Leather for stacked handles

David Stifle

David Stifle

Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
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I usually make my stacked handles from leftovers from sheaths. But sometimes I run a little thin on supply. Seeing as how you have to grind, sand and polish leather handles, I was wondering if I could order a less polished grade of leather. I'm not sure what the nomenclature (rawhide?) would be, or the source. Basically, I'd be looking for tanned, but not buffed or polished leather, on the assumption it would be less expensive. What do you guys think of this idea?
 
You can buy leather washers from USA Knifemakers for about 67 cents each. Those might get pretty expensive after a while so it may not work too well. You can get them in various widths and thicknesses. I am pretty sure that they are just rawhide, they certainly don't look polished.
 
Rawhide has not been tanned. I'd splurge and go to the left over bin at Tandy. Or take a look at their seconds.
 
Leather shoe soles and there leftovers. It's vegetable tanned leather and comes up to almost 1/4inch thick.
We throw tons of it away where I work and I have enough of at least 20 handles.
I could send you some but the postage won't be worth it. Since you only need small pieces that are to small to use for something else you should be able to get some cheap or for free.
The hard rubber from soles might make nice spacers as well (brown, black)
 
Thanks Guys, I'll check out Tandy's to see what they might offer, and sure, if I see old boots, shoes, etc worth salvage I'll do it. But what I was looking for was the industry terminology for the unpolished grade of leather and a possible source. I admit I haven't done any research yet, I thought someone could just rattle off the terminology. What I'm looking for might not even exist or if it does, it might not be any cheaper.
 
Don't re-use old soles, use the cut offs of the new soles when they get re-soled.
You want vegetable tanned leather. The part you will see when used as a handle is the side, so the finish of the top of the leather you use doesn't matter. If you glue the pieces together you will want to sand the top and bottem in such a way that the fibers are open and will accept the glue. We use gritt 24 or 36 for that.
Always glue leather twice
 
I can't remember who I got them from, but at a knife show several years back I bought four bags of 100 leather handle washers for something like $10 a bag. They had a rectangular slot and were a brown color, and about 3/16" thick. I think they were from the Camillus factory.

I did a quick search and found this chap. I bet he would be very reasonable in bulk.:
http://www.twinleather.com/twnhandl.htm
 
I've used suede with Tightbond III. Suede will work well on Puukos and such.
 
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