Well I finally finished my 'do it myself' Dumpster Mutt sheath project. I made mistakes and I know about them, but all in all, as my second sheath ever, I think it ain't bad.
General Observations
If you try using the needle to just push through the leather without drilling a hole first you, a) risk putting the needle through your finger, b) will, sooner or later, snap the needle.
5/64 is the best drill size.
Holes drill straighter if you glue the leather pieces together before drilling them.
Sewing lines are straighter when you mark them with a pencil first, then follow the marks.
Pieces glued together with Leather Weld don't come apart easily.
This was built by first making a milk bottle liner (below) using an old milk bottle heated onto the blade with a paint remover gun, and gluing some alligator hide (about 3 weight) to some cowhide split (about 5 weight, also shown below.) secured in place with Tandy's Leather Weld, then stitched at the edges, just in case.
Here it is alongside my first sheath for my Scrapper 4 (this first sheath is holding up just fine in more or less daily use as a light woods knife and its milk bottle liner seems to hold the knife in much better than the sheath detractors anticipated).
The rivet on the bottom of this DM sheath is totally non-functional and serves merely as a decoration. All of the stitch lines are lock stitched, and as you can see, I double stitched all seam lines. I used the tabs on the milk bottle liner as drilled out anchor points for the thread so the liner is actually stitched into the sheath (a little glue was also added prior to sewing). You can also see how the throat of the milk bottle liner used in lieu of a welt provides a guide for the blade when sheathing it.
General Observations
If you try using the needle to just push through the leather without drilling a hole first you, a) risk putting the needle through your finger, b) will, sooner or later, snap the needle.
5/64 is the best drill size.
Holes drill straighter if you glue the leather pieces together before drilling them.
Sewing lines are straighter when you mark them with a pencil first, then follow the marks.
Pieces glued together with Leather Weld don't come apart easily.
This was built by first making a milk bottle liner (below) using an old milk bottle heated onto the blade with a paint remover gun, and gluing some alligator hide (about 3 weight) to some cowhide split (about 5 weight, also shown below.) secured in place with Tandy's Leather Weld, then stitched at the edges, just in case.
Here it is alongside my first sheath for my Scrapper 4 (this first sheath is holding up just fine in more or less daily use as a light woods knife and its milk bottle liner seems to hold the knife in much better than the sheath detractors anticipated).
The rivet on the bottom of this DM sheath is totally non-functional and serves merely as a decoration. All of the stitch lines are lock stitched, and as you can see, I double stitched all seam lines. I used the tabs on the milk bottle liner as drilled out anchor points for the thread so the liner is actually stitched into the sheath (a little glue was also added prior to sewing). You can also see how the throat of the milk bottle liner used in lieu of a welt provides a guide for the blade when sheathing it.
