Horizontal Sheaths.....A Tutorial

[Horsewright]

I would say that my Horizontal sheath design is one of my most popular. This is the sheath I've personally carried for many years on a daily basis. Follow along as we build a few. We'll be doing seven total for some of these guys:

My pattern is basically a heart shape. I have several different sizes but the small and medium shown here covers about 90 percent of the knives I make this sheath for. This sheath is designed to be worn horizontally (hence the name), in a crossdraw fashion. As a practical matter I generally only make this sheath for a knife that is seven inches in over all length or less. Get much bigger than that and you are catching it on things like seatbelts, door jambs etc. We'll be making right hand crossdraw sheaths in this tutorial but to make a left handed one you just flip everything around. Leather is 6/7 oz russet Wicket and Craig.

I will dunk the sheath quickly into my water container (that has Pro Carv mixed into the water) and pull it out. I will start to fold it in half along the center line. Be careful here. It is very easy to force the leather to fold before its ready to and you can crack it. I will often soak the center line a little longer after starting the fold. The stress area that will crack if you force it is at the tip. Take your time. I have found just holding the sheath in and soaking the center line where it folds is very beneficial. It allows me to fold the sheath without cracking the leather with out getting the majority of the sheath too wet so that I can't continue on with the process because I'm waiting for my overly wet sheath to dry out,

After getting the sheath started with folding by using finger pressure only, I will move over to my tooling stone and finish the fold with my rubbing stick. This stick is a piece of ligum vitae, the hardest wood there is. I bought it many years ago as a knife handle block. I rounded the edges on this block and it has served very well for numerous purposes ever since. I will rub it along the fold and then flip it and rub the other side. I am not trying to slick the leather here. Just trying to really define the fold. We will slick the leather later but it would be counter productive to do so at this time.

No matter how hard ya try you never get the sheath folded EXACTLY in half. At least I have never been able to. Trim off the throat evenly:

As well as any excess pieces sticking out. Ya want the sheath halves to be even. I'll flip the sheath over and check and trim each side as necessary:

Then we're gonna mark where the welt will go. This is very important and will determine the fit and retention of your sheath. This has to be done to the individual knife. Each of the knives above in the box are blade first in a slot. Each slot is numbered and that number will be transferred to the inside of the sheath. Just a disclaimer, I'm not responsible to what might happen to someone that would come and look at my knives and get em back in the wrong slots. All I can say is bad things, very, very bad things. I'll use a black Sharpie to mark the outline of the welt. I once used a red Sharpie and got some color transfer on lighter handle materials. I've never had any color transfer with black. I use what is commonly referred to as a Loveless welt after Bob, who popularized it.

There are two things that are very critical for proper fit. First as is shown in this picture (above), there must be room for the blade. It is important that this area extends past the tip of the blade as well as the fold is not pressing the edge into the welt. The second part is how does the widest part, (finger guard, bolster heel of the blade interact with what I call the cam of the welt, below.

You will notice in this pic that I redrew the cam moving it slightly back and slightly lower also lowering the area in front of the cam. You can see that the original line got a couple crosshatches added to them. The crosshatching is Dave code for DON'T use this line. When I first place the knife in the folded sheath to mark the welt I put the sine of the knife tight against the fold. I then bring the top half down a bit. This will move the knife slightly down. This will be very close to the knife's resting place inside the finished sheath. This is important to do so you can get the spacing on the widest part of the knife and the cam of the welt correct. You are looking for a hair more than a quarter inch but 3/8's would be too much. Just a hair. I'll then add the number of the knife to the inside of the sheath on both sides. Here you can clearly see the crosshatching and the the new line I decided on to determine where the welt goes.

So we're gonna use a rounded stylus or modeling tool and trace that line hard two or three times. Around here its called a pokey tool. Ya don't have to do the whole line just from the throat to a little ways past the cam.

This is why we didn't slick the leather earlier. We want our tracing with the pokey tool to transfer the welt outline to the outside of the sheath. This is much harder to do to slicked leather.

It is also why we dunked the whole sheath initially. Ya need to have the leather damp but not soaked for this line to transfer. There's a lot of excess here so we'll trim some off. We'll use the first trimmed side after flipping the sheath over to trim the second side. Thats one of the advantages of learning to use a roundknife. Its easy to keep perpendicular so you are not angling your cuts and it cuts a curve much better too. These are important things.

If your cutting board (I use Hydroma) has some use on it, like mine does, pay particular attention to holding down your sheath while trimming. Any little movement can and will result in scratches to your leather. Hold it down well and no scratches, let er slip some , scratches. Now is when we'll slick our leather. Notice that the color is getting back to normal after dunking. This is the time to slick the leather, when the color is coming back. Slicking is often called glassing too as a lot of leather workers will use a tool with with a rounded rectangular piece of tempered glass set in a wooden handle. My stick works fine. Press hard and rub back and forth the entire length of the sheath on both sides of the fold. Use some pressure. This will remove some small, light scratches, surface imperfections and make your leather tight and uniform. IF you take nothing else away from this tutorial and IF you would like to produce quality, professional leather work, slick your dang leather. That bears repeating but you get the idea.

Now we're gonna finish the top or throat of the sheath as it would be difficult to do later. Another pro tip that I see not a lot of folks doing is creasing. I will crease just about any un sewn edge. This is just a little adjustable cheapie Tandy creaser but it works well for me. I have two other expensive ones. I use this. Creasing is making a finished indented line a short distance in from an edge. Like garlic it adds just a bit of pow.

I will crease first and then I edge. I use a #2 edger for this weight of leather. This one is an Osborne. While I only crease the top side I will edge both sides. Ya can see how the pressure of the creaser kinda transfers to the backside.

The idea with edging is to round the edge and now it needs to be rubbed. I have this old lathe with a piece of rosewood that I turned some grooves in of different sizes. Using a small amount of paraffin and the dampness still in the leather I will use the lathe set on warp speed to rub that edge. If you don't have a lathe or some method of power burnishing ya can use a piece of canvas or denim, a hard stick or a piece of bone. Speed and pressure are your friend, you are looking for burnished edge here. I don't use any slicking agent at this time and if the leather is still really damp I don't use the paraffin either. Now we need the sheath body to dry. I'll take them inside and put em on the kitchen counter to dry overnight or in this case stuck em out in the sun for a couple of hours.

I had two drying and five more to continue on with.

Well now we need to make our belt loops. I'll use good pieces of scrap for this like this one.

I'll cut the stains off on the left end and we'll be ready to cut this into 1.25 inch wide strips. I will always check the back side to make sure the grain is tight and even, bout like this. Now this piece has been split so you will not see a lot of roughness on this roughout side but the grain will still be loose and not even, even after splitting if its not a good piece. This piece came from the backbone of the side and that is where your best leather tends to hang out.

I cut strips and straps with a strap cutter but if ya don't have one, a straight edge works well.

I will continue on with this later, hopefully tomorrow morning. Hope that you enjoy this lil deal and it will be of benefit to you. As always questions and comments are welcome.

 

[Gadsden]

Sound wisdom and good learning. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Horsewright]

Couldn't get back to this project for a couple of days. Ya know sometimes life gets in the way. Anyhoo we'll get some more done this morning.

So after cutting our 1.25" straps from the scrap leather above I'll get em damp on all four sides using the sponge in my water bucket. As the color starts coming back I will slick the straps. When I make belt loops I will always make extras. That way the next batch of sheaths I already have a leg up on. I was doing seven Horizontal sheaths in this batch and only needed one, but made several.

After slicking them I will crease both top edges and after creasing I will edge these straps with my #2.

Then I take the straps over to the lathe and rub the edges. I won't use any slicking agent here, just the dampness in the leather and the paraffin. The paraffin helps getting the leather too hot from the friction and causing burnt gritty spots. After rubbing the edges I will cut the straps into 4.5" sections. Ya can see that my roller mat has cut quite a few 4.5 inch sections over the years.

I dunk each section back into the water and then fold one edge over the corner of my rock making a 90 degree bend. I will stamp the my makers mark down from this bend but not completely centered on the strap between the end and the bend. More towards the bend side.

I will then flip the loop over and skive the last 1.25-1.5 inches of the strap using my push skiver. I'll take it down to a zero edge but the part we'll be using, and this calls for some estimation, we want about 50 percent. That will be the part that we sew down at the very end of construction.

Then set them aside to dry, out in the sun if ya can. I'd done five sheaths the night before and then was catching up these two and letting the belt loops dry:

Using a pencil I'm gonna place the bent part of the loop in position on the sheath (towards the bend and about 1" from the throat) and make three marks. I'll make three dots, left and right of the strap and the bottom of the bend. The three dots tell me where to put the glue. A small strip of glue is also placed on the bent part of the strap. Ya don't want to get carried away here. Keep it on the end away from the bend. Otherwise ya can see it later.

So I've got all seven sheaths and their belt loops drying here. I'll place the loops in place and tap with a hammer to cement (sorry for the pun) the bond.

Now we are ready to sew. Sewing up a Horizontal sheath is a three step process. Each of these three sewing steps are done at a different time of the construction of the sheath. I sew a simple box on the inside of the bent over part of the strap first and as part one of the sewing.

After sewing and trimming the threads, (I use a soldering iron to trim threads), I will tap the stitches on the inside of the sheath pretty firmly. I use my same leather hammer. Its a small ballpein hammer and I keep this face mirror polished. This hammer is only used on leather. I have another for rivets etc. This tapping of the stitches seats them into the leather and helps prevent the threads (believe it or not) from scratching the knife, particularly the bolster.

Ok, now for one of the most important parts of the entire process, the fitting of the welt. I have pre cut my welts. I have a pattern for this piece and this welt shape will take care of probably 95% of all the sheaths I make, if not more. Occasionally I have to add some extra length to it but not often. I place the welt into the sheath and match up the front arc as much as possible. Then by holding the welt in place and lifting the end I will make a mark where the apex of the cam is and also where the welt engages the throat of the sheath. I will then draw this shape trying to mimic the Sharpie line on the inside of the sheath as accurately as possible.

When I'm happy with the drawn line I'll cut that shape:

I will also skive the end of the welt where the sheath will fold over it.

As an aside, I've developed a little technique for very pokey knifes like my Sonoran Belt Knife. I will cut a "stop" in the welt so that the finger guard or bolster contacts the stop before the tip of the knife contacts the stitching or the end of the sheath. This works really well. I also use this trick on my other sheaths for a pokey knife. This pic really shows ya what I'm talking about. The finger guard of this Sonoran Belt knife hits the stop when inserting it in the sheath, before ye can push it through the end of the sheath.

Well I hope this is being of use to ya. I've got a little extra time this morning so we'll continue on.

 

[Horsewright]

We'll continue on with our process on building a Horizontal sheath. From a standpoint of efficiency I add some other sheaths to our batch. I have two other sheath types, the Slotted sheath and the Slot and Loop, that are fold over sheaths like the Horizontal. Until now their construction has been a little different. Their paths kinda converge now with the Horizontal so I do them all at the same time, to save time. We've added three Slot and Loops and one Slotted sheath to our batch.

So our next step is to glue in our welts.

After the glue dries I place the welt inside and cover up our lines. Remember if a line is crosshatched we don't use it. Tap it down good with the hammer.

It's important that the welt is to the inside of the lines so that later you are sewing on the welt and not falling off its edge. See here how the welt is slightly to the inside of the mark that will become the stitching groove:

After glueing the welt I trim the excess welt material away:

I then glue the other side of the welt and the other side of the sheath. I kinda just imagine where the welt is gonna line up with the other side of the sheath and glue that up. A little extra coverage here is not an issue. Better than a little less.

After your glue has dried put the two sides together and tap em in place.

Trim any excess. I flip em over and check both sides.

Time to sand the edges even. I use a 6x48 grinder with a 120 grit ceramic belt that is only used for leather. This sanding belt takes care of 99.9999999 percent of my leather sanding needs. The only other thing I use is a 1/2" sanding drum on a Dremel. But thats for itty bitty inside curves and I don't use it ever on sheaths. Here's our old work horse.

I try to use a light touch but get the edges sanded of all three layers kinda into one. I don't worry about any burning or discoloration at this stage, at least as long as its not too bad. Don't make charcoal. All sanded even. Slight darkening like this is fine at this stage:

Our next step is to trim off some of the excess that was sanded. I use a Weaver #0 edger for this step. A #0 obviously takes off a very little of the edge. What I'm doing is taking off the feather edge left from sanding. I only do this on the backside of the Horizontal sheath and in all my leather work this is the only time I use this itty bitty little edger. What we're doing is setting up a good edge so that the strap later will glue down flat and flush. Ya don't want a little of that feather edge bending back while glueing and then not being able to get a nice flat edge when ya glue the belt loop down. Just a little thing.

See you are not taking much off and a guy could probably use an Xacto knife or something to just trim this feather. Ya don't want to take off too much cause then the belt loop wouldn't glue down flush either.

So using your stitching groover (I'm using this new one my wife bought for the first time), go ahead and groove down from the tip of the sheath to the throat. Ya need to make the top stitching line too. This follows the outline of the welt.

Now we'll do our second of three stitching processes for this sheath. We are gonna stitch just the top welt line not the whole thing. Normally I will start and stop all stitching runs with a two stitch backstitch to lock down the stitching. Here on this top line I only use one. I've just found it gives a little neater appearance when finished and there seems to be no need for the extra strength. Again, on a Horizontal sheath this is the only place in all my leatherwork, that I can think of where I only backstitch once. Got all the top lines done and ready to trim the threads.

Ok grab your pencil again and taking the belt loop bend it over towards the tip about half its width ( a pic soon will explain that better), and make a dot on each side of the belt loop. I at this time, I also estimate where the loop will be sewn down and make a line on the inside of the loop at the edge of the sheath. Here's the two dots and the line on the inside of the belt loop:

I put a little line of glue between the two dots and a wider band about an inch wide on the pencil mark on the inside of the loop. The band extends to both sides of the mark and the mark is kinda centered and I thought I took pics of this but guess not. Now we're getting ready to glue the loop down. How do I know how to make it just right ya say so that it's not too tight and not too loose? Well many years ago and thousands of sheaths ago, I used what's called a loop iron. These are pretty spendy little tools basically hunks of steel that you can form leather around. Bout a $Benjamin each for what ever size ya need. Me, I made me a stick about 3/8's inch thick and 1.5" wide to imitate a belt. I tapered it at one end and its maybe 5" long. I would bend the belt loop over the stick and then mark where I wanted to glue it. Nowadays after doing thousands of this type of sheath, I just use my calibrated eyeballs and guesstimate instead of using the stick. I don't get er wrong but I've had lots of practice. Maybe, make ya a stick. The reason for the wide band of glue on the pencil line is that now, when I glue the loop down is when I pay particular attention to how long and where I want that strap to be glued down. The band of glue gives me a little wiggle room. Make ya a stick. So earlier I'd mentioned that an upcoming picture would clarify what I meant by taking the strap over about half its width towards the tip to mark where it would be glued down. Here's that pic.

I don't obsess about getting it exactly half. Bout half is good. I use to glue the straps straight down but this really caused some of them to have the appearance of hanging upside down on the belt. It gave customers the thought that the knife was gonna fall out. It won't, if ya get the welt righ,t but it was a matter of perception. Angling the belt loop like this causes the sheath to hang more horizontally. So to back up just a hair, while the glue is drying on the Horizontal sheaths I sew up the other sheaths. Then I tap the belt loops into place and sew up the Horizontal sheaths. Again just a process to save time. Sewing from the tip to the throat is the last stage, of our three step process, of sewing up these sheaths.

A pile of sheaths with threads to trim and then they will be ready to get wet molded and finished off.

Well, hope you are finding this useful and we'll continue on shortly. As always comments and questions are welcome.

 

[Robber58]

Great tutorial Dave. Talking through the subtle but important bits is always very helpful. I always call the smaller details like welt fitting, stitching sequence and gluing the fiddly bits but the truth is they ultimately make the product function and look correct.
Randy

 

[Murphjd25]

Very cool, love seeing stuff like this. Thanks!

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks guys. Not time to continue on this morning but I'll hit er tomorrow again if I can. More fiddly bits to cover.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Thanks guys. Not time to continue on this morning but I'll hit er tomorrow again if I can. More fiddly bits to cover.

You are awesome.

Cant thank you enough for these detailed tutorials.. I always end up picking a trick or two from ya that I never considered before.

Bravo!

 

[Horsewright]

You are awesome.

Cant thank you enough for these detailed tutorials.. I always end up picking a trick or two from ya that I never considered before.

Bravo!

Thanks! good deal and glad to help a bit.

Continuing on this morning with our Horizontal Sheath project.

Our next step is too wet mold our sheath. I use warm water with some Pro Carv mixed in. I want it warm enough that I can stick my hand in comfortably, but just. I toss my sheaths into my water bucket and let them sit there till they sink. I get em out pretty quick when they sink. I don't want em scuba diving on the bottom for very long.

I take them out and place them on a towel. At this stage ya have to be pretty careful with your wet sheath. Grunge will launch itself clear across the shop to find it and it's easy to scratch or indent it too. It'll stay on this towel throughout the wet molding process unless I'm doing something to it right then.

Be very careful when ya trim the excess belt loop off as again when wet these guys are pretty susceptible to dirt and scratching. Trimming the excess is our next step.

Then we head to the sander again and sand everything flush. The whole edge were the welt and the two layers of the sheath meet. This sanding this time will also remove and dark spots we might of burnt into em the first time we sanded them.

Then we are gonna edge the sheaths. I will use a #4 for this edging. The point is a little tricky and I'll pick up the sheath and hold it in my left hand as I work around the point.

After edging we are gonna head back to the lathe and rub the edges. We are really trying to make the edges round while they are wet/damp from the water. I don't use any slicking agent at this time because we will do a final burnishing of the edges later, after the sheath is dried. Here I'm really just trying to round the edges. I don't worry about the slight glue lines at this stage either. They will rub out with our final burnishing. This is what I'm trying to accomplish with the rubbing at this stage, just a nice round, pretty smooth edge.

Once that rubbing is done we're ready to start wet molding. Here are the tools I use. A pair of needle nose pliers, a rat tail file and my lignum vitae slicking stick.

I've got my knives ahead of me in the box but with in easy reach and the sheaths are all piled up ready to be molded. On the towel there is a plastic bag where I will place each sheath after it is molded.

If ya like your hand and don't want to stab it the PLIERS go into the sheath first. This straightens everything out, opens the sheath up and gives the blade someplace to go. The leather is very soft now and if there is a bend or twist in the sheath it is very easy to push the knife through the sheath and not into the sheath. Use the pliers first! I've got a couple scars on my left hand that illustrate this point.

After using the pliers I will try the knife. If you pay attention you can see where the bolster/finger guard is hitting the welt as you move the knife into the sheath. This is important as it tells ya what part of the welt might need work.

This Coyote knife was running into the welt so the first step is to put the pliers back in the sheath and open them against the welt and the top of the sheath. By adjusting how far into the sheath you put the pliers you can determine which part of the sheath you are stretching. You can use quite a bit of firmness here with out damaging the sheath.

If after stretching the sheath, the knife still has trouble I will use the file on the welt. With practice you can be pretty specific where ya file, whether it's the cam, the welt at the opening, or even the whole welt. I'm shooting for a little tight fit. A little tight is way better than a little loose. I want it a little tight.

After filing I'll tap the mouth of the sheath against the stone. This knocks any loose leather filings out of the sheath. It might take a filing or two to get er right:

Occasionally, ya might have trouble getting the knife back out. The face of the cam that the knife has to run up and over might be a little abrupt or steep. I'll use this dental pick that I keep handy for removing stitches and push it through the lanyard tube:

Then I can grab the knife with a finger on each side of the knife pulling on the dental pick and get the knife out. I will then address the cam with the file and try again. A little tight is better than a little loose but the knife still has to go into the sheath and come back out too. If your knife doesn't have a lanyard tube you can wrap a piece of scrap leather over the end of the handle and pull the knife out with pliers. I had to do that with this old, Old
Timer that I'd been sent to make a Horizontal Sheath for:

Once our sheath is fitted and we can get the knife in and out, its time to wet mold. I do this on my tooling stone so as not to transfer any stray marks, say from a cutting board, bench or whatever to the sheath. I start on the back side and rub above the loop and below. I outline what I can of the knife with my slicking stick. I'll also rub out any stitching marks I can, particularly on the edge of the loop.

I'll flip the sheath over and work on the front side. I mold in the general knife shape. I don't worry about the knives much and the dampness of the leather. All the knives whether stainless or high carbon have been wiped down with oil as part of the finishing process prior to me ever starting to cut leather. The brief time they are in the sheath just is not a problem. After wet molding the front of the sheath, I remove the knife and put it back in the box.

After removing the knife I place the sheath in the plastic bag. Here we're done with all the sheaths, in this batch and I use the bag to carry all the sheaths into the house.

Our next step is to bake them. Yep bake, as in oven, as in kitchen oven. Few years back we got a new stove and we got one with double ovens so I can do lots of sheaths at once. This batch isn't that big so we'll only be using the top oven.

The oven has been pre heated for 178 degrees:

So thats our 20 pic limit I'll continue on.

 

[Horsewright]

I place the sheaths, front side up, on four sheets of card stock. These four sheets protect any grill/rack marks from coming through. I use to use one and then two and finally three sheets of card stacked up for the sheaths to lie on but still occasionally would get a mark. Four seems just about right so now I always use four sheets. I had four stacks of four set out but only needed three. I want the sheaths to not be touching.

And in they go!

I want the sheaths to stay in the center of the rack. Although I could have fit all three stacks of card stock on the top rack, I don't want them out to the edges of the oven. Seems like uneven heat there. So I put one group down in the center of the bottom rack. Close em up and set a timer for one hour. After the hour I'll flip the sheaths over and set the timer again for another hour. After that second hour, I flip the sheaths right side up again and go for another hour. The timer is very important. It prevents you from making sheath jerky. Ask me how I know. I've done thousands and thousands of sheaths this way. One time I did forget about a batch and left them overnight making sheath jerky out of them. SET your timer. I set the timer again for 15 minutes and go and plug in my oil. After that 15 minutes I put the sheaths back in the bag and haul em out to the shop. Remember to turn the oven off too. Done that one too!

So I get ready to oil the sheaths. I keep my oil in a dedicated $9 crock pot from Wally World. I set it on low and plug it in fifteen minutes before I need it. Make sure that you use only 100% pure neatsfoot oil not neatsfoot compound. Recently I've been experimenting with using a piece of wool scrap for an oil applicator instead of the paint brushes I've used for many years. I'm liking it fine. Seems to give a very uniform coat. I apply the oil very lightly, you can sure get too much oil on there. I dip just the edge of the wool skin into the oil and then press out excess against the inside wall of the crock pot. I still use the brush to get under the belt loop on the back side. But I'm liking the lack of splotching that the wool gives.

The sheaths go back into the house and sit on the kitchen counter over night. This allows the oil to set and become very uniform throughout the leather. I then bring em back out to the shop in the morning and rub the edges again on the lathe. This time I do use a slicking agent as pictured here. I've tried a lot of others but prefer this Wyo Quick Slick that I get from Barry King Tools. I paint it on the edge of the sheaths with a disposable foamy brush. You can see in this pic the importance of letting tha toil set awhile. The color on the sheaths is very uniform.

I paint it onto four initially and then repaint the first again with out re dipping the brush. This gives a chance for the initial sheath to soak in and then get lightly dampened again before rubbing. As I finish rubbing the first one I set it aside and bring in another one to paint so as I always have four. After doing the new one I do the first one again with out re dipping the brush and so on till they are all done. The last one joining the other three making four and all of them are done:

Here's what we're looking for. Your edge should be darker and burnished to a smooth glassy surface. It's important when sanding or rubbing to go in both directions on an edge or you can get some prickilies. This one has no prickilies:

We're almost done but out of time for now.

As always questions, comments and discussion always welcome.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Filing the welt never once occurred to me, nor did cleaning up stitch marks while they were wet.

Another top tier post Horsewright , sure beats reading the Sunday paper!

 

[Horsewright]

Filing the welt never once occurred to me, nor did cleaning up stitch marks while they were wet.

Another top tier post Horsewright , sure beats reading the Sunday paper!

Thanks!

So now we'll finish up the sheaths well....with a finish. I have used Fiebings Bag Kote for many years and have been really pleased with it. I used Tan Kote prior to that but prefer the Bag Kote. Bag Kote gives a subtle sheen and the greatest thing I like about it? It makes your leather look like leather not like plastic. This is really the only finish we use for almost everything we make. We do use a different finish on the Horseshoe Coasters that Nichole makes but thats it. Roughout projects don't get a finish obviously, so Bag Kote with those exceptions, is it. For an applicator I prefer an old t shirt stretched tight across a couple of fingers.

I'll get the t-shirt, where its stretched over my fingers, wet directly from the bottle. Then starting with the edges of the sheath I will them a good coat. Important to rub the finish on the edges in both directions. Ya are probably gonna have some small prickilies and applying finish in both directions will help smooth out these edges. Without re wetting the t-shirt I will apply the finish to the front of the sheath including the body and top as well as the front of the loop. Basically, everything ya can see while it's laying on the bench back down. I will then re wet the t-shirt and start on the second sheath. I'll do that for all the sheaths, edges first and then a thin top coat. One of the great advantages of this finish is that it dries quickly. By the time I finished the last sheath in this small batch the first one is ready for coat two. Again I start on the edges and then do the front of the sheath. When working on the edges you shouldn't feel any prickilies this time. The edge should be smooth in both directions. After all the sheaths have had two coats on the edges and on the top I apply a coat to the back. I don't really try to get any finish under the belt loop just the loop of the sheath itself and the rest of the body. I leave the edges alone this time just the body of the sheath and the loop. I only put one coat on the back. Since I'm not doing the edges first when I do the back I think the coat is a little heavier and so balances out with the two coats on the front. Let em dry and you are all done. Ya should have something like this:

I hope that this tutorial has been beneficial to you. If you haven't read my tutorial on Pancake sheaths you might want to have a look there too:

Pancake Sheaths and how I go about them. (PIC HEAVY)

I'd had a couple of requests about more info on how I build Pancake Sheaths. I had one to build for a knife I'd already sold and the customer wanted this sheath instead of what came with it. Thought I'd pictorially document the steps I go through. Here I've grabbed a front and a back...

www.bladeforums.com

One of the cool things about leather work is that a lot of the processes are similar regardless of what ya make. As always questions, comments and discussion are most welcome.

 

[000Robert]

Thanks, Dave! Your tutorials are always helpful and appreciated.

 

[CasePeanut]

Awesome tutorial. Thank you!

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks, Dave! Your tutorials are always helpful and appreciated.

Thanks! Ya bet!

Awesome tutorial. Thank you!

Ya bet and thnaks.

 

[Londinium Armoury]

Thank you very much for taking the time to do this.
I will be bookmarking this and adding it to my library.

 

[000Robert]

I have my two OWB sheaths drying now. I heated the Neatsfoot oil to 100F. I wonder if I should've let it get hotter? But I'll find out. The fumes weren't that bad either.

 

[David Bates]

Thanks Dave. Very detailed.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks guys!

I have my two OWB sheaths drying now. I heated the Neatsfoot oil to 100F. I wonder if I should've let it get hotter? But I'll find out. The fumes weren't that bad either.

I just get er warm so I guess 100 is fine. Do you have pure neatsfoot oil or neatsfoot compound?

 

[000Robert]

Thanks guys!


I just get er warm so I guess 100 is fine. Do you have pure neatsfoot oil or neatsfoot compound?

Pure. I order a quart from Weaver. This morning I ordered a bottle of Bag Cote and some wool pads and stuff. I used Super Sheen today on my 2 CPK sheaths.