Hunting knife sheath

[riy]

Made myself a lefty sheath for my trusty Buck.

Thanks for the tip about masking tape on the flesh side while stamping basket weave - really helped prevent stretching.

Cheers everyone, have a great week.

[Leescustomleather]

Nice knife, nice sheath! I struggled with getting my hole through the welt square to the edge also. I mounted a sewing awl blade in my drill press with the motor off and used the lever action of the drill press to easily push the awl blade through perpendicular to the edge, A little beeswax on the awl blade will help it to pull back out. Also, much easier on my hands too.

[PastorBob]

+1 for hard to punch straight holes through a welt.  I still do it by hand, but try to leave a little extra material around the edge so if it goes awry, I still have some room between the edge and the stitches.  Nicely done on the basket weave.  Tape sure does help.  I normally keep a 2" and 1" roll of blue painters tape on my workbench for such occasions. I have found that if you leave the tape on for too long, it will really pull up fibers on the back side when removed. I try to remove the tape almost immediately after stamping. 

[Hags]

Ditto all above. Nice job.  I have used blue tape in the past, but now I use clear packing tape. Same effect,  but less expensive. 

[caressofsteel]

Nice. You may want to use a french skiver on the main edges and a thinner welt; so you are not punching the holes through so much leather. Might help them go through straighter. The stitching on the front of the sheath looks great.

[battlemunky]

But are you a lefty?!? THAT is the question! I'm teasing of course but I have a few unintentional lefty items, I think a lot of us do. It's almost a rite of passage. The stagger on your stitching is great! Aside from the wonky stitch line on the back, it looks good, keep it up!

[Outfitr]

Looks good, should last a lifetime. Something thick like that with a welt that's not flat I use my drill press and have a small block of wood that the bit goes into with the edge of the wood fairly close to the bit, all clamped down of course with the drill press vise. That way I can hang the bulging part over the edge of the wood to level out the stitching area so it's perpendicular to the bit. Also I use a well worn burned off small wool dauber to dye edges to get a crisp edge line, especially important with black dye against light leather.

[riy]

Thank you all for the tips. I love the honest feedback in this community. Going to try these things out on a sheath for a chunky Ka-Bar Becker next.

I am a lefty - lucky catch because I was about to make a right hand sheath at first. I agree that it may be time to invest in a French skiver. Recently bought the Tandy safety skiver which is unfortunately very right hand oriented. Found out that I love chucking those safety skiver injector razor blades into the XL (carving) hobby knife for cutting patterns, so it's not a total loss.

[TomE]

That's a good looking sheath!  I use a peg awl haft for sewing heavy leather.  I have better luck guiding the awl with the larger handle.  https://osborneleathertools.com/product/peg-awl-haft-143/  

[battlemunky]

On 7/25/2022 at 10:06 AM, riy said:

Thank you all for the tips. I love the honest feedback in this community. Going to try these things out on a sheath for a chunky Ka-Bar Becker next.

I am a lefty - lucky catch because I was about to make a right hand sheath at first. I agree that it may be time to invest in a French skiver. Recently bought the Tandy safety skiver which is unfortunately very right hand oriented. Found out that I love chucking those safety skiver injector razor blades into the XL (carving) hobby knife for cutting patterns, so it's not a total loss.

Oh really, which Becker? I have a few BK-2s and a couple BK-16s. The 2s are a bit too beefy but its always good to know if you need to beat your way out of a dumpster, you have the option of doing so. The 16s are wonderful all around users. Most of the Beckers are badass knives.

As far as skivers go, I grabbed Tandy's largest French Skiver when I was first starting out and didn't know any better. It's good for edging the lips of holes so you can eke out the use of a line 24 snap but mine sucks as a normal skiver. Those red handled Japanese skivers from Amazon are pretty good and look pretty ambidextrous but not being a lefty I honestly don't know how to rightfully discern but they do work better than my French Skiver does. Not even sure of it's a Tandy thing or no, mine is pretty sharp and smooth, just doesn't bite well enough to do any real skiving.

[riy]

On 7/26/2022 at 4:42 PM, battlemunky said:

Oh really, which Becker? I have a few BK-2s and a couple BK-16s. The 2s are a bit too beefy but its always good to know if you need to beat your way out of a dumpster, you have the option of doing so. The 16s are wonderful all around users. Most of the Beckers are badass knives.

BK-2. Admittedly, I haven't taken it into the field yet. The stock sheath is glass reinforced nylon. Apparently it dulls the blade with every sheathing/unsheathing. Told myself I'd make a proper sheath before I took it out but now I'm questioning its practicality - you know, aside from hammering it into a tree to use as a step-up.

Edited July 30, 2022 by riy

[battlemunky]

31 minutes ago, riy said:

BK-2. Admittedly, I haven't taken it into the field yet. The stock sheath is glass reinforced nylon. Apparently it dulls the blade with every sheathing/unsheathing. Told myself I'd make a proper sheath before I took it out but now I'm questioning its practicality - you know, aside from hammering it into a tree to use as a step-up.

 

Well don't let my criticism discourage you from getting out there with it. I've made a ton of stuff with it from spears to fuzz sticks to and it has done all of it. Food prep is where it sucks...that 1/4 inch blade wrecks a lot of stuff like carrots and taters. In the field that doesn't matter so much though. It is a great camp knife that, like most knives, does a few things well and others as well as you can expect for something not meant to do them.

Fun fact: my BK-2s were the first things I made sheathes for and are what got me into this hobby/small businessy thing..

[chuck123wapati]

On 7/25/2022 at 9:06 AM, riy said:

Thank you all for the tips. I love the honest feedback in this community. Going to try these things out on a sheath for a chunky Ka-Bar Becker next.

I am a lefty - lucky catch because I was about to make a right hand sheath at first. I agree that it may be time to invest in a French skiver. Recently bought the Tandy safety skiver which is unfortunately very right hand oriented. Found out that I love chucking those safety skiver injector razor blades into the XL (carving) hobby knife for cutting patterns, so it's not a total loss.

make some decent scales for that thing too. if you have to use it for any length of time or with wet hands those screw holes will tear you up. 

3 minutes ago, battlemunky said:

Well don't let my criticism discourage you from getting out there with it. I've made a ton of stuff with it from spears to fuzz sticks to and it has done all of it. Food prep is where it sucks...that 1/4 inch blade wrecks a lot of stuff like carrots and taters. In the field that doesn't matter so much though. It is a great camp knife that, like most knives, does a few things well and others as well as you can expect for something not meant to do them.

Fun fact: my BK-2s were the first things I made sheathes for and are what got me into this hobby/small businessy thing..

very nice work!!

[battlemunky]

3 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

make some decent scales for that thing too. if you have to use it for any length of time or with wet hands those screw holes will tear you up. 

very nice work!!

Thanks @chuck123wapati but these are some of my shabbiest pieces. As with anything from when you start out, you tend to appreciate the early stuff less. Having said that though, they haven't budged in nearly 10 years. These were drilled holes and lots of stitching mistakes, etc., and it rides a little high. I've been meaning to remake them but why when they are perfectly functional, ya know? I'm way happier with those homemade micarta scales than I am the sheath on the green one. That was a blast to make! Also, the screw holes aren't really that noticeable and I've used it for hours.

 

@riy, one thing you may want to do too is strip the paint off, it'll carve and baton way easier. If you want to preserve the "BK-2" you can get some circuit board etchant and it'll stay after you strip it. That paint is great but it makes everything a little harder to accomplish. You can also force a patina in a different pattern using mustard if you wanted, it'll help with corrosion.

 

And sorry for hijacking the thread