Drying leather knife sheath?

K

KennyB

Joined
Jan 19, 2010
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The other day I was sharpening a new knife of mine, and I left its sheath out on the table. Eventually a puddle of water from my waterstone got to it and it soaked in it for an unknown period of time.

It has a molded leather part of it where it fits the countour of the knife handle and now that part is pretty soft. I want to dry it out to make it hard again, but so far nothing is working. I tried a hair dryer for a little bit at first, and today I left it baking in the sun and it's still the same.

Anything else I can do to dry it back out? Maybe it's already dry and just needs to be conditioned with something to go back to how stiff it was before?
 
If the leather IS completely dry but still not hard enough for your liking, pick up a small block of pure bee's wax, melt it, and after heating the leather with your hair drier paint on the bee's wax inside and out, and again get everything hot with the hair drier so the wax get's absorbed into the leather. Repeat this two or three times, let everything cool down, then buff off the excess wax with a soft cloth. When the sheath is completely cold again, the leather should be a LOT harder. Just be sure that you are using real bee's wax. This was a method the Ancients used to harden leather body armor (except for the hair drier part...)

Stitchawl
 
stitchawl said:
If the leather IS completely dry but still not hard enough for your liking, pick up a small block of pure bee's wax, melt it, and after heating the leather with your hair drier paint on the bee's wax inside and out, and again get everything hot with the hair drier so the wax get's absorbed into the leather. Repeat this two or three times, let everything cool down, then buff off the excess wax with a soft cloth. When the sheath is completely cold again, the leather should be a LOT harder. Just be sure that you are using real bee's wax. This was a method the Ancients used to harden leather body armor (except for the hair drier part...)

Stitchawl
Click to expand...

How hot should it get? I didn't think it was getting very hot with the hair dryer. Is just enough to melt the bee's wax good?
 
KennyB said:
How hot should it get? I didn't think it was getting very hot with the hair dryer. Is just enough to melt the bee's wax good?
Click to expand...

A hair drier on high will be more than sufficient to do the job. Heat the bee's wax until it's completely melted, then heat up the leather and paint on the wax. The wax will cool very quickly when it hits the leather even though you've heated the sheath. A few more seconds with the drier will remelt it on the leather and allow it to soak in.

P.S. A hair drier... not a heat gun.

Stitchawl
 
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