roll the edge up for a little protection of the stitching. The back has a wide belt loop set with copper tube rivets.

Been awhile since I posted. Been making a few leather items in between the knives.

Thanks for the responses. That little wonder press isn't cheap, so I guess I'll have to weigh the cost against the annoyance of bending rivets. The biggest problem I think I have with a knife sheath is setting rivets towards the edge, and typically through 3 layers of 12 oz leather. I found eyelets respond best with a touch of oil and the tap-tap-tap-tap method. I guess I'll keep experimenting with the hammer strikes until I coin up for a press. I do set rivets on my anvil and that seems to help quite a lot. I'm also rolling around the idea of building a jig that would clamp the leather with a hole drilled out just big enough for the setter to fit through. Maybe if I compress the leather around the rivet it will have less wiggle room for bending. As the temps start to nudge above freezing I'll probably be able to have some more shop time to experiment. If it works out slick, I'll post back with my results. Thanks again, Reid

After having some fun with tubular rivets (copper and nickel), I'm interested in anybody's tricks or tips for a consistent mushroom and set. Right now I trim the rivet to maybe 1/16" - 3/32" past the off side and keep the rivet hole on the small side to add support. I've been experimenting with driving the blow with a large hammer in a single blow, to using repetitive whacks from a small hammer. Still debating if one of these methods is any better than the other. In short, is there anything else people are doing to keep these from bending when setting? I see rivet presses, are these the answer to a perfect rivet every time? I get through them, it just seems I always get one or two that bends in the shank that I have to cut and pull out and redo. Thanks

Welcome Andries! Like you I went from leatherwork to accomodate my knives to leatherwork outside of sheaths. I think you'll find it a nice change-up in your workflow. About the time I'm burning out on knife making I work in a few leather projects, and vice versa.

Very clean, very nice. I like the airbrush effect, well done.

Welcome! Those are some nice looking armgaurds, and I like the styling of having the loop over the thumb. I'm a bowhunting addict as time and my budget allows, and even tried my hand at the boyer trade a couple times. It sure is fun and challenging, but I think I'm too busy with my other hobbies to dedicate the needed time to become proficient. But always a chance down the line. Look forward to seeing your quiver designs, especially if you have some bow mounted versions.

You want every stitch on that seem through a welt. No matter how out of the way you have it figured, people are very talented at wedging knives into sheaths wrong, or drawing them out at abnormal angles and speed.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Although it would have been nice to sell more, I have to say it was a success since I walked away with more money than I started with. Learned a ton since this was my first time ever doing one of these, and I thought I would post a few observations to help out anyone else who tries one. Please feel free to add. 1. My biggest mistake was expectating other fellow humans to behave as I would or do. Personally, whenever I attend a car show, gun show, craft show, etc., I always take a good 'once over' on everything at an event before moving to the next step of purchasing anything, even food. I may not stop at each booth, but I make a point to walk by each and look over their setup, afterall that is why I am attending. Also I would never buy from a booth before my entire walkthrough because I want to be sure I'm spending my money in the best way possible. I would hate to find a similar item for cheaper, or an item I desired more only after having dropped my spending money on the first thing I saw. Now it is a biased observation, but both of my behaviors seem extremely logical to me (beacuse they're mine), and led me to assume that the vast majority of other humans would operate in a similar fashion. Lesson Learned: Most people aren't like me. I now understand why used car lots have big inflatable signs, and why so many advertisements sparkle, move, and make noise. I like people, but it seems many are operating on more of a fish brain mentality, and are attracted to movement, and shiny objects. Also there seems to be no problem with buying the first item they see. My small booth size, combined with lack of signage was likely more damaging than I was expecting. 2. Like the saying goes "location, location, location". Now I'm not sure I could've changed this if I had tried since I had a spot assigned to me, but what a difference it can make. Since my first two assumptions listed above were failing miserably, I was becoming more and more intrigued with watching scores of people make their rounds on the perimeter booths, and never be seen again. I'm not sure if this is programming from grocery stores that stock essentials on the perimeter, or some other innate behavior, but it seemed very prevalent at this show. Lesson Learned: If you can get a booth towards the entrance or the perimeter (close to the entrance), you're likely to have more attendance. 3. Signage is important but so is displaying your items so that people can see them as they walk past. Now I didn't have a table, but my items were laid down on a shelving type set-up, very unique set-up but required you to visit my booth to see my items. Better signage could've helped with bringing people over to inspect, but so would of having items displayed upright to where you could have a full view by simply walking by. Many people who did walk by, once again surprised me by not really looking at the booths. I made an effort to watch them in front of other booths as well so it was not strictly my own, and still many would walk right down the middle of a row talking to each other with maybe an occasional glance, and that's it. Lesson Learned: Some potential customers are only going to give you part of a second to grab their attention. If you expect your goods to do this part of the job for you, you better have them highly and fully visible. Lesson Confirmed: After the event, a photgrapher from the event posted 117 photos to the event's facebook page. Only 1 of the 117 photos was of my booth, and it was of a leather fishing journal I had made. The first and only comment for ~24hrs on this posting was on my leather journal saying "Wow, I must've missed this, who's booth was that?". 4. Interact with people and be happy to only give out business cards. In all reality I did this show to advertise for my leatherwork. My knifemaking has a dedicated base and although it is great to expand, it keeps me plenty busy as is. So really, as far as advertising goes, simply talking to people about my leather, and handing out business cards is about all I should expect, especially at my first show. I was fortunate and was able to make a few sales, but I also was able to talk with many people and that could pay off somewhere down the line. Lesson Learned: Stay positive and be thankful for whatever you can. I found that standing in front of my small booth, greeting people was way more productive for my sales, cards, and just getting people to come over and take a look. The booths around me were "seasoned" artists and they sat behind tables and stands, one working on crossword puzzles as people filtered by. I'm sure they thought I was a green horn for my actions, and one may have been getting a little irritated that I was drawing people from his booth to mine, but honestly I didn't care. I was there to sell myself as well as my goods, and I've always hated those types when I am the customer. I can see where you could get discouraged since most people aren't ever going to buy, but simply greeting people to me sounds better than sitting on my ass doing a crossword puzzle. Biggest Lesson Overall: People aren't like me (which is good because it keeps down the competition). Thanks for all the prior tips and suggestions and hope this can help others avoid some of my pitfalls.

Thanks Bruce and Robert, I really enjoyed tooling it, and found alot of areas to improve on for this style of carving on my next attempt. Was thinking maybe something like a side profile of a bison and ribcage left on the range. And Texback, it only costs money...not like you can take it with ya.

Thanks Rohn. It was a fun project since it was out of the routine for me.

Working on my tooling some.

I have to pass along one of my favorite similar sayings about the definition of a knife maker, 'someone with a well employed spouse'. But yeah I get your point that simply throwing leather together is quite different than adding time to tooling, and finish work. Not sure how you get paid for it without simply working and gaining a name. There is a couple bigger "handmade" knife makers near where I live, and they are producing garbage compared to the majority of most of us others around here, yet somehow people know their name and don't notice the crude craftsmanship, the lack of detail work or the overpriced nature in comparison. Only way I know for name recognition is time and money in advertising.

Good thread, like you I figured this info is buried in the archives and I've been hesitant to start digging. I have experimented with many adhesives in many different applications. IMO the absolute strongest bond you will get in leather is a polyurethane glue like gorilla glue. However polyurethane glues are terrible messy with all the foam and expansion and require a lot of clamping pressure to work right (force the foam expansion into the material, not force the joint apart). Most times you will be left with noticeable clamping marks, and it will make items much more rigid. Epoxy works great when the leather is clean and dry, but takes time to cure, can be a mess, can soak in and discolor, needs less clamping than poly, and is not very flexible. Cyanoacetate (superglue) great for tacking clean leathers, soaks in and discolors easily. Hard to work with because it runs everywhere if you use it in volume and dries very hard. I would not want to sew through it. Contact cement, I have used Barges blue (without toluene) Petronio master, Wood DAP, and E6000. Barges blue seems to be very messy with stringy'ness in the application. Bond seemed adequate. Petronio Master has been my favorite, but thickens by the bottom of the can. I'll have to try to thin with acetone like suggested above. Wood Dap has been adequate and the easiest to find for me. It seems to be the thinnest of the CC I have used, but seems to work fine. E6000 I don't like this one very much. It dries way too fast and I can't seem to find the happy medium of tacky for a good bond but not too set that the glue is dried. When I apply CC and the glue seems to absorb in I rarely add more. I don't think adding extra gunk to sit between the layers is going to do much. I've also found that letting them sit to long is when I can pull the cured glue out from the seams. After pressing the pieces together I always hammer on the joints as I read that somewhere and why not beat on things when you have the chance?

Exceptional work, I really like it!

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