Howdy all,

I generaly am not a leather worker but I do make sheaths for some of my knives and have come up with a style that I kind of like and am wondering what others think.

Heres the basics, I use 5-6oz seude (sounds weird I know) I cut the basic sheath shape, stitch it and then I cover the whole thing with a 1/8" coatiing of parafin wax. I then use a blowtorch to heat the whole thing until the wax boils and soaks into the suede, while it's hot I stick in the blade and form the leather down around the blade and bolster/guard and then cool in a freezer for about 2 mins.

The resulting product is a hard leather sheath that holds the blade pretty well (on most I do not need any sort of retaining mechanism for the knife, kinda like a kydex sheath) the boiling of the wax seems to change it's composition somewhat and it gets pretty stiff. then I just rub down the outside and get rid of any excess wax that was not absorbed by the leather.

Here's what they usually look like, they are pretty durable, I have gotten mixed reactions on the look, some people love it some people don't.


Has kind of a rustic look (which goes well with these pieces as they were designed to look very rustic), any opinions, like it, don't like it? What do ya think?

http://jldesign.netfirms.com/images/black1.jpg

Plus if it ever loses it's shape you can just heat it up and reform it around the knife. (probably wouldn't do well in extremly hot climates though)

JD -
The look is OK but the problem with wax is that even body heat will soften it and in really cold wether it will get hard and crack.

If you're interested in learning how to make a HARD vegtan leather sheath give me a shout the process is pretty simple really (it's the same one that's been used for at least 7000 years give or take an eon).

Chuck

Hey Chuck,

Drop me a line at joshua_lange@hotmail.com, would love to get any info you have to give. As for the wax melting, I have a necker that I made for myself that I wear regularly under my shirt and have not had any problems with the wax softening up (I am a bit cold blooded though..hehe) of course you are right about the cold weather issue though and very hot weather would give it's problems as well. Would certainly be interested in the vegtan process though, like I said I'm not much of a leather worker right now, (if it's made of wood or metal I can do it but leather just aint my thing yet).