Second Attempt: SAK and Maglite, horizontal carry

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WhiteKnuckle

Joined
Mar 9, 2016
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So I really liked the SAK that I bought to give as a gift last week, I was less pleased with the pouch I made for it, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

But I learned quite a bit, so I decided I'd be a little bit more ambitious with my second attempt. I do a lot of hiking and camping in the summer, so I wanted something that I could throw on my belt when going on a day hike that would have pretty much anything I'd want. I settled on a SAK Camper and an LED Mini Maglite.

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I'm a pretty harsh critic of my own work, but I can't come up with anything I'd change. The retention on both knife and flashlight is great, but I'll add a little shock-cord lanyard to the Maglite that can be hooked around the front so it can't slide out.

The design feature I'm most proud of, and while I'm sure it's been done before it's still new to me, is that since it's a horizontal carry if you wear it at 9 or 3 o'clock you can turn the light on and it'll illuminate the ground in front of you hands-free.
 
Now you're cooking with gas! That's outstanding!

Oh, I'm looking for your so-called crooked stitches on the back of this one and I'm not seeing them. :thumbup:

Zieg
 
That is very nice. I would suggest a piece of shock cord on your light.

Awesome craftsmanship.

Todd
 
The Zieg said:
Now you're cooking with gas! That's outstanding!

Oh, I'm looking for your so-called crooked stitches on the back of this one and I'm not seeing them. :thumbup:

Zieg
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Thanks Zieg!

And yes, I really took my time with making the stitching holes, and it shows. I think that last time around I was just in a rush. But really it probably only added ten minutes to the project to do it the right way.

just-a-hunter said:
That is very nice. I would suggest a piece of shock cord on your light.

Awesome craftsmanship.

Todd
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Thank you sir, and I've got a spool of shock-cord coming in the mail. At the moment the retention is really good, but I'm sure it'll loosen up a bit over time.
 
Very nice. Stitching is perfect! Very professionlal looking. How tight is the belt loop on the belt?
 
I see a custom stamp going on the back of these in your near future. I would certainly pay you for a project like this!
Zieg
 
Horsewright said:
Very nice. Stitching is perfect! Very professionlal looking. How tight is the belt loop on the belt?
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Thanks Dave! I formed the loop around a 2" wide belt blank, and it has a tiny amount of extra room on top of that, better over than under in a case like this.

The Zieg said:
I see a custom stamp going on the back of these in your near future. I would certainly pay you for a project like this!
Zieg
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Getting there. I post on a few different forums and have been getting some requests for non-sheath work, so I'm going to have to come up with a makers-mark and business name pretty soon.
 
I actually go the other way on my horizontal sheaths. I've found right at size seems to work better for me. As you mentioned they will loosen up with time. Kind of a fine line particualrly if you go to making stuff for others (and you certainly should, that is very nice work). Ya don't want the customer to have to wrestle the sheath/case onto the belt but nor do you want it to slide around when they pull the knife out. Right at size seems to make a more compact, tighter package too. I missed recently and made a belt loop slightly oversized for one of Nichole's knives. Guess who gets to make a whole new sheath today? Or so I've been informed.
 
Yeah I tried to get it pretty close. But it was tough on this one in particular, since the belt-loop and flashlight-loop are one piece of leather and the end of it butts up against the piece that goes over the top of the knife (I'll add a pic since that isn't all that clear) But what it boils down to is: I had to cut the leather for the loop first, then form it around everything and glue it in place. I was really worried I'd screw it up at the last second and ruin all the work I did up until that point.
 
This is very nice work Only thing I would change is to stitch closer to knife cause theres no need for so much space.:thumbup:
 
Nice work :thumbup:
I made a few combo sheaths , but I was never happy with the horizontal ones that I made and that annoyed me because I love horizontal sheaths .
The dept of the sheath required to accommodate both the knife and flashlight results in a sheath that is as deep as a vertical one and you lose all the benefits of the comfortable carry aspect that makes horizontal sheaths great .
Retention and security of the flashlight was also always a concern in my view , so I scrapped the idea and resorted to making them vertical in a blatant rip off of Gary Graley's design ( sorry Gary :) )
Combo sheaths are cool and I'm surprised we don't see more of them here .
I think you have done a great job and I can't wait to see the next one .

Ken
 
I can't add to what has already been expressed, so I'll just say, awesome work.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Macan said:
This is very nice work Only thing I would change is to stitch closer to knife cause theres no need for so much space.:thumbup:
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Yeah that's a bit of an overreaction to the last pouch I made, during the wet forming I cut the darts too far in so I had very little room for the stitching. It worked out ok, but only just.

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So this time around I made sure to leave myself plenty of room, maybe too much since as you said there's no need for that much space. If this was a friction sheath I'd have cut it closer, but since it has a strap I'm not worried about it loosening up a bit.

harronek said:
Nice work :thumbup:
I made a few combo sheaths , but I was never happy with the horizontal ones that I made and that annoyed me because I love horizontal sheaths .
The dept of the sheath required to accommodate both the knife and flashlight results in a sheath that is as deep as a vertical one and you lose all the benefits of the comfortable carry aspect that makes horizontal sheaths great .
Retention and security of the flashlight was also always a concern in my view , so I scrapped the idea and resorted to making them vertical in a blatant rip off of Gary Graley's design ( sorry Gary :) )
Combo sheaths are cool and I'm surprised we don't see more of them here .
I think you have done a great job and I can't wait to see the next one .

Ken
Click to expand...

Thanks Ken, you're right about the fact that this takes up just as much vertical space as a traditional sheath. But I had two reasons for doing a horizontal: 1. I'd never made one before and wanted to try. And 2. I can do this:

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This little Maglite throws a serious amount of light right in front of you. While it wouldn't replace a good LED headlamp for serious work, it's more than enough to say, unlock your front door while trying to balance 3 bags of groceries.

As to the security of the retention on the flashlight, I wouldn't trust it on it's own. But add a little shock-cord lanyard and this thing isn't going anywhere:

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That looks great! I like the utility of the sheath holding the flashlight in a useable location. I end up with my p2 in my mouth when my hands are full.
 
Beautiful work. Love how the flashlight is functional inside the sheath. Want to give this a try myself. I wonder if it would be possible somehow to position the flashlight holder *on top* of the sheath welt and right next to the knife pocket, so that the whole package would have a smaller profile and not hang down so far. Thoughts?
 
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