Working with rawhide?

[Jerry V Lape]

I have never used rawhide before and now wish to make a knife sheath using rawhide as the inner liner.  How do I go about softening it to mold it around the knife?  And once molded is it okay to stitch it up with waxed linen using saddle stitch along with the outer leather cover? 

[ScottH]

Plain water soak

[PPatch]

btw Jerry, source of rawhide are those large dog "chews,"

dave

[Ky-Flinter]

Jerry,

I make a pattern for the rawhide liner out of manila folder or a cereal box and leave extra on one side to fold over the sharp edge of the blade.  Cut the rawhide liner out and soak it in water.  Wax your blade or wipe on some rust preventative on it.  Wrap the rawhide around the blade and fold over the blade edge.  Where the blade curves you will have to cut some small triangular notches in the folded over material so it will lay flat.  I use some of those black spring paperclips to hold the rawhide in place.  Set it aside to dry.

Once the rawhide is dry I cut a piece of soft buckskin a little bigger than needed to cover the outside of the rawhide.  Don't tell anybody but I use contact cement to glue the buckskin to the rawhide.  Once that is dry, I trim the buckskin about 1/8" or so outside the rawhide and I sew thru the buckskin only.  At the sheath opening I fold the buckskin over to the inside and stitch it down.









-Ron

[Jerry V Lape]

Ky Flinter,
Thanks for the tutorial.  I did the rawhide as you suggested and it came out okay but I made it so tight I couldn't withdraw the blade without considerable effort.  The way I applied the large paper clamps  was overly effective.  So I tried again with another piece and this time I wrapped the rawhide so it closed on the back of the blade and instead of clamps I stitched it closed.  After it dried I ground off the stitched edge, glued on the leather cover, lock stitched it  and called it good.  Just what I wanted.  Oh, I like my sheaths to retain the blade even if upside down and shaken.  So I glued a couple very small but potent magnets to the outside of the rawhide just forward of the handle.  With wood lined sheaths I typically use a spring metal spoon that bears on the blade to insure it stays put.  The rawhide was goat skin and very thin so the spoon wouldn't have worked on it. 

[wattlebuster]

Don Bruton AKA Whitewolf has a very well written with photos spiral bound book on this very subject. Anybody who want to make a rawhide covered knife sheath ought to have this inexpensive book in their library. His web site is below

http://www.booneguns.com/

[Black Hand]

I have never used rawhide before and now wish to make a knife sheath using rawhide as the inner liner.  How do I go about softening it to mold it around the knife?  And once molded is it okay to stitch it up with waxed linen using saddle stitch along with the outer leather cover?

Make sure to make a rawhide welt for the inner sheath. I sew the sheath/welt together with heavy waxed linen. I also prefer to make the inner rawhide sheath separate from the outer leather cover.

It helps, if after sewing the rawhide sheath, to insert the knife and clamp the blade end between two boards to flatten the rawhide (against the blade) for a tighter fit.