Translations:AY Honors/Leather Craft - Advanced/Answer Key/12/en

Knife Sheath

Cut out the leather
Make a strap to hold the handle
Punch holes
Set the snaps and rivet the strap in place
Rivet the sheath closed
Stitch between the rivets

Cut out the leather: As with the hatchet/ax sheath, you could lay out a pattern on a paper bag and trace it first. Cut it out and fold it around the knife to test for a good fit. Leave a quarter inch around the perimeter of the blade to accommodate rivets. If satisfied with the results, use that to cut out a piece of leather. If you are not satisfied with the result, you've only lost a paper bag and a little time, so you can do it again. Once you have a pattern you like, trace it onto a piece of leather with a pencil and then cut it out. Use a thick piece of leather for this. A thin piece will be floppy and not hold up well.
Make a strap to hold the handle: A knife sheath typically has a strap near the top to hold the handle against the sheath. Without this piece, the knife tends to flop about and may even fall out of the sheath when the wearer bends over. This strap should be a little wider than the snaps you plan to use and long enough to wrap around the knife handle at the point where it will be fastened to the sheath. Most (perhaps all) knife handles have a different girth at different points along their length. It's better to make the strap a little too loose than it is to make it a little too tight.
Punch holes: Punch a hole in the center of the strap. Then fold the top of the sheath over on itself to form a loop through which a belt can be slipped. Punch a hole through both thicknesses near the top (make sure you know where you want the strap before punching these holes). Lay the strap on the sheath and then place the knife on top of it, positioned where you want it. Then wrap the strap around the handle and mark it for the snaps. Punch holes for the snaps.
Saddle stitch the belt loop: Fold the top of the sheath over on itself and saddle stitch it across the width of the sheath.
Set the snaps: Set the snaps following the instructions given above for the hatchet sheath.
Rivet the strap in place: Rivet the strap to the sheath. You can buy rivets, or if you feel adventurous (or cash-strapped), you can make your own rivets from nails. To make a rivet from a nail, cut the nail so that it is a little longer than the thickness of the leather (all layers) through which it will pass. The nail should poke out from the leather by an amount equal to half the diameter of the nail shank. Put the nail in place and lay it on an anvil (or on a sledge hammer or on a bench vice's table) with the nail head down. Using the flat face of a ball peen hammer, tap on the cut end of the nail. Then begin tapping on the cut end holding the hammer face at an angle, going all around the edges. Finally, flip the hammer over and use the rounded end (the ball peen) and repeat the process. The end of the nail should mushroom over and flatten out. You can shape the mushroomed portion into a dome with practice.
Rivet the sheath closed: Use brass or copper rivets for the sheath. If making your own rivets, use brass or copper nails. Brass and copper are softer than steel, so when the knife blade slides into the sheath and hits the brass or copper rivets, it will not dull the blade as steel rivets would. If you do not rivet the sheath, but merely stitch it closed, the knife may eventually cut through the stitches. Use five evenly-spaced rivets to hold the sheath closed, with the fifth rivet near the tip of the sheath.
Stitch between the rivets: Stitch the sheath to keep it from gapping open between the rivets. Locate the stitches closer to the edge of the sheath than the rivets. That way the rivets can protect the stitching from the knife blade.