Recommendation? Need Help deciding on which type of leather belt sheath to make.

000Robert

000Robert

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Mar 28, 2020
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I need help deciding on what type or style of leather belt sheath to make for my new Carothers Utility/Fighter. It is a fixed blade with a 6" blade. I have made a couple of things so far but I still consider myself a rookie at leathercraft. I do have most of the tools and stuff for leatherworking. I have also included a photo of a shoulder harness that I made for one of my sisters.
I have decided to tool and paint the eagle that is in the thumbnail photo below that is in my new templates that I bought, that you can click on to look at. The eagle is about 2 1/4" W X 3 3/4" L.
There's also a thumbnail of my beautiful CPK UF in case someone has never seen one.
All ideas and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Eagle-1a.jpg UF-12a.jpg Debbies Shoulder Harness-1a.jpg
 
I'll be tackling one of these myself very soon
 
Nah just sleeping in. I would personally make an SOB pancake for that knife, weakside draw. Very nice shoulder rig for your sister. What revolver is that? Charter Arms Bulldog?
 
Horsewright said:
Nah just sleeping in. I would personally make an SOB pancake for that knife, weakside draw. Very nice shoulder rig for your sister. What revolver is that? Charter Arms Bulldog?
Click to expand...

Thanks, Dave. That style would probably make the eagle look better also. I wonder if that style would be uncomfortable while driving? I have not tried all of the styles.
Using my Kydex sheath was very awkward trying to drive in my captains seat, so I took it off. I changed the TecLok to a FBI cant yesterday to see if that would work better, and it does work better. My DEK1 with a 4 1/2" blade will be much better when I receive it.
Thanks about my job on my sisters shoulder harness. It was the first time that I ever tried anything like that. It took me a lot of time and pain to get it done. The pistol is an Armscor 206, 38 special. She passed away last year. I miss her and her homemade Gumbo. I offered the rig to her kids and they didn't want it, so I am keeping it. I wet formed all of the leather except for the straps and did the stitching by hand.

Edit: Correction - After thinking about it, I am pretty sure that I bought the straps already cut.
 
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100_4953 (1).jpg

Here are four different configurations for the UF thAt i made for several of the "Carothers brothers"

You can eliminate the exotic inlays/overlays and substitute your eagle.

Instead of a drop loop style as shown, you can also configure it to sash carry with flat inset loop on the back (eliminate the drop loop). This would probably work best for you in the car.
 
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Horsewright said:
Nah just sleeping in. I would personally make an SOB pancake for that knife, weakside draw. Very nice shoulder rig for your sister. What revolver is that? Charter Arms Bulldog?
Click to expand...

I see what you mean about the sob idea Dave since the blade is 6 inches long. I have been going over a sob weakside draw pattern and it seems that if I have the knife at about a 30° angle to the belt, the belt slots will be about 7 1/4 inches apart.

That would put added stress on the knife trying to curve around my waist if I tried to wear it on my hip.
But I don't want the tip of the blade below the bottom edge of the sheath. So maybe I should just make the sheath a true horizontal? I would rather have the knife angled a little above level, I think.
 
100_4944.jpg One of he benefits of a sash style carry is that you can change the angle at will for whatever situation you happen to be in. This example is a CPK UF sash carry with shock cord, so that sheath separates with fast draw.
 
sheathmaker said:
View attachment 1405888 One of he benefits of a sash style carry is that you can change the angle at will for whatever situation you happen to be in. This example is a CPK UF sash carry with shock cord, so that sheath separates with fast draw.
Click to expand...

That is a very nice looking sheath, Paul! I was thinking about something like that also. I figured that I could stitch a back piece of leather for the belt on all four corners so that I could run my belt both ways for either vertical or horizontal carry. Is that what you mean?
 
No, that sheath does have an inset flat loop on the back for straight vertical carry, but the sash carry is just

insert the whole sheath under the belt or sash and it slides down to the stud and locks up there.

Then it can be an any angle you desire and changed at will.
 
sheathmaker said:
No, that sheath does have an inset flat loop on the back for straight vertical carry, but the sash carry is just

insert the whole sheath under the belt or sash and it slides down to the stud and locks up there.

Then it can be an any angle you desire and changed at will.
Click to expand...

Ok, I got it. Thanks!
 
Here's some shots of large knives carried SOB:

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Although she doesn't carry a particularly large knife, my wife Nichole has gone to also carrying that way:

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My standard punch for the slots is 2". If ya make the top slot longer that gives ya the ability to angle more. Compare my first photo to the others.
 
Horsewright said:
My standard punch for the slots is 2". If ya make the top slot longer that gives ya the ability to angle more. Compare my first photo to the others.
Click to expand...

My belt is about 1 1/2 inches wide. I made these slots 2" so that at the angle that the belt slots are to my belt, my belt will comfortably slide through the slots.
 
Trust me on this one. All those slots are 2" all those belts are 1.5", (I know cause I made all the belts too). This is something I now do to all SOB sheaths, having learned the hard way. The other thing it helps is, if ya don't get those slots absolutely parallel, ya can get a wad of belt behind the sheath that is almost impossible to get out. The oversized top slot fixes that. Wish I could find a 2.5"punch or even 2.75 inch.
 
I was thinking about the belt trying to bunch up. I saw that in somebody's photo a while back. After I cut the end of my slots to a half circle they ended up being a tad over 2 1/4" long. So my belt should go through them with no problems.

I cut the back piece out of some 10oz. veg-tan leather last night and this morning. I also cut out a 5oz. piece of leather for the blade edge protection to protect the stitching from getting cut.

I'm going to get some stencil blanks in a little while so I can make some templates before I proceed any further, just in case I want to make another sheath like this one in the future.
 
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