Finally got brave enough to try a beaver tail sheath

[Tim Harrison]

I had seen some beaver tail sheathes posted here and wanted to make on.  I bought a couple of dried salted split beaver tails and went at it.  There's a lot of fat on those things.  A couple of hours of scraping, I got something that I thought I could use.  I hope it lasts.  The piece was big enough to wrap around the blade in one piece.  There is a veg tan liner inside the beaver outside. The cuff is just some split cow hide.  Chuck Burrows had posted an ambidextrou sheath that I liked, so I tried the same thing.

The knife began life as an Old Hickory (Ontario) 6"  boning knife.  The first steel pin is a fake.  I didn't want to drill through the hardened steel of the blade, so it is in two pieces.  The second one goes though a slot blade that I cut using a Dremel tool. The bolster is lead-free plumber's solder.
I am having issues with the stiching becoming loose after the rawhide dries.  I am using artifical sinew for the stiching.  How do you deal with this?

The beading is not that great.  This is the first time I have tried to bead anything.  Boy, do I have a lot to learn.  What should I be thread should I be using to attach the beads?

Here are some pictures.  Please feel free to comment good or bad.  As usual, I am always open to suggestions.  I have a thick skin and I am always trying to improve and take the suggestions I get here to heart.  I have put handles on a few knives so far.  I am pretty much limited to reshaping finished blades.  One day, I hope to try to make my own blade, but I have alot to learn before I try it.

Thanks again, Tim

[LRB]

  As I said on another forum. Excellent! But, lose the artificial sinew. It always looks like artificial sinew. Otherwise, very fine work. For the beads you might use artificial sinew, but stripped down to just a few fibers. Chuck can give a better alternative I'm sure, but it won't rot, and you can't really see it when used for that purpose. Knife aint bad either.

[KennyC]

All that LRB said fer sure. The only thing I use art. sinew for is to resole moc's . By harvesting the lower leg sinew from the lower leg  and back strap  sinew from a white tail  will give yow all the sinew you need for a lot of sheaths. And before you beat up your bead work it is fine for first time. When you get a chance to see original bead work you will see what I mean  The high end work being done to taday is most of the time wayyy better than most of the stuff you see in museum. just my 02