Tag Archives: rawhide sheath

Rawhide Mora Sheath

by Woodsbum

It has been several months of me procrastinating, but I finally got motivated for long enough period to finish my friend’s knife sheath. Believe me when I say that it was not an easy feat. We are in the middle of the rainy season and I still have a lot of new Netflix series unwatched, not to mention some Captain Morgan Reserve that isn’t going to drink itself.

Lack of motivation and inebriation opportunities aside, I did get the sheath finished. For this build I did a few things differently. Instead of making a complete leather liner I cut out the plastic from the original sheath and then used leather for the top portion to make it snug. The first attempt didn’t work as well as I had anticipated so I ended up having to take it all apart and trim the thickness of the liner. Interestingly enough, the inner liner didn’t have to be stitched once I had the old one wet formed and waxed a little. It really holds its shape well.

Rawhide Mora Sheath

Rawhide Mora Sheath

In future builds I might do something similar from now on. If I take the leather I am building the liner out of and wet it, form it, and bind it to keep it in shape, and then wax it when it is done I can easily just use rawhide over the top as an exoskeleton of sorts. This keeps the rawhide smooth and allows it all to stay tight without the liner binding up on me after the rawhide constricts during drying.

You can see how I forced the over layer to constrict and thus hold onto the main sheath by shear friction.

Side View - Notice the forced shrinkage.

Side View – Notice the forced shrinkage.

A few things that I have discovered about rawhide:

  • You can adjust the shrinkage of the rawhide with use of a heat gun. If you want it to constrict tighter just dry the wet rawhide with the old Warner.
  • Dying it is almost impossible, but getting it to soak up color while it is getting ready for working gives it a nice even color. I used coffee on this build but I am thinking about using some fruit juices and wine for some added shades on my next builds. I think some red wine in coffee would give an almost mahogany color.
  • The more rugged the rawhide looks the better the finished product. I like how the inner part of the rawhide is textured. It gives a very interesting and rustic look to the sheath.
  • Layers of different rawhide cuts and textures also gives it an interesting look.

I am thinking about doing something out of rawhide for my Marlin 1895 to hold a few additional rounds. I think I can do a rawhide cover with leather liner that will lace up one side and hold 8 to 10 cartridges. If I do, I will try and take more pictures of the actual build process. These last couple knife sheaths were fairly basic so a final description seemed to suffice.

As I do more projects and find soaks that will color stain the rawhide in interesting manners, I will update you. I will also do a few builds that have more pictures of the process. If you have been reading my site very much at all you know I am very bad about taking pictures. Someday this may change, but if you have any questions I can try and answer them for you here.

Thanks for looking and if you get a chance, try out some projects yourself.

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Gift Neck Knife

by Woodsbum

I have been working on a gift neck knife combo for my son in law’s birthday. He does not have any real field knives for camping, hunting or bushcrafting so I thought that a solid neck knife would be the best way to get him started.

When choosing a good field knife, I like to look at how harsh someone is going to be on the blade. My son in law doesn’t do a lot of woodcarving, but wants to get more into hunting. Getting him something that was lighter on the bushcraft and heavier on the camp type chores seemed like a good target. The blank I chose was a MP Classic built by Matt Paul in New York. We have several of his builds and have been very happy with them. Getting a solid blank from Matt was a no brainer since I wanted something to eventually become an heirloom. Because this was going to be my first “outdoor gear” gift for him it was very important that I do a lot of the work to get it built and ready. It might not have been important to him, but I wanted him to know that I was willing to spend a lot of time and energy in creating something that will last his whole lifetime.

When I went shopping for scales I looked for something different, but went with the classic lines of the blank. There was no real shape to the handle so something simple and elegant seemed like the right choice. I chose some paduk that had some phenomenal color and grain. For pins I used some brass stock.

Fitting the handle on a straight lined knife handle is not nearly as easy as one would think. There are no curves or shapes that you can use to hide small imperfections. Everything has to be completely straight and smooth to feel right.

Unwaxed and initial shaping

Unwaxed and initial shaping

To finish the handle I melted in some carnuba wax and polished it. For some reason the pudak soaked the wax up so I didn’t get the high sheen I was expecting. This is okay, however. The lowered gloss of the handle goes well with the sheath I made him.

Waxed

Waxed

To compliment this knife I wanted a sheath that was completely different than what you would normally see. I started off by making a leather liner out of 8 oz leather. Due to my normal picture taking deficiencies, I have had to add this picture of another sheath I am making so you can see the gist of what I did. From the picture you can see that I just did a simple taco sheath without a welt.

Liner

Liner

And then I wet formed the sheath into a Scandinavian style form.

Wet formed liner

Wet formed liner

Once I got this wet formed I wrapped it in rawhide. The process involves a lot of soaking, stretching and is then sewn along the same lines as the liner. The rawhide was left overlapping the liner at the top so that I would be able to hit it with a heat gun and shrink it around the knife handle. In this picture you can see how I shrunk the rawhide to form it around the top of the leather liner.

Top of finished sheath

Top of finished sheath

The back of the sheath, like I mentioned already, is sewn along that same line as the liner. As the rawhide dried it pulled around the lines of the blade.

Back of finished sheath

Back of finished sheath

I finished up the sheath with a leather lace that I whipped onto the ring. For adjustability I added the fisherman’s knot on the side. You can also see how tightly the top of the sheath fits against the knife handle in this picture as well. This will keep water from running down into the sheath and hopefully help protect everything. To keep the blade from rusting I squirted some oil into the sheath and waxed the inside of the liner.

Top of finished sheath and knife fit

Top of finished sheath and knife fit


Hopefully my son in law likes his birthday gift. The sheath is still drying, but I hope to have it completely ready for use by the time I see him on Sunday. Lucky for me, he doesn’t read my site.

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Rawhide Mora Sheath

by Woodsbum

A couples of weeks ago we taught another NBEF Bowhunters Education Class. While other people were teaching, I took a few minutes to whip up a sheath for my friend’s son who was going to a summer camp. The camp was called “Ranger Camp” where they taught many different skills to include quite a few bushcraft techniques. So that the poor kid was not stuck with a plastic Mora classic sheath as well as giving him a chance to be one of the “cool kids,” I took some time to get his neck knife squared away.

The first thing I did was cut off the plastic belt loop off the stock sheath. I then wrapped the sheath in rawhide and sewed it together along the back so the original sheath became an insert/frame/internal structure.

Sewn along the back of the Mora

Sewn along the back of the Mora

Unfortunately the rawhide shifted quite a bit and was difficult to keep in place considering my work bench was nothing more than a couple catalogs and a bow case across my lap. I did get a good stitch on it and it dried quite nicely.

I then did an outer wrap that was to become the belt/strap loop and attachment for a firesteel. Since his firesteel was at home and I needed one to make a loop, I went downstairs and picked him up a Light My Fire. This one had an antler handle and was pretty nice looking so it went well with the rawhide sheath design.

Belt loop/strap loop

Belt loop/strap loop

Here is the loop I did for the Light My Fire. I love how rawhide forms and hardens into shape. The way this loop formed perfectly to the firesteel made me quite happy.

Firesteel loop

Firesteel loop

All said and done, Tristan was envied by the other kids and some of the instructors for having a nice sheath for his Mora. He is a good kid that does a whole lot for his brother and parents so I really hope he gets lots of good use and many years of enjoyment out of this sheath. He definitely deserves to have good things happen for him.

AND. In case you were wondering, he did have a great time at his “Ranger Camp.” They taught him firemaking, archery, shelters, how to cook over flame, and all sorts off fun skills that anyone spending time in the woods should know. You can definitely see that this time in the woods learning bushcraft skills really fired him up to learn and try more. It really brings big smiles to my face when I see that spark in his eye.

Final Product

Final Product

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