hawgrider

Good looking design. Nice work!

Keep in mind the leather is not cracking. Only the finish is giving the appearance of cracking. I still believe its a finish issue. Either from the dye or the leather balm. I've used the same dye with other projects but with Resolene for the top coat and had no issues what so ever. This is the first time I've used leather balm with atom wax and then this issue shows up... Draw your own conclusions. Looks like I need some more experimentation with this leather balm.

Gotta be the dye then. So I will fetch me some Fiebings oil dye for future use then. Thanks Dwight appreciate the critique and advise.

The leather was a discount piece of double shoulder veg tan from Tandy. I suppose it may be the the piece of leather. It was not very pretty it had lots of bug bites in it.

Hard nose all you want. As I said to you on another forum the rivets were used to stay close to the original sheath which is what I wanted. And every sheath I did has a welt on the edge side of the knife some thicker than others. The original bowie sheath did not have any welt . The sheath I made for the bowie does have a welt only on the edge side. I was very happy with how the bowie sheath turned out. Its look and function is exactly what "I wanted" to each his own you don't have to like it I made it for me. Thanks for your critique. Now why did the stain and leather balm on the gun belt show wrinkles and a cracking look when the belt is flexed? Is the the pro dye or is it the leather balm with atom wax? Would a oil stain have been better for this project?

Have been making a gun belt rig with this sorta crappy 5 oz piece of double shoulder I picked up for cheap. Going to glue up 2 pieces to make a 10 oz thick belt. And... I think I'm going to cheat a bit and re-purpose some of an old to small belt. Making some ammo loops for .38/.357 I decided to go with 2 sections of 9 which will give me 3 reloads for my Blackhawk. I'll mount them something like this leaving the small of my back open with no ammo poking on my lower spine while sitting. Got the glue up done and made the parts I need for the ammo loops. Waiting on some Tiger thread to come in the mail. Finally got my Tiger thread in the snail mail today this stuff looks like exactly what I needed. Its braided and waxed polyester. The diameter is 0.80 which should be perfect to fill the holes from my diamond hole chisels. This stuff is hard to come by no local sales at all. Got my ammo loops built a few days ago. Glued up and rivets in. A little stain touch up and some another coat of leather balm with atom wax for the top coat finish and they are ready to mount to the belt. My woman scored me a new 1 1/4" thick work surface last night. Price was right as in you pick up... sweet! Obviously from somebody's kitchen counter top venture. Made some progress over the weekend. Got it stained and 2 coats of leather balm with atom wax topcoat. Still need to mount the ammo loops, burnish the edges of the belt and trim the belt at the strap end. Might try to darken the holster to see if I can get a better match. Close ? Trying to end up spaced evenly with the buckle centered. Once I figure out if they are in the right position I'll try to center them in the width of the belt. Pretty much done for now on the belt. Mounted the ammo loops and made a keeper for the belt strap and the overlap section. All in all I'm pretty happy with it for a first time venture. The goods- It fits my fat ass, its sturdy, the color is pretty good, the match of colors is not to bad, the ammo loops are snug and I landed them on the belt pretty darn close to where they needed to be. The bads- because the belt is 2 glued pieces thick my edges didn't stain and burnish as well as I'd liked. So at some point I'll order some edge paint from Tandy to fix that. Either the stain or the leather balm atom wax changes color and leaves a weathered cracked look when the belt is bent or flexed which I'm ok with but I didn't expect it to do the when the leather is bent or flexed. I'm betting it's the stain which is Pro dye. Maybe an oil stain would have been better?

One of my Bowie Knives has been needing a new sheath for a few decades the original has been dry rotted. It's going to be close in design to the original sorta. I have 2 Bowie's this one I've never used because of the rotted sheath Got it glued up sewn up, stained, snapped and riveted. Had an issue with the snap cap but its about 30 years old. My dads snap anvil may be crap too? Still have to sand the edges and burnish then finish top coat.

Thats some pretty exotic leather right there!

Nice "Browning" deer head. Sheath looks good!

No but its a little skinny which contributed to some of my holes for stitching being a little to close to the edge on the back side. Thanks all for the comments! Not sure what I'm doing next maybe a sheath for an old Bowie Knife Ive had for a few decades?

Got it finished. Nice snug retention from the wet mold. 2 coats of Resolene.

Sold here- https://www.tandyleather.com/en/product/fiebing-s-leather-balm-w-atom-wax

Here GeneH you see how the holes closed back up. Here is the backside and you can see I'm haveing a problem getting thru in good alignment. Maybe I should doing the holes front and back without the welt glued in. Then just prick the welt from one side or the other.

The holes on the last pic were nice diamond holes from the chisel set I have. Just before the pic I opened up the holes with an awl as I me getting ready to sew it up. Those holes will shrink up and take the diamond hope shape again as soon as I wet mold the sheath to the knife. The problem Im having is not so much from the top side. Its the back side that is the issue from not being perfectly straight while hammering the chisel through. The thickness make its impossible to do it in one pass with my new set of diamond hole chisels from Tandy. So sometimes the holes on the back side are out of alignment.

Thanks I try to improve with each venture. My stitching and edge work did get a little better. Hole placement when the thickness of the leather is deeper than my hole chisels is a challenge. The welt for the knife sheaths make it difficult to get holes placement perfect. I keep trying to come up with a method that narrows the risk of trashing the piece if I land a the holes in the wrong spot.