My First Tacked Sheath

[1961MJS]

Hi

This is the 10th or so Russel Green River Blade that I've put together.  I really like the way the vinegar stained blade looks with the Mesquite.  (I"m also using Walnut, Cherry, and Maple).  I purchased Alex Koslov's book Plains Indian Knife Sheaths and am using it as a guide book.  I've also watched Custom Knife Sheaths with Chuck Burrows and John Cohea's Basic Rawhide Sheath Construction.  Barb at OKC Tandy suggested using a backer layer under the bison when I use the two pronged brass dots, and that worked very well.  It seemed to give the two pronged dots more to hold on to.  They still don't get anywhere near the blade.  I followed Koslov's book and made a tacked sheath out of bison hide.  I didn't really need to quadruple thickness leather on the tab extension used to hold the knife in your belt.  Buffalo is a pain to edge, this one was sanded smooth and has several coats of edge coating on it.  I found that cutting the edges to a 45 degree angle and mating them  so that you only see the leather top (skin side), looks pretty good. I was only able to do that on the end of the tab extension.   I learned a lot from this one.  In Koslov's book, most of the tacked sheaths are huge with 3-5 lines of tacks down the blade side of the knife.  For a newbie, that's a real waste of leather. 

All in all, I'm pretty happy with how the knife and sheath turned out.

The first picture is the finished knife and sheath:

The second picture is a closeup of the pattern.  I had planned on only two crosses, but I worked out that I could use the WHOLE front of the added piece.  The recipient really liked the Holy Trinity.

The Third picture is a BLURRY picture of the way I finally worked out to do with the edges.  The edges meet and are stitched over.

The fourth picture is the top of the sheath, showing how I made it way too thick.  The next one will not have this problem.

Thanks for looking and Best Wishes for a Happy New Year.     

[Mogorilla]

Looks great!   I am in the planning stages for a painted rawhide one.  You have given me some ideas for tack design.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Looks really good. Nice spacing on those spots.

[1961MJS]

Hi

I have John Cohea's DVD and the Wild Rose one also, they're great for how to build a sheath.  To see what the designs are I used Alex Koslov's book:

http://www.amazon.com/Plains-Indian-Knife-Sheaths-Construction/dp/1929572050/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452034594&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=alex+koslov+plains+indian

It has a LITTLE on how, but a lot on what.  He has several pages of pictures of the Old Sioux wearing the knives in the book.  There's a LOT of leather in those tacked sheaths. 

Later

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Very nice 1961MJS, it looks good, thanks for sharing...


tEN wOLVES