wooden sheath

[beaver#1]

Ok m/y brother inlaw wants a certain blade with a wood sheath. I have seen one but never made one. How do you make it stay in. And that sort of thing.  Any help or ideas will help.
Thanks Dustin Parker

[Lin Rhea]

Dustin,
     You probably will have to use leather to some degree, as a strap or something. If the blade is long enough, perhaps just making a snug fit will do. Depends on the blade shape. If he knows he wants a wooden sheath, maybe he can show you some examples on the web that might also give you some ideas of the means of fastening.

[beaver#1]

Thanks Lin. I did some research on that type of blade. It's called a Jie dao.  Oriental type blade with a close to square tip. I know I can make a sheath using the mortise tang method.I'm just afraid after some use it will have to much slack and the possibly of the blade could slip out.  But I do have a basic understanding of how to start it. Thanks for everything Lin.

[Scott Teaschner]

I have a German youth knife. It has a metal sheath. The way the knife stays put is by some spring steel that puts pressure on the bade. With out it it would be very sloppy. I think the same princepal would work for a wood sheath also.

[Kevin Evans]

I watched a siminar last year at Blade .I 'm thinking it was Steven Rapp.
Anyway he clued about 1/2" of felt where the knife goes in the top of the sheath,and it was just hanging out.
Then he took tooth pick and made it start down in the sheath,then when he first inserted the knife it turned down in the sheath and never came out again.
It looked and felt firm as the knife went in and out of the sheath.
If this doesn't make sinse I'll try and do better.

[SveinD]

The Sami, Norways original people, used to make their sheaths of bone or wood with scrimshaw.
The Sami variant of scrimshaw is called Duodji.

Also, traditionally in Norway we had the "Tater-knives" (Gypsy-knife) built with metal/silver sheaths.

I found a link to a build-along with a Half-Horn knife, which is a half leather, half wood/horn sheath.

I ran it through google translate, so there might be some strange sentences, but the pics speak for themselves  :p

http://translate.google.no/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kammeret.no%2Fforum%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D23%26t%3D36226&act=url

I will try to find a link to a Tater/Full-horn build a long, but that may take a while, so I'll post it if/when I find!

Good Luck  

[Uncle Buck]

Back in the 70s there was a 2 day primitive skills course for Marines in Subic Bay. The knife we bought for the course  for $5 was a bolo knife/machete in a wooden sheath. If you inserted the knife in sheath and then rocked it back the bottom corner of the blade lock into a recess in the sheath, I never rook one apart to see how it worked. Lots of Marines and Navy Corpsman went through this course. I no longer have the knife but maybe some one out there does and can elaborate how these sheaths were made.

[hvyhitter]

Try this for the basics........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F8PedsUmB0

[beaver#1]

tahnks guys . i will look into all the info