Making the sheath for the Sgian Dubh (Picture heavy)

[jojo]

I thought it would be interesting to make the sheath for my Sgian Dubh as a, sort of, tutorial.. I'll take pics as i go along, and post them on this thread. It may take a little while, because I am making it up as I go along..

I know in my head what I want the sheath to look like and what I want to be able to do: traditionally, tucked in the top of the sock (hope that's the right word ) but also, as a belt and/or neck knife. I hope I'll succeed in this..

So to start:
This is the knife:

The front part of the sheath is going to be moulded rawhide, because its very strong and thinner than leather.The back is vegtan leather. The whole thing will be cover in either thin pig skin or some imitation snake skin.

I made the mould, nothing fancy or elaborate as you can see:

The male part of the mould is slightly bigger than the actual knife, because its going to be partially lined inside.

These are all the bits and bobs I am going to use:

first you have to soak your rawhide:

Then you put it on the mould, I used some small brass pins to hold the hide tight before I put the top bit of the mould on and clamped. As you can see, the hide lies quite flat. Now you need to wait till its dry!

End of part one....

 

[John Fenna]

I take it - from the size - that you use Rawhide from dog chews.....
am I right?

 

[jojo]

I take it - from the size - that you use Rawhide from dog chews.....
am I right?

Yes I am John. You get a variety of thickness in these bones, quite useful for all sorts of things.

 

[John Fenna]

I agree - it is a little known resource that should be better known!
I have made some pretty good rawhide lashings from these chews - it works realy well.

 

[pwb]

Great tutorial, looking forward to part two .
Got to give the rawhide chews tip a try .

Pete.

 

[Mooseman1]

looking forward to part two, should be a good one.

 

[longshot]

very interesting, cant wait for your follow up.


dean

 

[JohnC]

I'll follow this thread, very interested in the rawhide use and the mould setup

 

[jojo]

As I said at the start, I am making this sheath up as I go along! So a couple of changes: the back is going to be rawhide too, I am going to use a brass D ring and add a belt loop with a large press stud. And I am going to cover the sheath with thin pig skin and dye it, as I don't want something that will clash with the grain of the burr Elm.


These pics show the moulded front after its dried , it's curled up along the waste parts, but the sheath itself hasn't.

After I cut it to size

You may see how translucent the hide is

The various parts so far

All together

The next step will be to plan, cut and fix the pig skin to the rawhide, both inside and out. I want to put pig skin on the inside to prevent the rougher rawhide front blunting the cutting edge and scratching the handle.

The rawhide for the back is thinner than the front part, with hindsight, I should have used the thinner one for the front too. But never mind, not doing it again!

 

[SOAR]

Looking good, following this one for sure, nice one jojo.

 

[brancho]

Very interesting indeed looks like a natural version of kydex

 

[sam_acw]

Great thread Jojo!

 

[jojo]

Part 3! A few more pictures.

Before I cut the pig skin, I make a paper pattern rather than risking wasting good leather, and I can work out in which order to cut and glue the thin leather to the rawhide

Rather than using the pattern to cut the pig skin and then glue it, I decide to glue the pig skin to the hide, it should make it easier to get a good fit

These two pics show the finished back. Not perfect but not bad

The front part gets the same treatment, except I don't make a paper pattern as it's easier to work out what needs to be done

The knife tucked in, nice and tight, it won't sliding out, even if upside down

I have now dyed both parts inside and out but the light is too bad to take a pic. I'll do that tomorrow and hopefully finish the sheath.

ever used Kydex but rawhide is probably easier to use, you only need to soak it, mould it and you can protect it from moisture, I have used some Ronseal stuff (can't think of the name at the minute) on my rawhide mountainman knife sheath and also on my crooked knife sheath. It's really tough as old boot when dry, but easy to work when soaked.

 

[pwb]

A very informative thread jojo,
thanks.


Pete.

 

[jojo]

Here is the finished sheath:

I am reasonably happy with the result. As I said, I made it up as I went along, and it shows! It does what I wanted it to do, hold the sheath nice and tight, is quite soft, not too big. The belt loop need a bit more dye and polish. It works very well, and I feel is safer than a press stud would be, but very easy to remove from the belt.

Esthetically, it's not so good, I made the sides, where the stitching goes, too narrow. I had to drill the holes, because of the rawhide, but as it is a bit too narrow, some of the holes slipped out of line when drilling, making for some uneven stitching, which I don't like. The pig skin is very soft, and drilling through moved it a bit at each stitch hole, contributing to the unevenness of the stitching.

The knife fits nice and tight, it won't slip our of this one.

All in all, not too bad for having had no planning! It should be a bit bigger to give more room for the stitching, and also I should have curved the sides a bit more.

The end!

What do you think?

 

[Shewie]

Superb stuff jojo

I`ve enjoyed watching it come to life.

Just keep it away from the dog

 

[Gill]

yep i enjoyed that as well mate.

 

[topknot]

Well done mate, i like it .
Topknot.

 

[pwb]

Sheath looks great jojo .

An excellent tutorial.

Pete.

 

[Black Sheep]

Great stuff Jojo I like the raw hide idea

Infact i think I'll have a play with some next time I get to the pet shop.

Cheers

Richard