Do you like your sheath to cover a lot...

Patrice Lemée

Patrice Lemée

Joined
Aug 13, 2002
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...or the minimum needed?
I need to make one that could be used for an EDC and I am afraid that if I leave too much of the knife exposed it may look a little more ”aggressive” if that makes sense.

How do you decide how much coverage for a particular knife?

Thanks
 
Let me start by saying I don't make leather sheaths, and only make Kydex for myself.
Personally I like to be able to grab my handles with the last of my fingers, and have my index finger on the sheath, think of grabbing a holstered gun. I probably carried this over from living in a state where I had a CCW.

I use this technique on most sheath locations, for the S.O.B. location, I it's basically the same thing just flip flop the fingers around.

As for looks, it I don't think this looks very aggressive, but still it leaves enough eye candy to be seen if you have really nice scales.
 
I guess it depends on where you live or what you will be using the knife for, or when/where you will carry it. Personally I don't EDC fixed blades, so I wouldn't mind if only the sharp parts were covered so long as the sheath does its job. If the knife stays put and won't cut me by mistake I am happy. I would probably have a fixed blade in the woods 9/10 times, where less weight is a good thing more often than not. I imagine this is like many other things though, you will get lots of different opinions from different folks.
 
I was just thinking, I'll take a few pics of my sheaths when I get home next to a ruler so that you can see the ratio.
 
Most of the time it only takes two fingers to comfortably draw a knife. With really large or heavy knives I'll sometimes allow more handle to show. If you have a very fancy or distinctive handle material, a cut away or "swoop" can be used to show more of the handle. This still means careful attention on how to maintain blade retention. I'm with Tal on deeper sheaths. Kydex is a little different story. Using kydex almost requires that all the handle be exposed.
 
I try to keep the bulk of the sheath down to reduce the overall profile of a knife. A large sheath or one with bulk makes the knife look bigger than it really is. For that reason most sheaths I make use the least amount of leather which means the handle is openly exposed. I think that fear factor of a knife comes from the size of the blade rather than the handle itself.
 
Thanks for the additional input. I should have specified that this will be a leather sheath. Here is the knife in question:

rattler1.jpg
 

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I usually leave around half the Handel showing. Just so you can get a finger or two on it kinda like this.
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[/IMG] I guess it all depends on the knife. Here's one I did, the guy just wanted to carry it in his back pocket. Didn't even want a belt loop.
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holy bat smoke PatriceMan!!! you're making a sheath for that! the options are endless!, I would definitely go with a shorter sheath, just to show off the sex appeal that handle and hilt has!
 
Thanks for the pics John.

Hobby, I was sure I would remember your name. :( Time to change it I think. ;)
thanks for the good words. Yes, that knife lends itself to a lot of possibilities. I'll try and start on one tonight.
 
I'll probably be change it soon :)

I like many watched that beauty come together, I'll for sure be looking for what you dress it in!
Oh and I didn't post pics as I figured that you were probably going with leather and something fancier than what I have to offer. It's actually been long enough that I don't remember drawing a knife from a leather sheath lol.
 
Patrice Lemée;11883901 said:
Thanks for the additional input. I should have specified that this will be a leather sheath. Here is the knife in question:

rattler1.jpg
Click to expand...

It would be a sin to cover up any of that handle......
 
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O'man!! yeah your right. I didn't see he had posted pics, my page didn't update till after I posted. Yeah don't cover that Handel, it beautiful. :0)
 
Thanks for the good words. I did work hard on this one and would like to display it.
Still trying to come up with a simple retaining system. I mean I will try and make the fit snug enough that it should hold it but I want some kind of keeper strap system too...but not a strap. :o Hopefully I get to prototype this later in the week.
 
Wow:eek: Beautiful knife! The detail is incredible, since the name of the knife is Rattler and has that awesome looking rattle at the quillon. I would do a sheath that wont cover up that handle and to match the theme of rattle snakes i would add a snake skin inlay.
SnakeSkin.jpg
 
Thanks again for the good words. I am sorry that this is my standard thank you reply but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate, I do.

C&G, I never did an inlay yet and don't have any snake skin to give it a try so this one will have to be plain leather. But I will keep that in mind for when I redo the sheath, which I'll surely do. Thanks.
 
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