Nix's Sheath Tutorial -- Part SixFinishing.
At this point, my goals are to 1) clean up the sheath, making sure my edges are smooth, 2) stain the leather (just because I can), and 3) oil the leather.
Sounds simple, right?
Don’t worry, I can turn even this simple step into another overly-long post…..you might want a cup of tea or coffee…..
As we folded and stitched and bent and glued and everything else we’ve done, the edges of the sheath have lost their nice crisp alignment. (At least for me. The professionals seem to keep everything very accurate and precise.)
One of the reasons I like using my 1/2” margins is that I now have a little room to trim up the edges.
You can use a sharp knife, or sharp rasp, but I find sanding to be the easiest and most reliable method.
I ran out to the garage and fired up the belt sander. The belt sander doesn’t get into all the tight spaces, so I also used my trusty foam block sander. What ever works for you.
You can see here the edges of the welt are now all even and flush. I also knocked off the corners of the sheath:
But the sanding has left a ragged edge between the sides and faces of the sheath:
Once again, the chamfering tool and a craft knife get pressed into service to clean all that up.
Looks OK.
That messy corner now looks pretty good, too:
But, even though the welts and pieces are trimmed flush, and the edges chamfered now, the leather is still a bit fuzzy or hairy. (I think you can see that in the photo above.) Now is a good time to burnish the edges and chamfers and 'seal' that leather up.
‘Burnishing’ is the simple process of using a little water and briskly rubbing the leather to mat the fibers together and get a sealed edge. You can use a wooden dowel, old ham bone, or maybe even a piece of pvc pipe. It’s nice to have something that can fit into tight spaces, the pointed end of my tool is pretty good for that.
Be prepared. I’m going to recommend burnishing a lot from now on. After every little step, I’ll burnish the edges.
Here’s my long edge after a bit of burnishing:
The glossy areas show you where the leather has really tightened up and become shiny. This is just from water and burnishing. You don’t need much water. A nice spray would do. I’ve been a bit generous with the water here because having some irregularly dampened leather will help me create a mottled or splotchy dye pattern (which I want in this case). If you want an evenly dyed finish, it would be better to be more careful and uniform with the water.
The corner area is a bit tougher to burnish. But, look at the way the chamfers now gleam! That’s a good sign.
At this point, I want to dye my edges with my dark brown dye (personal preference).
After the edges are dyed, they get burnished.
And burnished a bit more.
This is now starting to look like a properly finished piece of leatherwork, if I say so myself.
You can also see how my welts worked together.
I wanted a mottled, irregular dye pattern. Do do this you can use several different materials, but a natural sponge works well for me. I just randomly dabbed on some light dye.
The holes in this sponge work really well to create that
really bad dye job irregular pattern.
Obviously, it was time to burnish some more.
After applying the light dye and burnishing, I used some of the darker dye, both with the sponge and with the included wool applicator.
Alright, that’s just about as
bad a dye job irregular a pattern as you can get.
After letting it dry, I decided I wanted a bit more dye on the sheath and used the applicator to brush on a top coat of light dye. I was satisfied with
how bad this looked this turned out:
At this point…yes, you guessed… a bit more burnishing.
Once the sheath was thoroughly dry, I applied a bit of my favorite
Huberd’s Shoe Grease. This is a simple Bees wax and Pine Tar mixture that preserves and protects leather. You don’t need to wax or oil your sheath, but waxing the sheath will help keep water out and seal the water-based dye in. I can’t imagine not waxing your sheath, but it's optional.
There are other treatments made for leather, specifically to seal the leather and waterproof it.
Fiebing’s Acrylic Resolene works well and is simple to use, but leaves a bit of a hard finish. Still, a nice option.
For this project, I slathered on the ‘Shoe grease’. I then used Mrs Nix’s hairdryer to gently warm the grease and leather to help it absorb. Take your time if you do this. And try to clean up the hairdryer…..
Finally....here’s the finished sheath, all waxed up and ready to play:
Oh, one more thing. After waxing, I burnished the edges some more. However, I didn’t use any water. I just relied on the wax.
Burnish those edges!
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