Integral Knife/Sheath combos...

Daniel Koster

www.kosterknives.com
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 18, 2001
Messages
20,978
What's the secret to these knife/sheath combinations?

I've never seen a picture of the opening the blade slides into, so I'm curious what the technique is to keep it nice-looking.

ba03002.jpg


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I'm interested in learning this technique. Any help or direction would be appreciated. But, I'm not really into the japanese/tanto end of it - just the sheath and elegance of the sheathed knife.

Dan
 
I've made several of these by simply routing out the space for the blade and glueing them togather. The hard part is to make them go in eather way and still have the meeting even.
Lynn
 
Like Lynn said. The first time I did this(picture), the sheath took me longer than the knife.
Sorry for the crummy photo, but it's the only one I have.:eek:
 
I can't really help on the topic...

But Mike, I LOVE that boot knife!!! Simple elegance...with your flawless execution!

Thanks for sharing Mike :)

Nick
 
ragweedforge.com has a book on scadanavian knifemaking that shows how antler sheaths are made. It is cutting them in half and gouging out a channel. A book I have on Japanese swords shows a sheath made out of one long piece of wood cut in half by hand! Quite a bit of skill and artistry to cut a piece of wood straight for that long.
 
I bought the Scandanavian knife book and it shows combo sheaths (like the neck knife above) but none like the Corkum knife. I guess this is after a Japanese style?

I found a pic of a very nice, but longer tanto knife with this type design.


BrodziakRedDragonTanto.jpg



BrodziakRedDragonTanto2.jpg



Are tanto knives the only style used this way? :confused:

Dan
 
Bo Bergman also has a book on how to do those finnish blades and sheaths.
 
Bo's book is the one that I bought...
 
Dave Larsen and Guy Thomas are working on a tanto at the moment they may have some ideas. If you look up the old posts dave put a couple of photos of his last tanto and the inside fit.

I think basicaly the copper bit is tappered and rough to get the grip.

I have seen the asian wood sheaths made in two halves. They are very basic. A tight fit at the top is all that holds them in.
 
Reg pretty much has the idea. The "habaki" copper collar is indeed the friction-fit device that holds the blade in the sheath ("saya" in Japanese). You might also cross-post this question to the Sword forum here on BFC because katana-length swords also use the habaki & wooden saya.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=733

Here's a whole page that talks about the habaki:
http://www.scnf.org/habaki.html
And their page on saya construction:
http://www.scnf.org/saya.html
Check out this picture of a sword handle from Fred Lohman's nihonto site:
http://www.japanese-swords.com/images/fittings/handle.jpg

To get more info do a Google search on the term "nihonto". Close to a couple thousand hits. ;)
 
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