Thanks alot guys, I'll be looking forward to seeing Y'all at the show !
Here you can see the end of my welt is in line with the center of my sheath body. To get a clean wrap around the welt and have the outside edges of my sheath work out at glue-up I need to trim this back just a bit.
Here it is trimmed back about an 1/8" an re bevelled. Had I not done this my welt would've been uneven with the welt sticking out from between the two body pieces. Should be good to go now.
Now I line my welt up and trace in pen so I know exactly where to put my contact cement on the body side
Ready for glue-up I cased out the body again to mold it to shape
Now we can slip our welt in there and hold things together to check out our fit
You can see my "guard" area is bumping flat into the top of my welt so some trimming is in order
Something about like this should do the trick
Now she'll drop right in like she should
IMHO this is THE product to get for gluing your leather. It's the least messy, sets the quickest, and is available from any hardware or big box store. This is EXACTLY what you want, The Original formula with the red label. Beside it on the shelf will be a Gel Formula with a green label which is NOT what we want. I use flux brushes for applicators and get them in 100 packs from Harbor Freight. Single use then pitch it and always have a nice clean brush instead of a buggered up one to work with.
Contact Cement is really easy to use. Get a nice coat on both pieces that are going to be glued together
Wait 4 or 5 minutes for the cement to tack-up and then stick your parts together. When first applied it'll look very wet. Once it tacks-up it'll have a more "glazed" appearance. Timing is not crucial either. If you stick it together wet it'll just take longer to set.
Glue the welt on the first side and we can have a look at how our knife is going to fit the sheath
All looks good so cement the other side
While I'm cementing I'll go ahead and cemnt my belt loop together like this
As soon as I stick the second side together I do an immediate test fit. If there's a problem I may be able to pull it back apart to fix it. After just a couple minutes this won't be possible and I'd have to cut the sheath apart.
Now I'm ready to dye the rest of the body. A big puddle of dye like this works well. Not enough dye and you'll get streaking
The dye itself will get a bit foamy. Nothing to worry about just let it sit and dry for a little bit
I dab the sponge a little to avoid streaking. The first coat isn't going to come out the prettiest so don't worry much if it looks splotchy
One it sets for a few minutes give it a light wipe down with a paper towel. Here I've missed a little spot
No problem just hit that spot again
Good to go
Let the dy job set up for a bit then drill the stitch holes through the welt and back side of the body. This takes a bit of effort with a hand drill but it's do-able
Here's the side that was against my 2x4 while drilling. A little tore up but nothing to worry about
With my holes drilled I want to trim my edge down and shape it so I free handed a line parallel to my holes.
This is now a pretty thick piece of leather so it'll take sevaral passes on the cut to get through. Cut my excess of square
Cut a bevel on the edge all the way around both sides
Grab your sanding block and a piece of 120 grit paper and sand the edge smooth and round off the bevel cuts.
Cut the bevel around the mouth of the sheath also
Now sand it all with some 220 grit
Now dye all the sanded edges and give a light coat over the rest of the body. Once the whole body is coated give it a wipe down with a paper towel to remove excess dye and level out the finish. The first coat of dy sealed the leather so this second coat will come out nice and smooth
I have not attatched my belt loop yet but this gives us a pretty good idea of what our finished sheath will look like
The tutorial is quickly comming to a close. Just need to cement the loop on and drill it then stitch it up and she'll be complete.
-Josh