Howdy folks 
First of all, I am insanely lazy when it comes to anything involving a needle. In fact, anything that involves poking holes in things. I hate using needles, I hate using awls. I hate sewing even when I'm sewing a fabric, but leather, it honestly drives me up the wall just so I can bang my head off the ceiling! Generally speaking I prefer leather cord, but I'm all out. In a similar vein, I don't have a great deal of cash, so I do what I can on the cheap. I would love to buy sheaths from some of the makers on here, but I just can't justify spending more than £20 on something like this atm, and I imagine a custom sheath will be more than that. So, that in mind, let's begin...
This is what the aim is. It don't look great, but it's better than those rubbishy plastic sheaths - IMO of course, but I am a bit biased!
Meterials required are:
One bog-standard Mora plastic sheath
One hairspray can (Tresemme was the one I found, and just about the right size) - sheet aluminium can be substituted, quite thin. But not too thin! I don't measure most of the time, sorry...
A bit of leather. A square foot is more than enough I think, but it needs to be thin. Thinthinthin! Mine came from an old leather trenchcoat. Stretchy helps too.
Needle, thread, wax (I used candlewax..)
Impact adhesive (there are only a few better adhesives, IMO - epoxy, duct tape and one of my cups of coffee)
That's it, I think. So, shall we? Here is the starting point:
I actually took this pic after I started, it's a different one. My one was missing the belt loop, as I modded it for baldric carry ages ago.
Time for the impact adhesive and leather!
Cover ONLY the front of the sheath, and ONLY the amount of leather that will come in contact with. Impact adhesive has the VERY annoying trait that if you misplace it onto another bit of impact adhesive, it's staying there.
Stick away. If you're as sloppy with glue as me, it may look as horrible as this!
More glue! Over the back of the sheath this time, and around the sides - not too much though, as always. I could never draw inside the lines either, my colouring books looked like crayola vomit!
If you're using a "real" knife to cut the leather, as I do, and are cutting it on a board in your lap, like I do, don't let the damn thing roll around! And yes, I was bare-footed at the time.
Stick the leather over the back. I was clever enough to not take any pictures of this bit, but DON'T overlap the pieces at the back - they must meet, and then stick out from the sheath.
This is the cross section, with the outer circle being the leather. Thats watcha need to do! Pull the leather TIGHT when gluing.
Trim close - as close as you can while leaving enough leather to sew, and enough that the sewing won't pull through. That was about 4mm for me.
Well, me being me, I lost my thread! What to do? Dental floss, of course. It's definitely strong enough, the only problem is that it's white - but I'm willing to overlook that since it's on the back of the sheath. And hey, it'll keep it minty fresh! I didn't have any leather needles either, so I bought these for 59p at the corner shop.
Sew! As you can see, I not only hate sewing, but I'm rubbish at it. This was the most simple stitch I could think of, and it works so I'm not complaining. Up til this point, I was using a normal needle with the dental floss, but as you can see, the tightness of the hole pierced by the needle was shredding the dental floss, so from this point on, I used the thickest needle and waxed the dental floss as a bit of lubrication.
it worked! For the record, I didn't pierce the holes with an awl, just pushed them through with a bit of wood. I didn't hold the needle while doing this either, as I know all too well that when a needle breaks, it looks for the closest finger to jump into.
Trimmed the top at this point. I left on bunny ears as I was planning to make a belt loop from them (and let's face it, they make it more fun!) but I decided to whack 'em off so I'd just do it now. If you were more sensible than me and left the original belt loop on, not a problem!
next comes the wee tresemme can
Scrapscrapescrape. It was late last night, so grinder wasn't an option, so I just scraped with the back of my scisors. For the record, be absolutely sure that the can is empty before piercing. One thing I do is to put it somewhere where the smell won't kill you, put it in a plastic bag and sellotape the button down. To make sure it's empty, hold down the button underwater and you shouldn't get bubbles. For the record, I am NOT responsible if you hurt yourself doing this!
Scraped and cut to a rough size.
Template! Wrap a bit of paper round the sheath, and draw on the horizontal lines round the paper to mark where to cut. You CANNOT cut this as a rectangle as you would wrap around a tube to get it "square" - the top of the sheath is slightly tapered, so the bottom edge is about 1cm shorter IIRC.
Copy onto aluminium and cut away with a dremel! If I had thought of using scissors as I did later, I assure you, I would have! Use old rubbish scissors though, not your shiny new sharp ones.
Test fitting to show where needs trimmed
Trimmed to size and cleaned up on the belt grinder (sandpaper will do of course). Bevel the edges slightly too.
Just that is an improvement! But I like the leather too....
Drill holes! This isn't really necessary depending on how you want to carry it. I did this so it could be carried round the neck or on a baldric.
Bend corners outwards so they dont get glued down!
More glue... stick together.... and that's it innit? Well, trim the bit of leather left at the end of the sheath to look however you like. Forgot to mention that!
There you have it - cheap, relatively easy, not particularly attractive, and a perfect reason why I should shell out for someone to make me a real sheath
Pete
First of all, I am insanely lazy when it comes to anything involving a needle. In fact, anything that involves poking holes in things. I hate using needles, I hate using awls. I hate sewing even when I'm sewing a fabric, but leather, it honestly drives me up the wall just so I can bang my head off the ceiling! Generally speaking I prefer leather cord, but I'm all out. In a similar vein, I don't have a great deal of cash, so I do what I can on the cheap. I would love to buy sheaths from some of the makers on here, but I just can't justify spending more than £20 on something like this atm, and I imagine a custom sheath will be more than that. So, that in mind, let's begin...
This is what the aim is. It don't look great, but it's better than those rubbishy plastic sheaths - IMO of course, but I am a bit biased!
Meterials required are:
One bog-standard Mora plastic sheath
One hairspray can (Tresemme was the one I found, and just about the right size) - sheet aluminium can be substituted, quite thin. But not too thin! I don't measure most of the time, sorry...
A bit of leather. A square foot is more than enough I think, but it needs to be thin. Thinthinthin! Mine came from an old leather trenchcoat. Stretchy helps too.
Needle, thread, wax (I used candlewax..)
Impact adhesive (there are only a few better adhesives, IMO - epoxy, duct tape and one of my cups of coffee)
That's it, I think. So, shall we? Here is the starting point:
I actually took this pic after I started, it's a different one. My one was missing the belt loop, as I modded it for baldric carry ages ago.
Time for the impact adhesive and leather!
Cover ONLY the front of the sheath, and ONLY the amount of leather that will come in contact with. Impact adhesive has the VERY annoying trait that if you misplace it onto another bit of impact adhesive, it's staying there.
Stick away. If you're as sloppy with glue as me, it may look as horrible as this!
More glue! Over the back of the sheath this time, and around the sides - not too much though, as always. I could never draw inside the lines either, my colouring books looked like crayola vomit!
If you're using a "real" knife to cut the leather, as I do, and are cutting it on a board in your lap, like I do, don't let the damn thing roll around! And yes, I was bare-footed at the time.
Stick the leather over the back. I was clever enough to not take any pictures of this bit, but DON'T overlap the pieces at the back - they must meet, and then stick out from the sheath.
This is the cross section, with the outer circle being the leather. Thats watcha need to do! Pull the leather TIGHT when gluing.
Trim close - as close as you can while leaving enough leather to sew, and enough that the sewing won't pull through. That was about 4mm for me.
Well, me being me, I lost my thread! What to do? Dental floss, of course. It's definitely strong enough, the only problem is that it's white - but I'm willing to overlook that since it's on the back of the sheath. And hey, it'll keep it minty fresh! I didn't have any leather needles either, so I bought these for 59p at the corner shop.
Sew! As you can see, I not only hate sewing, but I'm rubbish at it. This was the most simple stitch I could think of, and it works so I'm not complaining. Up til this point, I was using a normal needle with the dental floss, but as you can see, the tightness of the hole pierced by the needle was shredding the dental floss, so from this point on, I used the thickest needle and waxed the dental floss as a bit of lubrication.
it worked! For the record, I didn't pierce the holes with an awl, just pushed them through with a bit of wood. I didn't hold the needle while doing this either, as I know all too well that when a needle breaks, it looks for the closest finger to jump into.
Trimmed the top at this point. I left on bunny ears as I was planning to make a belt loop from them (and let's face it, they make it more fun!) but I decided to whack 'em off so I'd just do it now. If you were more sensible than me and left the original belt loop on, not a problem!
next comes the wee tresemme can
Scrapscrapescrape. It was late last night, so grinder wasn't an option, so I just scraped with the back of my scisors. For the record, be absolutely sure that the can is empty before piercing. One thing I do is to put it somewhere where the smell won't kill you, put it in a plastic bag and sellotape the button down. To make sure it's empty, hold down the button underwater and you shouldn't get bubbles. For the record, I am NOT responsible if you hurt yourself doing this!
Scraped and cut to a rough size.
Template! Wrap a bit of paper round the sheath, and draw on the horizontal lines round the paper to mark where to cut. You CANNOT cut this as a rectangle as you would wrap around a tube to get it "square" - the top of the sheath is slightly tapered, so the bottom edge is about 1cm shorter IIRC.
Copy onto aluminium and cut away with a dremel! If I had thought of using scissors as I did later, I assure you, I would have! Use old rubbish scissors though, not your shiny new sharp ones.
Test fitting to show where needs trimmed
Trimmed to size and cleaned up on the belt grinder (sandpaper will do of course). Bevel the edges slightly too.
Just that is an improvement! But I like the leather too....
Drill holes! This isn't really necessary depending on how you want to carry it. I did this so it could be carried round the neck or on a baldric.
Bend corners outwards so they dont get glued down!
More glue... stick together.... and that's it innit? Well, trim the bit of leather left at the end of the sheath to look however you like. Forgot to mention that!
There you have it - cheap, relatively easy, not particularly attractive, and a perfect reason why I should shell out for someone to make me a real sheath
Pete
