Questions from the new guy

I

Isaacherring

Joined
Oct 27, 2015
Messages
198
Hi I am new to sheath making, my bark river gunny hunter is my favorite knife and the sheath, well not so much, so I was going to have a custom sheath made, I had peeked around at custom sheaths before this and I've always admired horsewright sheaths, so I was digging around some old threads and found the horsewright pancake sheath tutorial and decided I could do it myself, so I owe a special thanks to horsewright for the inspiration!;) But anyways I went all out with all the tools, 12 square feet of 7/8 oz Hermann oak, everything I need. I figured I should have a little practice before I went straight to the bark river so I decided to make some pocket slips using my knives ship free slip as a guide. The first one was crude, the stitching wasn't straight and neither was the tooling but it is functional, second and third had nice straight stitching but the tooling still wasn't all that, right now I'm on number 4 and the tooling is quite good, I'm in the middle of stitching and the holes are way harder to punch, this cut of leather is significantly thicker but i don't think it should be this much of a difference and I started another project out of this same leather and didn't notice it to be this hard, so I wondered if maybe the way I left it in the sun hardened it, but I left them all in the sun so I don't know, I figured that of all the places to look for answers you guys would be the most helpful, thanks!
 
I'm new too
So looking forward to experienced answers in this
Post pics if you can

" don't start none, won't be none"
 
Any heat, including the sun will harden leather, particularly if it was a bit damp to start with. However if your awl is truly sharp and POLISHED it should not be a big factor. You might try lubing the awl every two or three insertions by just stabbing into a bit of either bees wax or plain old Paraffin wax, like your Granny used to use when canning jelly. You will be amazed at the difference in the smooth penetration. Would be a good idea to make this a habit from here on. Makes life easier.

Good Luck!

Paul
 
Good deal and glad to be of help. Would like to see pics when ya can. Paul gave ya a great tip and that will probably take care of it for ya. I keep parrafin blocks at strategic locations and I don't even hand sew. Leather sometimes just has different densities through out too. It just happens.
 
Yup thanks guys the wax helped a lot, I got it all done and am uploading pics to my photobucket right now but that usually takes a while.
 
Yup thanks guys the wax helped a lot, I got it all done
Click to expand...

A little slicky in the right place is pretty much the secret to most every thing . . . at least most of the stuff I do. Don't tell anyone though; I don't want this to get around else the magic that is me will be a great deal less magic. :p:rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top