First Sheath in a long time

[1961MJS]

Hi

I just finished a sheath for a  Russell Green River Sheath knife.  I built the knife a year of so ago.  I rust blackened the blade with Laurel Mountain Browning and the scales are just plain walnut from Crazy Crow (I think, but it might be from Jantz).  The knife is ROUGHLY taken from Alex Kozlov's book, mainly the tacked knifes.  No tacks on this one, but the shape is similar.  I did a fair job on it, but I did learn a few things.  

1.  Thin the edges out, the edges are way too think.
2.  Put a finish on the sheath before you do the edging so you don't have to make the leather darker to cover up your mistakes.
3.  It doesn't help to use white thread when you re-die the silly thing anyway.
4.  Use a hole punch instead of a large drill bit.  The Dremel tool is NOT useful for smoothing leather.
5.  Use the thicker leather on the outside, not as the liner.  My plan was to use tacks on the outside so it would help if the leather was thinner, but the inside of the sheath rippled because the leather was too think.  I didn't use the tacks because this is a work knife not a show piece.

I made one of each sized Green River blades that Crazy Crow and Jantz have (most anyway), and I didn't want this smaller one.  A guy I work with has a 6 year old that will eventually need to learn how to use a knife so it has his name on it.

Later

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Nice sheath. Looks good, pard. Good idea to use browning to darken the steel.

[Bruce W Sims]

You did EXACTLY what I am working to do!! I have the Green River knife and the
sheath you did is almost identical.  Thanks for the tips. I am trying to do mine as
"low tech" as possible to have it look more like someone pulled it together with limited
training and resources. IMHO waaay too many bits look much too polished and finished.
Yours looks great!

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Nice design, and clean looking sheath, thanks for sharing

tEN wOLVES

[1961MJS]

Hi again

I made this rig as an experiment in fringe and the bison hide.  It's fully lined with thin (2-3 ounce) tooling leather.  I improved the thickness, and didn't dye the outside.

Things I did wrong:

1.  I didn't get the sewing straight enough.
2.  I didn't sew up to the edge of the welt, I could have stitched out another 1/8 to 1/4 inch.
3.  Putting a nice edge on bison hide is difficult at best.  This looks O.K., but not great. 

This is a left handed rig for my daughter.  The knife started out with no patina / coating, but after using another Green River for a while I coated this one with Vinegar after putting the scales on.  It will look better if you put the coating on first.  

Later

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Looks good, pard. The buffalo has a nice texture to it. Thanks for the pics.

[Bruce W Sims]

I recently finished a book on Jim Baker, the Indian Scout, which included quite a few
pics of his kit. One pic was of the knife he made which comes close to the knife you show.
Sorry I can't figure a way right now to get that pic posted here. Let me see what I can do.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Marshal Will Wingam]

I thought we had a link on posting photos in our FAQ thread. Well, it turns out we didn't so I found the thread that explains it and now have it linked in our FAQ's. There's also a link in the FAQ's that explains ways to reduce the size of your photos, too. That thread is sticky'd so it's always easy to find.

Here's that thread for you, as well. Posting Photos

[Bruce W Sims]

Thanks, Marshall:

Since I was bouncing all over Gawd's Half-acre referencing Jim Baker, I just started a new thread.

Feel free to relocate the thread if you like. I'll play with the new FAQ option to get the hang of it.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Glad to help, Bruce. Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.