Thanks, Roger! Here we go! Start with vegetable tanned leather, heavy weight. Cut square washers a bit oversized for grinding your handle profile. Cut or punch the tang hole or slot. You are going to need a threaded bolt with a couple of steel washers at least the size of your leather washers, and a nut to tighten down your stack of leather washers. Soak the leather washers in water until the leather is wet. Don't worry if they are too wet, they will dry pretty quickly. Slide the washers on the bolt. You may have to have a few extra leather washers to add to the stack because you are going to tighten the nut down and compress the leather washers to a length of the intended finished length. Place one steel washer at the bolt head, run your leather washers onto the bolt, then add the sencond steel washer, and then the nut, and crank it down. I like to compress the washers down pretty good, to where the washers are about 2/3 or 1/2 their original thickness. Just tighten the nut down until the leather is good and compressed, but not tight enough to damage the leather. Whatever thickness you compress the washers down to, that will be your finished thickness of the leather washers. Compress the washers to whatever thickness you think will look good on your handle. Let dry. Somtimes it only takes a day or two. Remove the leather washers and be careful to keep them in the EXACT ORDER that they come off the bolt. Make sure your tang and all contact surfaces are clean and oil free. Coat all the contact surfaces of the leather washers with a good contact cement and let the glue dry. Then, coat your tang with Acra Glas Gel and slide your first washer onto the tang and run it clear forward. Fill gap between the washer and the tang with the 'glas, and repeat the process until you have the stacked washers on your tang and the washer holes around the tang filled with the 'glas. You won't need much compression pressure on the leather washers that are stacked on your tang. If you are adding spacers of different material included in your handle stack, leave the leather washer contact surface clean of contact cement, but use some of the 'glas on both contact surfaces. Let dry after clamping and then grind your handle on your belt grinder. Go easy and light, the belt will really eat the leather . You want to use a belt that is in good shape, and don't burn the leather while you are grinding. The reason for using square leather washers is so you will have a good reference point to keep your handle oval or round ground aligned with your blade and tang. You don't want to have a lopsided round shaped handle lopsided in line of your blade. Unstained but sealed leather handles look pretty good. Even though your leather washers are cut from the same piece of leather, you should have some slightly contrasting colored washers when finished. If you want to dye the leather, do it first before you add any sealer. Use good leather sealer and finishing products. The reason you keep the washers in exact order after they are dried and removed from the compression bolt is because when you stack the washers onto the tang in the same exact order you will notice the washers actually lock together because of slight wrinkles and indentions in the washer contact points.
