Camp chopper and Hisshou re-wrap

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Apr 12, 2006
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A couple more blades that have recently left my shop.

The first is a camp chopper traded to another knifemaker for a kitchen knife for my wife. It's taken a loooong time for me to finish it up. It has a 13" blade forged from 80CrV2 steel, with a tan over black paracord wrap and tan Kydex sheath.

joec01 by James Helm, on Flickr

The second is a re-wrap on a CRKT Hisshou, designed by James Williams. I usually don't work on other people's blades, but this is the design that started me playing around with tanto designs of my own. The customer had already stripped off the handle wrap and ray skin underlay, leaving the polymer bolster in place. I laid down a neoprene foundation, followed by a tan paracord underlay and tang paracord overlay, with a three-strand Turk's head knot on top of the bolster.

hisshourewrap01 by James Helm, on Flickr

The sheath on this is Boltaron, very similar to Kydex but less susceptible to temperature changes once molded. I think it has some better definition as well. The pistol holster guys like it. This is what I'll be using on sheaths now.

hisshourewrap02 by James Helm, on Flickr

The Hisshou is zero ground, something I've never done, but I touched it up with my stropping belt on my belt grinder with some green chrome compound. He noticed, sayin, "It's friggin' shaving sharp!" :D
 
Nice wrap.

How does the shaping of Boltaron differ from Kydex?

Ive only made some Kydex sheaths but have only a few Boltaron ones.

There is a marked difference.
 
BladeScout - The Boltaron is heated at 360 degrees, 30 degrees hotter than the Kydex. I've read folks say it tends to curl up when heated, but I'm using a T-shirt press to heat it, so that isn't an issue. Otherwise, it works the same.
 
I see.

Boltaron sheaths seem to have a different 'feel' to them ... for lack of better words.

Further more, Ive seen a couple of Boltaron sheaths being heated up by owners, suffering from the belief, that they could eliminate sheath rattle by heating up and shaping the material, like they'd do with kydex.

Results didnt look promising for some reason.

Seems you cant treat Boltaron like Kydex in that situation.

Dont get me wrong; Im all for Boltaron and Im sure, its just fine for making sheaths.

Heck, Sal and Eric uses it for sheaths.
 
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