Leather Handle Repair

[bruce]

I have a knife with a handle made of leather washers or disks. The disks comprising half the handle closest to the hilt are loose and seem to slide laterally on the tang. There is no visible space between the disks but they move out of alignment with each other. It appears the disks were not cemented to one another, and the holes in the disks are larger than the tang. Is there a way to repair this without taking the handle apart? Or should I just send it back to the manufacturer? Thanks for your help.

Bruce Woodbury

 

[DC]

Bruce..
I fixed a friend's knife that had the exact same problem:

I got some heavy duty thread of approx the same color as the leather. Pick the least visible spot and essentially you will create an extra washer by wrapping layers of thread around the tang axis up to the surface. I'd wrap and about every 1/16" layer build up I'd put a few drops of superglue on the thread so it gets impregnated...then continue winding then glueing, etc.
Its been about 11 months and he hasn't had a problem with the fixed part.