Horsewright Knives and Leather

[Horsewright]

This is my Horizontal sheath. Carried crossdraw it is very comfortable and out of the way until needed. This is the sheath I personally carry on a day to day basis. The Horizontal sheath can be tooled or plain:

Then there is the Pancake sheath. This sheath can be worn crossdraw, behind the hip or small of the back (SOB) carry. It too can be done plain to fully tooled:

I also make a Boot Sheath. This is the only "generalized " sheath I make, that is not made to a specific knife. While I keep these in stock for many knives I occasionally get a special request for XL sizes:

Made this one of the cross the road neighbor. He likes to carry this knife in the tool pocket of his Carhartt's.

I also make a "Sash Sheath" a traditional Bowie style sheath. Have to see if I can find some pics for ya.

 

[Horsewright]

I was working on the hamon on six 26C3 high carbon blades blades yesterday and I thought you guys might enjoy the process. These blades were clay coated during heat treat. So in this first pic we have a glass jar with water and a Cowboy blade in it. This Cowboy is the last of the batch. The water in the glass jar is very hot. Then there is a container with rusty looking water in it and then a container of diluted ferric chloride. The FC is diluted at 1 part FC to 3 parts water. I have hand washed each blade with Dawn soap to clean them off well prior to going in the glass jar.

So we put the blade in the FC and let it stand making sure that all later to be exposed parts (not covered by handle and or bolster) are submerged. I will do 5 or so 45 second soaks. After each one the blade is removed from the FC rinsed off in in the plastic water container and then scrubbed with 0000 steel wool:

Each successive dip will gradually get our blade darker and our hamon more defined;

Before the steel wool scrubbing it will often look a lil streaky like this:

After the fifth FC dip it will look pretty good:

While FC is a pretty mild acid (Radio Shack sold it for cleaning circuit boards), it's still an acid and it needs to be neutralized or it will keep working on the steel. My fingers above are from grinding by the way not from the FC. So what do we do? We spray er down with Original Formula Windex that has ammonia. The ammonia being a baes neutralizes the acid:

Then dry it with a paper towel:

Polishing a hamon can be a bottomless pit of a rabbit hole. I stay out of that rabbit hole and create what I call a "working hamon". I use buffers to knock the oxides off south of our hamon.

The final step is to scrub briskly with CLP oil and then wipe off:

I can do a batch like this in a couple hours, instead of spending hours and hours and hours on each one. I think they look good and they are pretty durable I was really pleased with how consistent this batch was. Not unusual to have a couple stars and a couple not as great, but this whole batch was great.

 

[echoscout]

Reckon that sure is interesting Dave

 

[echoscout]

For Micarta Monday I'm packin this Sonoran Belt Knife

 

[Horsewright]

For Micarta Monday I'm packin this Sonoran Belt Knife

View attachment 2807961

That Boot Sheath works for bout everything don’t it.

 

[echoscout]

That Boot Sheath works for bout everything don’t it.

Yes sir it sure does. Had a Coyote in it last couple of days before switching to the Sonoran Belt Knife today. Works real good with my Cowboys and Mestanos also.

 

[Horsewright]

Yes sir it sure does. Had a Coyote in it last couple of days before switching to the Sonoran Belt Knife today. Works real good with my Cowboys and Mestanos also.

Gooddeal! That was always the idea behind the Boot Sheath. That it was not knife specific.

 

[RLB0414]

Thanks for the information on the hamon process

 

[K-Lastima]

You make the stag handled pizza rocker?
It is very classy.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks for the information on the hamon process

You bet sir! That other project should be done today. Buffing only to do yet.

You make the stag handled pizza rocker?
It is very classy.

Yes I do. But full disclosure, I'm only putting the handles on, I'm not making the blades. The blades come from Rockler, that wood working supply place. I've made five or six of em.

They work very well on pizza and other things as well. My daughter on the pizza here and my sister in law working on some bacon.

Made one for my son's FIL. He has a BBQ catering business in eastern OR. They'll do gigs for large numbers, 500-700 people etc. He uses his to cut smoked ribs but also to make coleslaw and other uses. He loves it.

 

[RLB0414]

You bet sir! That other project should be done today. Buffing only to do yet.

Thank you sir

 

[Horsewright]

Nichole has been making sourdough pizza crust for a while now. She has two starters, Hulk and Wanda which she tends carefully. Some of the best pizza I ever had:

We were talking about sheaths and a semi local guy brought me four kitchen knives to make sheaths for. I call this a Slip Sheath:

Each one was a lil different:

A very nice set of knives:

Working on a new batch right now. Ready to start baking the sheaths tomorrow.

 

[mitch13]

Nichole has been making sourdough pizza crust for a while now. She has two starters, Hulk and Wanda which she tends carefully. Some of the best pizza I ever had:

We were talking about sheaths and a semi local guy brought me four kitchen knives to make sheaths for. I call this a Slip Sheath:

Each one was a lil different:

A very nice set of knives:

Working on a new batch right now. Ready to start baking the sheaths tomorrow.

Nice sheaths
& You are making me hungry

 

[jfk1110]

Always a joy to go thru this thread..

 

[Horsewright]

Nice sheaths
& You are making me hungry

Thanks and sorry! Its really good pizza.

Always a joy to go thru this thread..

Thank you sir!

 

[lambertiana]

Nichole has been making sourdough pizza crust for a while now. She has two starters, Hulk and Wanda which she tends carefully. Some of the best pizza I ever had:

Now that's a pizza cutter.

Hulk and Wanda. There must be a story behind the names. How long have you had them? Can you still tell a difference in flavor between them?

Normally over time a sourdough starter changes to the local yeast varieties, so Hulk and Wanda should be converging in flavor. Fifteen years ago I got some starter from my brother in Tennessee, and I use it to make sourdough wheat/rye bread. At first my bread tasted like his, but over the years it has changed to California sourdough, and now my bread tastes very different from my brother's, it is much stronger with a bit of a sourdough twang to it.

 

[Horsewright]

Now that's a pizza cutter.

Hulk and Wanda. There must be a story behind the names. How long have you had them? Can you still tell a difference in flavor between them?

Normally over time a sourdough starter changes to the local yeast varieties, so Hulk and Wanda should be converging in flavor. Fifteen years ago I got some starter from my brother in Tennessee, and I use it to make sourdough wheat/rye bread. At first my bread tasted like his, but over the years it has changed to California sourdough, and now my bread tastes very different from my brother's, it is much stronger with a bit of a sourdough twang to it.

Sorry, my friend that it took me a couple to get back to ya. Trying to beat the storm on a couple different fronts. Success in some areas but I didn't get the sheaths done in time. So they're done now but can't take pics due to heavy snow in my photo studio! We woke yesterday to 3-4inches. Then yesterday afternoon pretty much from noon on it was whiteout blizzard type conditions. Still snowing now but not a heavy snow.

Anyhoo Nichole got her starter from a gal at our son's work here in town. She's had it about 6 months I would say. She named it Hulk because after she fed it the first time he went crazy, really active so Hulk smash! He kinda calmed down after she had him a while and went sorta dormant. She was trying lots of things to wake him up and one of the things she'd read about was adding some wheat flour to the starter. In essence creating a second starter which is what she did with some of the excess. While Hulk was dormant this one with wheat kinda took off. Since you are suppose to name your starter I suggested Wanda to stay with the Marvel theme. Nichole liked it and the name stuck. So we have Hulk and Wanda. Nichole struggled with both for a while and then bought a special starter heater/refrigerator. This lil box sits on the kitchen counter. Ya can dial in the temp ya want and away ya go. Since that lil purchase both Hulk and Wanda are being superheroes! As ya know there is lots of science involved in this deal and some black magic too. Taking our colder weather out of the mix with this lil refrigerator/heater deal has made all the difference. Now Nichole has given several other people starters and coaches them on getting stuff going. One for us and one we took over to the neighbor's. These were from Wanda:

 

[lambertiana]

Sorry, my friend that it took me a couple to get back to ya. Trying to beat the storm on a couple different fronts. Success in some areas but I didn't get the sheaths done in time. So they're done now but can't take pics due to heavy snow in my photo studio! We woke yesterday to 3-4inches. Then yesterday afternoon pretty much from noon on it was whiteout blizzard type conditions. Still snowing now but not a heavy snow.

Anyhoo Nichole got her starter from a gal at our son's work here in town. She's had it about 6 months I would say. She named it Hulk because after she fed it the first time he went crazy, really active so Hulk smash! He kinda calmed down after she had him a while and went sorta dormant. She was trying lots of things to wake him up and one of the things she'd read about was adding some wheat flour to the starter. In essence creating a second starter which is what she did with some of the excess. While Hulk was dormant this one with wheat kinda took off. Since you are suppose to name your starter I suggested Wanda to stay with the Marvel theme. Nichole liked it and the name stuck. So we have Hulk and Wanda. Nichole struggled with both for a while and then bought a special starter heater/refrigerator. This lil box sits on the kitchen counter. Ya can dial in the temp ya want and away ya go. Since that lil purchase both Hulk and Wanda are being superheroes! As ya know there is lots of science involved in this deal and some black magic too. Taking our colder weather out of the mix with this lil refrigerator/heater deal has made all the difference. Now Nichole has given several other people starters and coaches them on getting stuff going. One for us and one we took over to the neighbor's. These were from Wanda:

I keep my starter in the fridge. Occasionally I take it out and feed it with water/flour, removing the excess as it expands. If it has been a couple months since the last feeding, it may take two or three days of feeding before it comes back to life. I've never seen a starter fridge/heater unit.

Like you, over the years I have split my starter and given some to friends.

 

[Horsewright]

I keep my starter in the fridge. Occasionally I take it out and feed it with water/flour, removing the excess as it expands. If it has been a couple months since the last feeding, it may take two or three days of feeding before it comes back to life. I've never seen a starter fridge/heater unit.

Like you, over the years I have split my starter and given some to friends.

It's been a cool lil addition and has made her life better. Nichole says its the best $120 she ever spent.

 

[Horsewright]

Here's a couple links to a couple posts in Sheaths and Such here on BF. I thought they might be of interest to some of the guys here:

Thread 'Climbed the Summit!'

Jun 28, 2018

Years ago there use to be this little restaurant here in town called The Summit. They were very close to where Hwy 58 crossed the summit of Tehachapi Pass and thus the name. Could easily see it from the ranch. Their claim to fame was they had 58 different beers from around the world. They'd give you a little card and every time you tried a different beer they'd punch the number out on your card for that beer. After you had tried all 58 you had achieved "the summit". They put your name on a plaque on the wall, gave ya a t shirt and a coffee mug proclaiming the same.

Well Recently I...

• Horsewright
• Replies: 37
• Forum: Sheaths & Such

• 

Thread 'Cowboying up North'

May 20, 2018

Its been a while since I've done one of my cowboying threads. Lots of leather work to be seen here, not only mine but others too. Here ya'll get to see stuff really being used in the work of making that steak that ya had last night and that roll of leather ya got sitting on the shelf ready to make your next sheath out of.

Recently we took five days off and travelled up north to help a friend on a ranch he is running now. Mike is a well know bit and spur maker but is also now running this ranch. Its about a seven hour drive north from here in Tehachapi. So we loaded up the horses and our...

• Horsewright
• Replies: 44
• Forum: Sheaths & Such

• 

Take a minute kind of fun......