I just finished a sheath for a knife I made from a Helle blade with a pronghorn antelope handle. By the time I got the sheath tight around the blade and formed to fit around a portion of the handle all of my hand tooling was pretty well rubbed out.

Can someone help me with some ideas on how to keep the tooling while also getting a nice snug fit? Should I do all of the forming first, sew it together, get it snug, then take it all apart to do the tooling and put it back together?

Thanks.

I hope someone here has an answer.
For me, if I am going to form fit the sheath, the decorations on the leather are kept in areas of minimum forming...usually near the stitching.  
Dan

You can tool the area of the blade without distorting the stamping when you form it. The guard and handle area it a bit of a tough area to form when stamped. I will sometimes stamp a area above the guard and gently wet form it with my fingers but just as often I'll scroll cut the upper areas after it is wet formed.
It gets even tougher when the sheath is lined.

It just takes a bit of practice getting it snug to the blade in the layout. It also changes when you add or subtract thickness in the leather.

QuoteOriginally posted by OconeeDan:
I hope someone here has an answer.
For me, if I am going to form fit the sheath, the decorations on the leather are kept in areas of minimum forming...usually near the stitching.  
Dan

This what I do. If the leather is thick enough and you can get a very deep stamp it might work also.