Leather Sheath for custom bushcraft from TLIM (C445 bushcraft 2 FG) - pics heavy

[Puchal]

Friend of mine, has purchased this knife http://www.tlim.net/445.php from Polish knifemaker TLIM (http://www.tlim.net/ also in English).
Knives by TLIM are in Poland well known for excelent quality, design and functionality.
The knife came with decent leather sheath, but my friends idea was to have robust combo sheath with pouch for the firesteel.
This is what I crafted for him.

 

[Sophielou10]

some beautiful work!

just a few questions out of interest; sorry if some of them a bit silly.

-do you process your own leather or buy it?
-how do you prevent the knife from cutting through the sheath?
-how do you get the picture on the sheath
-do you machine stitch or hand stitch?

Sorry just curious to find out!

sophie.

 

[Puchal]

Hi Sophielou10
Let me reply, by quoting your questions:

-do you process your own leather or buy it?
Of course, I buy it from local store. You can also buy different kinds of leather from Allegro.pl (local ebay) sellers offering materials for knights and other medieval reconstructions.

-how do you prevent the knife from cutting through the sheath?
You do this, by gluing in a leather strap, that protects the stitching. See the picture (low quality from my mobile phone camera, taken when I worked on this sheath:

-how do you get the picture on the sheath
I use Sony DSLR camera on the tripod. No flash, 10 sec delay, P program. Here are photo parameters from the Picasa :
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1.3 sec
Aperture: 5.6
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No

-do you machine stitch or hand stitch?

Hand made. If the leather layers are soft, you can use awl. With Thick and hard leather like this one, I use drill. Then I smooth the holes with awl, and stitch the leather.