Leather Sheath Progress

[Brian Avila]

Here are some pictures of the progress of my leather work. I am actually happy with how it is turning out. I will post some more photos that show the progress but this is what I have so far. Big shout out to KT and Paul Long for all the questions they answered, allowing me to get this far.


Pattern being put onto the leather and block cut.

Hand stitching the deer skin liner (more difficult than I thought it was going to be, but if you use and awl and mark the placement of holes, it makes life 100% easier )

Rolled over

Before tooling

After tooling and working on getting the lacing punches through

 

[J&G-Designs]

Great job!

 

[leatherman]

So far so good! Thanks for posting the in progress pics!

 

[sheathmaker]

Make sure you skive that deer skin back about 1/4" from the edge so you expose nothing but veg tan leather and the welt when it comes time to finish the edges.

Paul

 

[Brian Avila]

Make sure you skive that deer skin back about 1/4" from the edge so you expose nothing but veg tan leather and the welt when it comes time to finish the edges.

Paul

I would do this but it is covered by my lacing.

 

[Brian Avila]

Finished pictures. It will lighten up after the neatsfoot oil has settled.

My leather work is getting better....but I am not sure I am really satisfied yet. I have to figure out why my borders don't look very pleasing.

 

[jaymack9100]

Pretty cool design with the seeder.

You are stamping your leather when it is way too wet. Your border stamp is pressed too deep into the leather because of this. The leather is still too wet from what I can tell on the picture where you have punched the lace holes. The leather should show signs of it's original color before you stamp it. Attached is a good tutorial on casing leather.

 

[Brian Avila]

Pretty cool design with the seeder.

You are stamping your leather when it is way too wet. Your border stamp is pressed too deep into the leather because of this. The leather is still too wet from what I can tell on the picture where you have punched the lace holes. The leather should show signs of it's original color before you stamp it. Attached is a good tutorial on casing leather.

View attachment 331818

Thanks for the thoughts.

I use Paul Long's method for casing leather, which isn't traditional casing. The leather is 7/8 oz so not very thick and does well with wetting with with a spray bottle. I am not sure if the border stamp is to deep or not. Most of them are as deep as the other stamping, but a few are too deep. It just looks off to me though and I have not figured out what it is. It could be to deep and I will just use less force with my maul next time to see. The border/edge just doesn't "flow" when I look at it.

 

[stitchawl]

Very nice looking! One thing you might want to consider is making the lacing holes at the bottom of the sheath a little bit larger going around the curve, so you can double up the lacing in that area so as not to leave empty space with leather showing through. I also fudge a bit on the ends by adding a second lace over the first two holes at the top and the last three at the end. With the Mexican Braid, there should be 2 stitches coming out of each hole, but you have only one at the tops and end holes.


Stitchawl

 

[Brian Avila]

Very nice looking! One thing you might want to consider is making the lacing holes at the bottom of the sheath a little bit larger going around the curve, so you can double up the lacing in that area so as not to leave empty space with leather showing through. I also fudge a bit on the ends by adding a second lace over the first two holes at the top and the last three at the end. With the Mexican Braid, there should be 2 stitches coming out of each hole, but you have only one at the tops and end holes.


Stitchawl

I try every time to do this. I never can seem to get it to work out the way. I make hole at the point and the two next to it as big as I can get them and then lace it about 4 times in each hole and can never get it to look like it just doesn't have a gap. I have tried doing it from one side and continuing through without going through the point hole 4 times and, then starting at both ends and lacing to the point etc, I am just doing something wrong and don't know what to do.

Every, instruction that I have seen for the Mexican Braid shows that you only have the one through lace on the top three. I have tried doubling it up but it never came out good so I went back to the instructional.

I looked at Dave Cole's tutorial about the lacing and just have been practicing it as much as I can.

 

[stitchawl]

Yes, the instruction sheets DO show just one stitch in the first few holes and the last. But as I said before, I add a second lace to those, weaving it into the braid. I end them with a dot of contact cement inside the holes so the ends aren't seen, but it appears that there is full braiding going on from top to bottom.


Stitchawl

 

[kid terico]

Weatherman GREAT job. You have come a long way. Keep it up. KT:thumbup:

 

[Zemapeli]

My leather work is getting better....but I am not sure I am really satisfied yet. I have to figure out why my borders don't look very pleasing.

No, I think that looks good?? :thumbup: What did you use to tool the sheath? I've used a woodburner before, but it didn't come out looking near as good.

 

[GrizzlyBear]

Looks like a geometric stamp, I like it. How did you lay it out? A diagonal line drawn across then lay your triangles out along the line?