Beautiful Sheath Ruined Furniture

[zoomer56]

I made this sheath to fit my brother's (mjlknives.com) sambar stag handled bowie knife.  To date it was one of my best works.  Today I learned the sheath ruined a piece of furniture.  It was being displayed and sat for 4 days on the furniture.  He noticed it was smelling, sort of gassing off.  He picked it up and saw it had reacted badly to the polyurethane finish. There is now a perfect shape of the sheath, even where it was not touching. The sheath was dyed with Fiebings Low VOC (I live in CA and not allowed to use the good stuff) dark brown dye.  A coat of Fiebings Resolene was applied.  The resolene was cut with water 30%.

This is bad, has anyone experienced this sort of thing?

[Mattsbagger]

Weird.

[fredk]

That looks like a water stain in the polished finish. You can get that if you put a hot cup of tea/coffee directly onto the surface. Sometimes it will cure itself over time. Sometimes putting a damp cloth towel over it and ironing with a mildly warm iron will draw it out and return it to normal

In this instance I'd let it sit and air for a few days, allowing some warm air to blow over it; warm air, not hot

[robrinay]

If it is a water mark it can be removed by carefully warming the area. Techniques include using a hair drier to gently warm the area making sure not to overheat it. Another involves placing a DRY lint free cloth pure cotton cloth (no nylon which might melt), over the mark and using a clothes iron on a low DRY (no steam), setting and warm the wood by gently ironing it through the cloth. An internet search for ‘how to remove water marks from furniture’ will tell you how in more detail. Always start with the most gentle technique and work upwards if it doesn’t work. 

Edited April 4, 2018 by robrinay
Detail

[Jbrandon]

I'm not sure on the mark on the table but that sheath is super nice!

[chiefjason]

Do you know if it softened the finish on the furniture?  I used to work in furniture and we had known issues with rubber feet on certain finishes.  The rubber feet would react with the finish, soften it, and remove it when the object was picked up.  To the point we told folks to use felt pads under the rubber feet.  My guess is the problem is in the furniture, and that finish reacted with the sheath.  I have a few spots on my night stand.  

[zoomer56]

Thanks for the replies.  It was a chemical reaction, not water.  I have come to the conclusion that this was caused  by sealing with resolene before the sheath was dry.  It was loaded up with dye then sealed then sewn closed. Should have let the dye dry well before sealing.

[KittenThrasher]

Looking at the stain on the furniture it looks to me as if the stain is also present under the handle of the knife which is not leather. Makes me wonder if the problem is actually the sheath or something which has caused a 'shadow' under the whole thing which is not caused by your (rather excellent) work.?

I'm not sure if I'm seeing the stain very well on my laptop though. 

Just a thought.

[bikermutt07]

It is a really nice sheath.

[zoomer56]

Thanks for the compliments. There is a dangler on it and that is why the mark shows where the handle is.