Stamped Leather Expansion

[olfart]

 Recently I won a knife made by a local blacksmith friend, and it included a nice sheath with a basketweave  pattern.  Now I'm hooked on blacksmithing AND leather.

After making my first knife, I decided to embark on making a sheath for it.  The simplest thing to do was to copy the one made by my friend, so I bought leather and some tools and set about the task.  I cut out the top and bottom pieces, carefully matched in size, and tried my hand at basketweave stamping.  Aside from being a little bit wonky in places, it looks OK to my untrained eye.  The problem came when I started laying it all out to stitch.  The stamped piece has grown about 3/8" inch in length and about 1/8" in width, so it no longer matches the bottom piece.  I thought maybe it would shrink some when it dried, but it hasn't shrunk enough by far.  I'm guessing now that I may need to either stamp the bottom piece as well, or at least dampen it and pound it with a mallet to spread it out.

Any other suggestions?

[mikesc]

Quote

I'm guessing now that I may need to either stamp the bottom piece as well, or at least dampen it and pound it with a mallet to spread it out.

Stamping leather distorts ( stretches it, but unevenly ) as you've noticed..so yes, tooling the other half may get them to line up enough to be able to complete the item.

Next time stick the piece that you are going to stamp to something that wont move, ( piece of plywood, piece of acrylic )..then stamp it.

[olfart]

Thanks for the quick reply.  Please explain what you mean by "stick it to something".  Tape?  Glue?  Staples?  I used a thrown-together pedestal with a laminate top that I could use outside so my pounding wouldn't bug my wife, and the laminate (Formica) top is slick.

 

[Mattsbagger]

Packing tape, painters tape, rubber cement it to a piece of cardbord.

[alpha2]

What Matt said. Also, you might be able to trim the larger piece to the size/shape of the smaller piece, if it's a back and front type of sheath. If it's a folded sheath, that still might work. It's actually common to make one piece slight larger than the other, so you can trim the edges even after they're glued/stitched. I put painters tape on the back of my stamped pieces. When I pull the tape off, it raises some leather, so I slightly wet it and use a glass burnisher to smooth it back down. Inside of a sheath might not matter, but you don't want a surface that will hold a lot of  moisture.

Oh, and pics are not required. They are highly recommended, though! You'll find that the forum creatures here a a visual bunch.

Jeff

[olfart]

OK, since you insisted...

Here's an image of the item that drew me into leatherworking along with my first attempt at basketweave stamping.

It's a little late for trimming the stamped piece to match the back. Any trimming now would remove part of the stamping.

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by olfart

[alpha2]

Nice job!

[chapelstone]

I use self stick shelf paper. It is easy to cut to the size of the project and easy to remove. 

[olfart]

1 hour ago, chapelstone said:

I use self stick shelf paper. It is easy to cut to the size of the project and easy to remove. 

Ding, ding, ding!  I think we have a winner!  I'll give that a try if I can find where my wife hid the shelf paper.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[fredk]

also; the thinner the leather, or the softer it is, the greater it will distort

[chapelstone]

I attach the shelf paper before I case it. I am not sure it would stick as well if the leather was wet. 

[olfart]

Thanks for that information.  I'm a total noob, so details of how things are done are very helpful to me.

 

[Brianm77]

To help you get throu this project, 1 option is to cut a new back.  Use the larger piece as a templet and cut the back to it.

you can take or leave it,  just thought I would throw it out there

[olfart]

Time for a followup.  I ended up cutting a new back piece to replace the one that was too small, added welts to build up the sheath to fit the knife, got it all glued and stitched today.  Here's the result before dyeing.

The knife is my first attempt at a real knife after a few knife-shaped objects, and it still needs some work.  No, it's not a RR spike knife.  I cut the head off a spike and welded it to the handle as a pommel.

 

[Fire88]

Looks good 

[olfart]

Thanks!

 

[JD62]

Nicely done on both!!

[olfart]

Thank you!