Need some leather help...

D

DrGrip

Guest
My boys are coming to town tomorrow and the plan is to make a custom fillet knife for my father (their grandfather) for father's day.

I have the steel and all of the tools to make the knife, I also ordered a scabbard for the knife from Jantz. The boys wnat to customize the scabbard for grandpa.

The questions here is this, what do the boys need to do to the scabbard BEFORE they start to decorate the leather with the leather tools? I have no clue as to if they are to work it dry and in tact or if it needs a wetting agent first.

I have the tools to stamp, cut, etc, but I have never done any leather work. I got the tools in trade for a blade a few years back... Letters, numbers, shapes, decorations, etc... There are 23 total punches and a knife...

Any suggestions?

Charlie
 
Leather has to be cased "wet" before it can be tooled. I tried some stamping on a sheath that was already assembled and didn't have any luck at that. Tandy has some online videos on working with leather. If you have a place that sells 6 to 8 oz tooling leather, you could make a simple sheath fairly easily. The leather could be tooled before you put the sheath together. I just started making my own sheaths and really enjoy it.
 
Simple way is to get a small amount of water in a dish. Take a sponge and wet the sponge and wipe it across the top of the leather. The leather does not need to be very wet just damp. Stamp and if it starts drying then just dampen again.
 
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