Another modern change of pace sheath - Roger Linger (http://riflestocks.tripod.com/) over on Bladeforums asked a while back for sheath makers to offer their wares for a series of knives. The knife I got to sheath was an ATS-34 bladed hunter with nickel silver fittings, mosaic pins, and Mammoth tooth root Ivory grip which is on it's way to Chuck Leake of AKIvory.

Anyway I had to stretch a little bit on this one - lots of hidden and seen construction tricks to make what wound up being a very complicated sheath even though it may look fairly simple:

http://www.wrtcleather.com/cl-knifesheaths-classic/cl-knifesheaths-classic-images/knifesheath-classic-003-1.jpg

http://www.wrtcleather.com/cl-knifesheaths-classic/cl-knifesheaths-classic-images/knifesheath-classic-003-2.jpg

http://www.wrtcleather.com/cl-knifesheaths-classic/cl-knifesheaths-classic-images/knifesheath-classic-003-3.jpg

And here is the piece de resistance - the mammoth carving at actual size:
http://www.wrtcleather.com/cl-knifesheaths-classic/cl-knifesheaths-classic-images/knifesheath-classic-003-4.jpg

Super job Chuck.Everything is first class. As nice as your period work is, it is nice to also see something more contemporary from you. Dave:D

Very nice Chuck, I wish I could get my stitches to look that nice on the back side.

Mark

Mark -
Have you read my Stitching Tutorial? I explain in there how to get your stitches even front and back.

Chuck;
That is great work!
Is it 'in bad form' to ask if
1. The Mammoth was freehand or traced on the
leather?
2. about how long did the Mammoth carving take ?

Thanks
Mike

Howdy Mike-
Not "bad" form at all.

On something like this the general outline is almost always transferred to the leather from a sketch - leather's just too expensive if you don't get it right. But the detail work is always freehand. On some of my scroll style carving I just go for it but even then I usually use a soft lead pencil and sketch in the basics first.

Time - Maybe I'm giving away "secrets" :rolleyes:, but the carving took the shortest amount of time of anything on this sheath - maybe 20 minutes? Skiving the back side actually took longer (if I mess up while carving I either do a "fix" or start over - once I get the carving done though I take my time and make sure I don't screw things up.)

Thanks for sharing the information chuck.
I realize that this sheath is complicated,
but I think that I will try a window sheath
with a small matching image (not Mammoth :)) etched in the blade too.
Thanks for the inspiration
Mike

Mike - the complications of the sheath were due to the width of the blade as compared to the space necessary for doing the carving.
Below is an expnaded version of the explanation I gave over in the Outpost on the reasons/methods. A wider blade that would make the "inner seam" unnecessary and/or a full double seam style (i.e. a separate front and back - not a semi-fold over tlike this) would make things quite a bit less complicated. The window/framed inlay is really quite simple - main thing is just to get it lined up straight.

The blade as you can see is fairly narrow so to get a big enough "canvas" for the carving I used an extra wide welt both along the edge and spine. In order to do it right that called for a double row of stitching - one towards the inner edge of the welt and one along the outside edge of the sheath. But the problem was to do the inner seam right it had to be hidden (the narrowness factor).
So I used a 5/6 oz liner (smooth side in - the rough side out gave the best glue surface of course). For the carved mammoth I used a piece of 8/9 oz in order to get the depth of carving I wanted. I skived back down some and the edges of the carved oval to paper thin which gives a sort of padded look to the center of the carving - sort of 3D.
Then to cover up rough out liner and the inner seams I used an outer cover of 2/3oz that I hand boarded (rolled it face to face under a board in different directions to give a grained appearance.)
The trickiest part was that the 2/3 oz cover had to be glued/sewn along the upper edge and then belt loop had to be glued to the cover and then the cover glued only partially to the liner and then the loop sewn through both the cover and liner while leaving the front and most of the back liner unglued/sewn.
The welt was then glued in and the inner seam sewn.
The carved insert was then sewn to the front 2/3 oz cover and the cover was glued down front and back to the 5/6 oz liner. The outer seam was then sewn. But that wasn't the end. I then added a "detail" - I ran a 2/3 oz cover over the edge of the sheath along the sewn/seam area.
Any questions ask away.

Chuck,

Very nice. I really like the perspective on that Mammoth. Amazing work.

I would expect no less from Chuck. Perfection is a difficult, if not impossible, plateau to achieve--- Chuck is hammering on the gates! Sandy