Making a pouch sheath - Apprentice Thread.

[ricsha]

TF, that would be great if you would take the time to do that. Not an Arete though, one I don't have... Bushcrafter or Bushfinger would be cool.
Regards,
Rich

 

[Diomedes Industries]

I can do either -so I will do both on the same design. Shouldn't change much.

Give me a little time - I have classes starting next week - so I have a million syllabi to write.

TF

 

[write2dgray]

Please let me know how and if I may assist if needed in the CAD/design . Sometimes I scan objects in my daily business to make designs around, it strikes me that this may be a great way to design sheathes for knives (without shipping) as everything comes through to scale.

I'm heading up to Tandy this weekend to buy the last few tools I need to start my apprenticeship. I'll be making a sheath for a Recluse.

On a side note, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Tal this last weekend and am looking forward to sharing the work for a Bushfinger soon.

Cheers,
David

 

[Tribial]

I'm lurking and learning here... great thread thank you!
love the sheath I got as well!

 

[schmittie]

The stitch chisel will work, it does leave a pretty big slot though. A suggestion on the chisel would be to find one that has the prongs on a slant rather than a straight line. The slant makes for less chance of the stitch pulling trough to the next one in line.

The flat prong is meant for lacing, The diamond shaped ones are for stitching. Reason being is it is very easy to rip your stitches through
when it is like this - - - - - , think perforations like paper towels, and not easy when they are offset like so / / / / /

When you gentlemen refer to a chisel with prongs on a slant instead of a straight line, do you mean something like this?-

If this was used, would the stitch lines look alright? It seems to me it would just be an offset look for the stitching. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Knives-Like Tal says, best cutting tool is a razor knife. Been trying for years to make a blade that I liked and worked well for cutting leather. Haven't made it yet. Tandy sells a simple razor knife with good ergonomics, quick easy razor change and priced right. Just tried a Stanley Fat Max and sure liked the feel. The quick blade change feature didn't work well, so back to the Tandy.

Rick, I'm not sure if it's something you might consider, but I use a Cold Steel mini tuff lite to cut leather. They come very sharp from the factory, but I went ahead and reprofiled mine to around 25° inclusive. The thing is a machine at cutting leather (and carving wood). They go for around $25, and it's one of my very favorite knives.

I have that stretchy medical tape wrapped around the knife to make it more comfortable. I also rounded the spine, and chamfered the inner sharp edges of the jimping. Sweet leather knife.

Tal- this is an amazing body of work! I wonder if it would be okay to also put it in the Projects forum. It's easily the best resource I've seen on sheath making and deserves to have a wider audience.

 

[Rick Lowe]

Schmittie-If you were going to use that chisel, that would be the best type. The diagonal slots prevent the chance of the stitches from tearing down into the following hole. With that said, it's still not a really good tool for hand sewing. It's designed to use with regular lace and does make a bigger slit than needed. When you pull the thread tight, there will be some open space due to the larger size of the split. In comparison, the Osbourne diamond awl is 2.75mm wide, but very thin as opposed to the chisel prongs and you can control the slit angle each time through.

Strigamort-Now that knife looks like it would sure work. I like the blade size and the ergonomics of the handle. Tough thing with most knife blades is getting the grind thin enough to cut leather well. I'm still planning to work on a couple more with that handle shape and get down tight on the grinder.

 

[thurin]

For you guys that have a bench belt sander: Any recommendations on a good, yet cheap, one? For finishing up the sheath edges (and the occasionally blade reprofile)?

ETA: Also, if you know of a good supplier for Osborne Awls and Needles let me know, although you'll probably have to PM or email it to me.

 

[Diomedes Industries]

Thurin - for these needs - do you have a drill press? If so - get a barrel sander - a fairly large one. It will work perfectly.

If not - Flip a hand belt sander upside down - mount it in a vice - and use that.

If not - a cheapie - a flat plate works well.

TF

 

[Skystorm]

A cheap sander can always be found at places like harbor freight or northern tool though I generally just subscribe to the buy once cry once theory when it comes to tools. I wonder if Andy would make me a leather knife. Now that would be sweeeeeet.

Schmittie - What your looking for is a diamond shaped tip prong, the flat ones are lacing prongs. Too wide for thread. If you go to Tandy just search for diamond stitching prong.

 

[schmittie]

For you guys that have a bench belt sander: Any recommendations on a good, yet cheap, one? For finishing up the sheath edges (and the occasionally blade reprofile)?

I am no expert. I do have two belt sanders though. A Delta 1x30 and a Craftsman 4x36. So far the craftsman has been much more useful for leather edges with a fine grit paper. I would love to know what the experienced benders use!

 

[Skystorm]

Ok Gents,

Talked with Tal about this a few days ago, for those that are not close to, or have a local leather store to go fondle dead cows at I can offer you maybe an easier solution. I have a couple die patterns that we use I would consider good for beginners to get started on. Benefits to this are pretty simple, die cut is a perfect cut every time, less sanding/burnishing, Pattern is already laid out for you and I use Hermann Oak leather which is going to be far superior to anything your going to get ahold of at Tandy, especially if you plan on doing any tooling and you won't need to buy a whole shoulder, back or side.

I'm not making a sales pitch, the cost for them is simply what it costs me to order an extra side or two in, click it for you and ship it out to you. If there is interest then I will order a side in, I can't pull it from inventory since that seems to send my accountant into angry fits when I do things at cost. The offer is only for people in the apprentice thread.

Pretty easy patterns, from left to right: Pouch style sheath with an upper flare, regular bushcraft sheath, a slim pouch sheath, and a pocket sheath. The first 3 come in a small medium or large size and include matching welts, for some reason my die company shorted me the bushcraft medium and large welts so they are being replaced currently. The pocket sheath is good for knives the size of the Hiking Buddy, Bushboot etc. I have no standard welt design for the pocket sheath since it will be a different shape for every knife. The other 3 sheaths you can add a firesteel loop and dangler to if desired, I forgot to take pics of them but I figure they are pretty self explanatory.

If you decide you want something different or more challenging you can look through my site and we can discuss it, I have a ton of patterns. If some enterprising person wants to design a Fiddleback only design I might be persuaded to have the dies and/or stamps made for it. Actually it would be pretty cool to have sheaths with the FB logo stamped on them.

Price will be between 10-12, add 2 for the firesteel loop, 5 for the dangler and d ring. Shipping is 5.35 and they go priority mail flat rate.

Size comparison

I do not have one of every Fiddleback , yet, to test fit. Most of Andy's knives come in the medium and small category and I have those covered pretty well but ones like Hunters and Dukes I don't have and we will need to do some measuring so I can pick the right size for you.

For general/size/what fits what questions please pm me so we can avoid clogging up the thread.


Keep on building!

 

[Skystorm]

I am no expert. I do have two belt sanders though. A Delta 1x30 and a Craftsman 4x36. So far the craftsman has been much more useful for leather edges with a fine grit paper. I would love to know what the experienced benders use!

A 6x48 belt/disc combo with a 100 grit belt and a drill press with drums to get into the ones with a tighter radius. The higher grit you go the more tendency it has to burn the edges, took me a while to figure that out when I first started since it is contrary to about everything I learned as a woodworker.

 

[Diomedes Industries]

I agree totally with Sky. I have a Belt Disc combo - although not as long as a 48. It works great.

TF

 

[Diomedes Industries]

Okay kids. I am updating my videos. I have completed a full series of making this video - and it is long - so I split it into many parts. I am uploading the others - but here is Part A to get you started:

[video=youtube_share;X_HkDdttJDE]http://youtu.be/X_HkDdttJDE[/video]

Part B:

[video=youtube_share;PjGssGUqmig]http://youtu.be/PjGssGUqmig[/video]

Part C:

[video=youtube_share;sYLYNY4KV1Y]http://youtu.be/sYLYNY4KV1Y[/video]

Update 3:



TF

 

[thurin]

Strigamort-Now that knife looks like it would sure work. I like the blade size and the ergonomics of the handle. Tough thing with most knife blades is getting the grind thin enough to cut leather well. I'm still planning to work on a couple more with that handle shape and get down tight on the grinder.

I wonder if a Fiddleback Carver in 3/32 or even 1/16 would work. Give it a distal taper, nice high grind and beefy handle.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

A cheap sander can always be found at places like harbor freight or northern tool though I generally just subscribe to the buy once cry once theory when it comes to tools. I wonder if Andy would make me a leather knife. Now that would be sweeeeeet.

Schmittie - What your looking for is a diamond shaped tip prong, the flat ones are lacing prongs. Too wide for thread. If you go to Tandy just search for diamond stitching prong.

Look for one of Andy's old Carvers. I would verify with him that they are ground well for the job (I don't own one... yet), but looks to me like they'd be great.

I too have a Delta 1x30. I also have a HF 4x36 with the disk grinder. I enjoy the 1x30 for sharpening quite a bit, the 4x36 is helpful for wood and scales and what not. Never used either for edging though.

Edit- (don't want to clutter up the thread any more) thurin, yes, I do believe one of those would be excellent. I own a number of handmade carving knives and all (with the exception of hook knives) would make for wicked leather cutters.

 

[thurin]

Ok Gents,

Talked with Tal about this a few days ago, for those that are not close to, or have a local leather store to go fondle dead cows at I can offer you maybe an easier solution. I have a couple die patterns that we use I would consider good for beginners to get started on. Benefits to this are pretty simple, die cut is a perfect cut every time, less sanding/burnishing, Pattern is already laid out for you and I use Hermann Oak leather which is going to be far superior to anything your going to get ahold of at Tandy, especially if you plan on doing any tooling and you won't need to buy a whole shoulder, back or side.

...

Price will be between 10-12, add 2 for the firesteel loop, 5 for the dangler and d ring. Shipping is 5.35 and they go priority mail flat rate.

...

I do not have one of every Fiddleback , yet, to test fit. Most of Andy's knives come in the medium and small category and I have those covered pretty well but ones like Hunters and Dukes I don't have and we will need to do some measuring so I can pick the right size for you.

For general/size/what fits what questions please pm me so we can avoid clogging up the thread.


Keep on building!

That's a pretty sweet offer Skystorm. I'm gonna have to take you up on that soon.

If I can help with any dimensions on knives let me know. Specifically I have a Hunter and Woodsman that would fit into the class you said you're missing. Take a look here and let me know what other measurements you'd need: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1135499-Comparison-Photos

 

[ricsha]

Skystorm,
What a generous offer to help us! I'll PM you later (off to work now) about specifics, but will definitely take you up on your offer and take about 5 die-cut leathers.
This thread just keeps getting better and better.
Rich

 

[Diomedes Industries]

This is what happens when people care, in my opinion. It feeds on itself. I post, someone else feeds and posts, someone else pays it forward.

Perfect example of the passing on of knowledge and good ju-ju.

I am uploading the final video's to make the series complete now.

TF