St Patty's day, something with a little Green

[Gary W. Graley]

At a recent knife show, my wife's uncle has a table there and I usually take my walk around breaks in a chair during the day, sharpening a few knives and what not, this year he asked if I'd make a sheath for a recent folder he just picked up, a custom one with 52100 blade, heat blued steel handles, while it wasn't a knife that I'd pick, I will admit it has some charm to it. Of course I said I'd help out, I wanted to do a vertical but he's getting older, aren't we all? but it's not as easy to move his arm up/shoulder up in order to draw the knife out of a vertical sheath so he asked for a canted style. I opted to just make a horizontal but set the top section at an angle to make it a bit easier to get to as well as give a little more help to retain it in there as well. Since the handle doesn't have much if any contour, I had to rely on just the peak of the clip blade and that seems to be just enough.

He wanted something different, formed sheaths don't allow a lot of leeway, for me at least, so I picked this embossing and then carefully dyed around the design with a fine brush in black and the embossing itself in Kelly Green from Fiebings. It's a pretty subtle thing, doesn't jump out 'Hey! I'm GREEN' but you see it there and it compliments the bluish greens on the heat treated handles too. I am driving it down to him tomorrow night, just in time for St Patty's day as he has a knife collectors club meeting that he wants to wear it to.

I had also tied a Diamond knot in the round leather cord that it came with and then whipped it to prevent it from going over onto the blade side.

Pardon the photo, it was just a quick snap shot for him to see what it looks like...

Early happy St Patty's day to you folks !
G2

 

[leatherman]

Sweet! That is a nice combo indeed.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Oh I like the knife and the sheath. I love how the profile of the sheath kicks up by the end of the handle. I would be tempted to grind that off, then regret it. Stylish is the descriptor that comes to mind.

Fiebings Kelly Green is probably my favorite color they make. It goes so well with black.

 

[harronek]

Your style of sheath always inspires - interests - illuminates and invigorates my sheath making mojo .
Beautiful work .

Ken

PS - I totally agree about that kick up that Anthony mentioned .

 

[vilePossum]

very nice, i especially love how the green works with the black.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks guys and yes the kick up is a part of that, as you can see the lower corner is rounded and appears to be the fitting way to do that, the top kick isn't a sharp transition but also not rounded over for that very reason.

Dyeing that internal areas of the embossing, a pain as you have to be so very careful, the dye can weep into areas you don't want it to go, of course not so much with green running but where the black intrudes into the intricate areas, you have to keep the paint brush filled JUST right with enough dye to get the job done but not so much it will swarm into the main portion.

That knife is really hefty, for as small as it is, very weighty, it's not for me because of that, plus the all metal sides are too smooth for my tastes, but it is unique.
G2

 

[elof_alv]

Nice rig!
Was thinking of attempting something similar for one of my larger folders, but it's going to take a while before I manage to even approach your level of craftsmanship. (No embossing for me, I like simple)
That knife looks interesting, but steel handles would turn me off.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks and I agree on the all metal handle its not for me either too smooth
G2

 

[harronek]

You guys have pushed me into a corner and forced me to come out swinging in defence of smooth all metal handled knives .

I really love them , and find no issues when using them at all . The shape and contour of the handle is far more important to a knifes usability and comfort in my opinion .
All of my daily user knives and Multitools are now metal handled .
The blade shape and handle contours of that knife don't really appeal to me if I'm honest , but the metal handles aren't the reason I wouldn't buy it .

Ken ( enthusiastic defender of all metal knives )

 

[Gary W. Graley]

haha, well sir, not to impugn your thoughts about all metal knives, that wasn't the intent, just that this particular knife is very polished to the point that it is too smooth/slippery in fact I just got home from dropping it off, the first thing he did was drop the knife because he didn't get a good grip on it but, that'll wear in I'm sure.
G2

 

[harronek]

Now my heart rate has returned to normal I will concede that they do scratch and mark easily .

Gary I do have a question about the sheath .
On the belt loop when you make a angled carry sheath like this one do you glue down the whole triangular wedge of leather that sits below the level of the belt or just along the stitch line edge of the sheath ?
I hope that makes sense .

Ken

 

[Gary W. Graley]

It's assembled in steps, here's the Reader's Digest version

Top section is formed over the knife, wrapped in plastic wrap to keep moisture off the knife

Top section, once dried, is embossed, dyed and then glued down to the next layer of leather, holes are punched in around the sheath and the side that will be towards the top of the belt will be trimmed down and sanded to a finished edge, since you don't have access to the layers of leather once they are glued down there without harming the belt loop layer.

The TWO pieces, Top section and the glued layer, are then glued down to yet a third piece of leather that makes the belt loop, the third section spans the entire sheath so below the knife you will have two layers of leather glued directly together. Once it is glued down and 'rested' a while, I allow time for the glue to set well, otherwise things can shift which is bad, I'll use an awl to drive the holes down through the new layer of leather.

I'll stitch across the top and around the end of the sheath, stopping at the bottom corner and then I'll carefully trim off the portion of the last section so I have a piece that will fold down to become the belt loop, I apply a lot of dye where the leather is going to bend to help it do so easier, then I put a piece of leather the size of the belt the customer has, a question I ask when making one of these sheaths to make sure it will fit their belt, and I'll form a step in the leather to allow the belt to pass through. I don't bother with a spacer like I am starting to do on verticals since the pressure isn't against that area, the knife is pulled out the side.

I glue down the belt loop and punch in the remaining holes and finish stitching along the bottom, with two stitches back to lock it in place.

So it isn't just a loop sewn at the top and bottom, the two layers below the knife I feel, provides a bit more overall rigidness to the sheath which will help it keep the retention longer, the knife can't push back into the sheath as much since there are two layers there.

Hope that all makes sense?
G2

 

[elof_alv]

You guys have pushed me into a corner and forced me to come out swinging in defence of smooth all metal handled knives .

Ken,

There are knives with metal handles, and there are knives with metal handles...
I did edc one of the all metal Spydercos for a long while at some point, and aside from it's tendency to slip out of a pocket had nothing against it.
The knife in Gary's pics looks to be fairly chunky, without much contouring to improve grip.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

That is a fact the knife is quite chunky, and being solid steel sides with no milling to relieve the weight, it's heavy and slippery, but still a cool factor.

Speaking of cool factor, this one was being worked on right around St Patty's day, the fellow is having it made for his bride to be, guess he really loves her as it's a custom bali or rather Talisong by Eldon Talley, very nice knife too btw !! Can you guess her favourite colour? I knew you could...Green and he asked if I could do the Celtic Cross in green, ugh my eyes about went crazy and I got a headache doing that, but it came out not too bad I thought, here's a shot of the Tali sheath. I picked up a really nice set of Celtic embossings off Amazon, very detailed stuff !

G2

 

[druid189]

Very nice. Good looking stuff right there.

 

[harronek]

:thumbup:

I love the lines of those sheaths .

Ken

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks guys and that embossing is pretty detailed, prior to dyeing it, here is how it looked once I embossed it onto the sheath, which looked pretty good just that way;

G2

 

[Hale Storm]

Gary............WOW! Each time I see your sheaths, I'm blown away. The quality, attention to detail, and the time you put in to make everything right. Well done sir.

Now, how do I go about sending you some nice traditionals I have to get some sheaths made? I have a few GEC models I need sheaths for and one model with a story that will explain why I need 3 sheaths made for the same style knife.

PM? Email?

Thanks again for another great post.

 

[Icewind]

Nicely done Gary, I like the color combination.

 

[Gary W. Graley]

Thanks guys and Ronnie, PM will be fine sir or email me via Bladeforums too.

And Icewind, the contrasting work to do that was a real pain, I used some very thick reading glasses that I had bought a long time ago, they are half size things so you can look above them too, but they give me a headache so I don't use them unless it's necessary and in this case, it sure was, tough to not get black onto the green, came out ok though, aspirin helped
G2

forgot to mention, Ken, that is also an ALL metal handled knife, really nice one too which I would even like to own one day, maybe a smaller version but similar from that maker, Eldon Talley, does very nice work!