Leather Sheath Question

[mlapaglia]

I have made one sheath from scratch first and then one from a tandy kit. In the picture the Tandy sheath is the larger one. I now want to make a new sheath for my Air force Pilots knife. The Tandy kit had the top piece of leather slightly wider, 1/4 ", than the lower piece so when it was stitched together it bowed slightly and made an opening in the sheath for the knife to slide in. This was a pain to stitch since it did not line up and I could not figure out how to get it in the stitching pony. I had to hold the leather together in order to force the holes to line up so it could be saddle stitched.

Id like to avoid that with the next one so I am asking if it would make sense to place a piece of leather about 1/2 inch wide and the shape of the outer edge of the leather. To make a welt (kinda) to give me the spacing between the top and bottom. If that is not a good idea is there a way to make it easier to stitch the top and bottom when the top is intentionally wider by about 1/4 inches

I know I can just use the same size top and bottom and mold space for the blade but I am trying to figure out other ways to solve the problem.

thanks for any suggestions or help.

Edited July 28, 2011 by mlapaglia

[GlenH]

I have made one sheath from scratch first and then one from a tandy kit. In the picture the Tandy sheath is the larger one. I now want to make a new sheath for my Air force Pilots knife. The Tandy kit had the top piece of leather slightly wider, 1/4 ", than the lower piece so when it was stitched together it bowed slightly and made an opening in the sheath for the knife to slide in. This was a pain to stitch since it did not line up and I could not figure out how to get it in the stitching pony. I had to hold the leather together in order to force the holes to line up so it could be saddle stitched.

Id like to avoid that with the next one so I am asking if it would make sense to place a piece of leather about 1/2 inch wide and the shape of the outer edge of the leather. To make a welt (kinda) to give me the spacing between the top and bottom. If that is not a good idea is there a way to make it easier to stitch the top and bottom when the top is intentionally wider by about 1/4 inches

I know I can just use the same size top and bottom and mold space for the blade but I am trying to figure out other ways to solve the problem.

thanks for any suggestions or help.

This is exactly what I'm getting ready to do. I've actually already cut the pieces and tooled the front. I used my strap cutter to cut a piece a little less than 1/2 inch wide. I'll cut that into two pieces, one for the straight side and one for the curved side. I'll be using rubber cement to hold all the pieces together. I'm thinking about lacing this one instead of saddle stitching, but either way the holes are going to be a pain to punch, since you end up with about a 1/4 thickness. Ideally, I'd have a drill press and just drill the holes, but I don't. One advantage of doing the "leather spacer" is that the stitches are protected from the knife blade.

When I assembled the kit version, I found that it helped to wet the back of the top piece to get it to be more pliable while I did the stitching...

Glen

[ChuckBurrows]

Check out this tutorial I wrote - while the style is that of a Mexican Loop sheath the basics are the same - for the sewing I glue the welt to the front and pre-punch the holes in those two pieces. Glue them to the back and now you only have one layer of leather to push the awl through by hand - also keep a ball of beeswax handy and wax you're awl blade now and again.

http://www.wrtcleather.com/1-ckd/mexloop/_mexloop.html