Hi Strigamort. Thank you for the response. I'm not ready to make a sheath on my own just yet so I thought I would try making changes to this one. My plan was to put a mottled finish in some areas and dye with a darker color. In addition, I wanted to add a few copper rivets. Would I use a swivel knife to create the mottled finish? What brand dye would you recommend? Sorry really know very little in regard to leather work. Thanks. Attempting to attach a photo of the sheath now.
Try looking at threads that cover custom dyeing in this forum. There are a couple that I'm aware of recently. The best mottled job that I've done was by accident. I had spent some time making everything nice and two toned (black and green). When I went to wet form the colors ran together and looked nice. Mottled can mean very different things to different people though.
A swivel knife is used to cut designs into veg tanned leather. Other tools are used in conjunction to achieve work like scrolling, plants and roses, western scenes, animals, etc.
To add copper rivets you'll need the rivets and tools to set them. Tandy, I believe, has what you need. I don't bother myself as I've found contact cement and waxed thread to be more than sufficient in terms of durability, although there may be some use for them in extreme situations. I believe they are probably used most often for ease of manufacturing or looks.
As far as I've seen Fiebings leather dye is the overwhelming choice for dyeing leather. I've tried their spirit based dye and their pro "oil" (not really oil) based dye and I'm switching to the oil based. Great stuff.
Other choices for dye are Tandy's Eco Flo water based dye (I won't be using this stuff) and Angelus products. I'm sure there are others but I'm not aware of them.
Good luck and let me know if there's anything else I can help you with.