Horsewright
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2011
- Messages
- 12,645
Recently I made a batch of five roundknives. A roundknife is a traditional leather cutting tool. I made a simple half moon slip sheath for each. Mostly I view the sheath as a safety measure for shipping. However I realized there are a lot of folks that don't have a "shop" so to speak and must needs put there tools a way, young children around etc. Keeping this in mind I wanted a more secure sheath than my simple slip. Gary talked about this in the passaround thread and came up with a good idea on modifying an existing sheath. But this batch of roundknives were my first for sale and I wanted them to leave here with something kind of distinctive and yet safe and secure.
So here was the first try. Can't really see it but the whole stich line has a welt. What I did was skive down the welt at both ends. My hope was that additional friction on the blade would provide enough bite. While this seemed to work for a little bit it still wasn't secure enough. If I held the knife by the handle and shook it gently the sheath would fall off.
So Nichole and I cussed and discussed this at length. I took this sheath apart and put two welts in sewn only to the bottom side leaving a "valley" for the tang of the knife to fit down into.
Interesting this worked very well. The knife would almost click down into place. Very secure. The problem was getting the knife back out. It was simply dangerous. In fact Nichole almost cut herslef getting the knife out. Can't do this one.
So then I thought what if I do a simple lining, maybe that would give enough friction for the sheath to stay put. My roundknives are all a little "organic" in that they are each slightly unique, not cookie cutter made so to speak. I wanted this sheath design to be universal and not have to be fitted to an indivdual knife. So in this next pic in the center you see the center sheath is lined. Well it didn't work either. On a couple of the knives it seemed to work and I thought it was there. But on some of the others not so good. Let it sit overnight and it seemed to loosen up on all of them. Plus I was slicing the heck out of the lining. No go.
So while this pic shows 3 sheaths it actually shows five versions of the sheath. On the left one was the fist version with the full welt. It was also the second version where I thinned down the wlet ends for added friction. It was also the third version with the two locking lugs, which I named "thumb amputation alley" In the center was the lined version, try number four and finally on the right the final version I decide to go with. Borrowing an idea from my firend Chris, and with his permission, I put a welt on the front right side of the sheath. The knife is slid into the sheath at an angle and then centered and the bottom left side has a flap that comes up and over and locks down onto a Sam Browne stud. Safe, secure and universal. Each of the five knives would go into each sheath.
So whadya think? We there?
So here was the first try. Can't really see it but the whole stich line has a welt. What I did was skive down the welt at both ends. My hope was that additional friction on the blade would provide enough bite. While this seemed to work for a little bit it still wasn't secure enough. If I held the knife by the handle and shook it gently the sheath would fall off.
So Nichole and I cussed and discussed this at length. I took this sheath apart and put two welts in sewn only to the bottom side leaving a "valley" for the tang of the knife to fit down into.
Interesting this worked very well. The knife would almost click down into place. Very secure. The problem was getting the knife back out. It was simply dangerous. In fact Nichole almost cut herslef getting the knife out. Can't do this one.
So then I thought what if I do a simple lining, maybe that would give enough friction for the sheath to stay put. My roundknives are all a little "organic" in that they are each slightly unique, not cookie cutter made so to speak. I wanted this sheath design to be universal and not have to be fitted to an indivdual knife. So in this next pic in the center you see the center sheath is lined. Well it didn't work either. On a couple of the knives it seemed to work and I thought it was there. But on some of the others not so good. Let it sit overnight and it seemed to loosen up on all of them. Plus I was slicing the heck out of the lining. No go.
So while this pic shows 3 sheaths it actually shows five versions of the sheath. On the left one was the fist version with the full welt. It was also the second version where I thinned down the wlet ends for added friction. It was also the third version with the two locking lugs, which I named "thumb amputation alley" In the center was the lined version, try number four and finally on the right the final version I decide to go with. Borrowing an idea from my firend Chris, and with his permission, I put a welt on the front right side of the sheath. The knife is slid into the sheath at an angle and then centered and the bottom left side has a flap that comes up and over and locks down onto a Sam Browne stud. Safe, secure and universal. Each of the five knives would go into each sheath.
So whadya think? We there?
Last edited:
