Completed my first sheath. This was fun. Thanks TF for the tutorial! You guys (Tal, Rick, Heber) make this look too easy. My Hat's off to you!
Pouch sheath for Kephart. I went for a rustic look - aka I used the roughest section of my shoulder for the first sheath as practice. I plan on making another for this knife with what I learned. It's not great by any means, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Some pics, and then below some notes/things i learned.
Some things I learned:
My stitch groove wasn't deep enough. Instead of using a drill - I don't have a drill press and don't have enough confidence in myself to keep a hand held one straight enough - I used a set of Thonging Chisels to punch the holes (a tip I picked up from another tutorial). A deeper stitch groove would have helped with the punching more and helped seat the thread better.
Need more room between the edge and the stitch groove. It looked good, until I had to start sanding down the edge to get the welt flush. Now it's a little uneven looking and close.
Be sure to burnish the edges of the belt loop and opening before stitching the loop. I forgot, and ended up marring the back of the sheath trying to do it after the fact.
I need to process the belt loop more. It's too furry. I sanded with 60 and then 150 and thought it was smooth, but as soon as some dye hit it, the fuzzies popped right back out.
My thread broke while back stitching the end of the sheath on the bottom. Fortunately I had a couple already done, but it broke coming out the front and doesn't look the cleanest. Not sure what I did to break the thread, I guess just yanking too hard getting it through the hole.
I used a double welt at the handle. I was worried the fit would be too tight after fitting it up on the dry run. Worked out good and fit is nice. Safety beveler worked great at skiving the welt.
I need the adjustable V-groover. Using the safety beveler worked for thinning out the fold at the blade end, but it wasn't as crisp as I'd like. it would come in handy other places as well, like deepening the stitch groove if needed and adding decorative touches.
Wear gloves whenever you so much as look at the dye. I made the mistake of opening the jar once without the gloves and now I look like I had issues wiping.
I'm sure there's plenty of things I missed and all sorts of stuff that can be pointed out where I messed things up. But I'm pretty happy for my first attempt.
All in all, it was a great experience. This old dog learned something new. Thanks again Tal for the tutorial and for everyone with their questions and input!