Stacked leather

[andyn]

I was wondering if anyone could give me a head start on how to work with stacked leather for a handle. Does it need pretreating with something, is there a better way of shaping it than others..bear in mind I dont have access to any power tools...so is sand paper the best way forward any experiance with what worked best in terms of brand or even grade..or should i just cut the peices to sharp one at a time. What glue, is any, is best to hold it all together. I have no idea of the best way to start and dpont really want to waste too much leather with my usual trial and garanteed error/ total failure approach.

Any help would be much appreciated.


Thanks.

 

[g4ghb]

fastbreak did a tutorial on british blades - will give you a starting point i guess


I noticed it a couple of days ago and thought hmmmmmm i wonder, so you may not be the only one having a go!

 

[nickg]

I think that this technique makes an excellant handle for a bushcraft knife. The best sword I ever had for reenactment medieval combat has a handle like this (blunt blade for full contact swordplay). Every other sword i have (more than a few) fails at the grip. Plain wood slips around in the hand, glued on leather wrapping comes of and wire binding can really chafe.

The guy that made my sword (Tim Noyes) doesnt mess around and takes a straightforward construction approach. He starts with a well fitting quillion or bolser of metal. Then unshaped rectangles of leather with a round hole punched in the centre are hammered down the tang. He has a simple piece of 20mm x 40mm softwood with a hole (larger than the tang) with which he batters the leather pieces down. No glue of perparation he just belts them down one on top of the next. then a pommel or butt plate of some style (steel usually) at the end. the tang is then peened over to compress the whole show. He then shapes the leather with any combination of power file, carving knife, bench grinder, angle grinder whatever till hes happy with the shape. He wets the leather and dyes it a shade and rubs a finish up on the wet leather with stiff cloth etc. Once the leather is compressed by peening the butt cap it works pretty much like wood so files and sandpaper will work fine. I think its possibly quicker to work down the finished handle that to attempt to pre shape the pieces. It will give you the very best grip in wet, sweaty or slimy situations that any fancy burl wood or mica knife that you spend a fortune on.

Good Luck
Nick

 

[eraaij]

I have made a couple of knives with stacked leather handles and I usually weld them together with epoxy. This gives a handle that is both very good in the hand and prevents dirt, etc to go into the gaps. Very good handle material and it combines nice with all sorts of other stuff, like bone or antler.


-Emile

 

[jdlenton]

I've yet to try a handle like this but my starting point is the tutorial on BB g4ghb suggests I would like to go the way nick suggest with no glues and a pure mechanical compression. I have seen cyanoacrylates (superglues) and epoxy suggested as bonding solutions but as Ive not tried them i can only guess that they will act like any other plastic in the damp and become slippery and difficult to handle. let us know how you get on and and thanks for reminding me of another project that I've not put on the to do list


James

 

[Grooveski]

I used the no-glue and batter them down approach for my knife and it seemed to work ok.
There was a couple of mm of shrinkage after a month or so but I'd inserted an extra layer in the first place and left the screw a few threads out so it was just a case of tightening it down. If there's any more shinkage I'll just pop off the but and stick a thin ebony spacer in.

The handle was shaped using a knife then a file, dyed then waxed. Looks a bit ropey and non-symetrical as it's shaped for my hand but it got the old hack back in action .

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=10826

 

[Nemisis]

Theres a pictorial demo on here http://www.brisa.fi/start3.html
Dave.

 

[andyn]

Cheers for the links and advice guys. Most helpful as usual. Has kinda made me realise that what I had wanted to do isnt going to be possible but never mind.