MEMBER ITEMS FOR SALE
Custom Knives | Other Knives | General Items
-------------------------------------------
New Posts | New PhotosAll Photos



Go Back   The Knife Network Forums : Knife Making Discussions > Custom Knife Discussion Boards > The Sheath/Holster Makers Forum

The Sheath/Holster Makers Forum This is the place to discuss all forms of sheath and holster making.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 10-26-2006, 07:32 AM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
Building a frontier sheath - beginning to end

Folks seem to be interested in the process of building things so I took some "sort of" step by step pictures as I made this sheath. Most of my frontier sheath work is based on the Mountain Man/Scout period of 1820-1870's in the Rocky Mtn west, but this time I went back to the 1760-1770 Longhunter era east of the Mississippi and west of the Appalachians.......

The knife is an 18th century rifleman's style with a 9" forged steel blade by Mike Mann of Idaho Knifeworks - the blade is based on an original excavated at Ft. Ticonderoga, NY. The style of the sheath and porcupine quillwork decoration is based on a couple of existing original 18th sheaths, but is not an exact copy of any existing sheath. On this sheath I did it as much as possible using only the methods and materials that would have been available at the time.

Step 1) - After doing the research (IMO an important step to get it "right") I always do a sketch to put my thoughts/ideas into some semblance of order - with quill and/or beadwork I usually work out a color scheme as well. This is only a general idea at this time - as you'll see the design wasn't "written in stone" - the whole thing will often change and/or be adapted as I go along.


__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 10-26-2006, 07:33 AM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
Step 2) The sheath liner is double thickness elk rawhide - in this case I doubled the liner since one thickness wasn't stiff enough for the size blade. The inner liner is a standard wrap around pouch sheath with a welt sewn into place along the cutting edge using well waxed/rosined linen thread. It also has a piece of braintan buckskin sewn in at the top as liner for the handle and to which the outside braintan cover will be sewn - something I do to make it a "neater" package and to give it a bit more "grip" on the handle.
Rawhide must be worked wet, but not too wet, something only working with it will you learn - it's a bit of a hassle, but well worth the effort. Once the liner was sewn I protected the blade and ferrule from the moisture and then clamped a couple of boards over the blade until the liner was almost dry. I then took the boards off and let it dry completely. Clamping it between the boards isn't absolutely necessary - but if you don't use them you need to keep a close eye on it as it dries so that it doesn't warp - let it air dry only! Once the inner liner was dry I sealed it with varnish - I use my own home made traditional linseed oil & rosin based varnish - other period type sealers that can be used are spar varnish or a thin coat or two of hide glue. Then I sewed a second piece of rawhide over the first - I whip stitched it along the outer edge and let it air dry with the knife still in the sheath to maintain the form. Once dry I sealed this piece as well.

In the back ground are most of the materials I planned on using: at the top is a hunk of elk sinew for sewing (I also used linen and hemp thread since the sinew I had on hand wasn't the best quality and didn't make enough good thread as I wanted), the porcupine quills and antique pound beads (about 8/0 size), and the brain tan buckskin dyed with walnut hull dye - the bottom portion almost black for the cuff and the rest a lighter color.


__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.

Last edited by Chuck Burrows; 05-06-2009 at 10:32 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 10-26-2006, 07:34 AM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
3) Here is the cuff (at top), cover, and sash flap (made of buffalo rawhide) all quilled and beaded. The beads on the cuff and sash flap are attached with sinew - on the far left are a couple of sinew threads. Serendipitously the sinew on the back side of the flap makes it sort of rough/sticky which will help with retention on the wool sash. With this style sheath the body of the sheath is worn under the sash with the falp on the outside. The quills and beads on the cover were sewn on using hemp thread.
For info on how-to bead and quill, a good starting place is www.nativetech.org, This along with several books available will teach you waht you need to know. There are several techniques for both beading and quillwork and my advice is to study as many sources as possible and then practice, practice, practice.....
When you compare this picture to the original sketch, you can see I changed both the overall pattern and quill colors somewhat. The pattern changed since the sheath wound up being wider than originally sketched (a not unusual circumstance) and the colors changed since I didn't get the natural dyed green/blue I wanted.
The dyes used for the quills were: walnut and charcoal for the brown/black, red ocher for the red, and rabbit brush flowers (a member of the sunflower family) for the yellow. I did try using indigo, a fairly common commercial dye of the period available either in it's raw form or from boiling trade blankets dyed with it, but the quills came out so dark that they looked like the black/brown so I decided to just use the three natural dyes. To dye the quills I steeped them in hot, but not boiling water mixed with the dyes for a couple of hours.


__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 10-26-2006, 07:36 AM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
4 & 5) Here are front and back views of the cover and sash flap sewn onto the liner - the cover is sewn along the edge with a double whip stitch - a whip stitch was the stitch most commonly used by the Indians - I like to use a double stitch as it gives a nice look, but also makes it stronger and longer lasting since with the whip stitch the threads are exposed to wear - although in this case the beaded edge helps protect the thread from wear. Additional decoration is two hand made brass cones stuffed with buffalo hair. They are attached to the sheath with linen thread running through some larger antique pound beads and a couple of old copper beads.





__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.

Last edited by Chuck Burrows; 10-26-2006 at 07:39 AM.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-26-2006, 07:38 AM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
6) And here it is all finished up and aged. The buckskin cover is sealed with a mixture of bear oil, beeswax, and pine rosin, which also helps protect the quills.





Anyway hope ya'll enjoy the look see.........


__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.

Last edited by Chuck Burrows; 10-27-2006 at 04:34 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-26-2006, 09:39 AM
Drac's Avatar
Drac Drac is offline
Living Legend
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Richardson TX
Posts: 1,781
Chuck,

Added this to the list of tutorials I keep!!

Thanks for sharing,
Jim


__________________
I cook with a flair for the dramatic,
and depraved indifference to calories
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-26-2006, 05:35 PM
Stuart Willis's Avatar
Stuart Willis Stuart Willis is offline
Steel Addict
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Cherryville, NC
Posts: 115
Thanks Chuck for sharing this.........Stuart


__________________
Stuart Willis Frontier Knives and Tomahawks
Cherryville NC
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 10-26-2006, 11:49 PM
Ice Tigre's Avatar
Ice Tigre Ice Tigre is offline
Master
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Fairbanks, ALASKA
Posts: 862
Thanks Chuck, I had wondered about how the inner liner was done....

Nice pics too.

G.


__________________
http://ak-adventurer.net/

Gary Blessing,
Ex-custom knife maker, Ex-Folder modifier & embelisher.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 12-27-2009, 04:20 PM
switzforge's Avatar
switzforge switzforge is offline
Registered
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Beulah, Colorado
Posts: 4
Fantastic, thanks for posting
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 09-04-2011, 11:30 PM
Art Lawrence Art Lawrence is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Eastern Sierra, CA
Posts: 3
Hi Chuck,

I hope this thread is still valid. I would love to try and make this style of sheath. I got most of it figured out from your "WIP" but this part, ("It also has a piece of braintan buckskin sewn in at the top as liner for the handle and to which the outside braintan cover will be sewn - something I do to make it a "neater" package and to give it a bit more "grip" on the handle."), still has me baffled.

How far down does the braintan buckskin reach and how and where is it sewn in?

Hope this reaches you and thanks, Art
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 09-19-2011, 03:14 PM
Chuck Burrows's Avatar
Chuck Burrows Chuck Burrows is offline
Super Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Durango, Co
Posts: 3,671
Howdy Art - yep still valid.
The braintan inner lining goes down about an inch longer than where the handle meets the blade. I sew it in along the lower edge at first only - the upper edge is left longer than than the liner so it can be sewn to the outer cuff along the opening of the sheath.

Hope that helps
Any questions ask away or give me a call at 970-259-8396 - I'm on Mtn Daylight Time and best time is mid-afternoon my time. If you get tehmachine leave a message and I'll call back


__________________
Chuck Burrows
Hand Crafted Leather & Frontier Knives
dba Wild Rose Trading Co
Durango, CO
chuck@wrtcleather.com
www.wrtcleather.com


Wild Rose Trading Co - Handcrafted Knife Sheaths



The beautiful sheaths created for storing the knife elevate the knife one step higher. It celebrates the knife it houses.
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 09-20-2011, 05:59 AM
Crex's Avatar
Crex Crex is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Acworth, GA and/or Hanging Dog, NC
Posts: 3,583
Brother Chuck
Have you ever tried turkey or duck quills in lew of porkypine? Not many porks kicking around here in the southeast anymore (I think the Cajuns and Geechees ate them all!).
Used some many seasons ago with fair results, but figured you might have a trick that would toughen them up a bit more. They are easier to come by for sure.


__________________
Carl Rechsteiner, Bladesmith
Georgia Custom Knifemakers Guild, Charter Member
Knifemakers Guild, voting member
Registered Master Artist - GA Council for the Arts
C Rex Custom Knives

Blade Show Table 6-H
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 09-20-2011, 08:00 PM
Barth Barth is offline
Skilled
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Novo Hamburgo-RS
Posts: 518
Nice work,thanks Chuck!


__________________
www.cutelariabarth.blogspot.com
Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
art, blade, knife, sheath


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:28 AM.




KNIFENETWORK.COM
Copyright © 2000
? CKK Industries, Inc. ? All Rights Reserved
Powered by ...

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
The Knife Network : All Rights Reserved