I need a couple knife sheaths made for some 6"-7" fixed blade knives... Nothing terribly elaborate, but sturdy and durable for carrying on the belt.

Any suggestions to whom I can send them to make something to my specs?

Blackhawk makes a couple nice sheaths but they are a little gadgety. Worth looking at though......DJ

I make fixed blade knives that size in my free time.



Im not a very good knife maker yet, but when my friends saw the type of sheath I make for my blades, they all gave me their hunting knives and asked me to make a sheath for their blades.



This was a bit hard to do at first. the fact is that the first few sheaths I made I actually took to a leather boot fixer guy and he did most of the work for me on them.



I sat down one night and very slowly made a sheath all by myself. And you know what?...it was fun and easy!



The fact is that working with the leather is more fun than working with the handle stuff that takes up so much of my free time with each knife I make.



For the very next sheath that I made, I took photos of the step-by-step system I use and also took down notes for others to read.



I have now placed this helpfull information on my website.



http://eastof29.tripod.com/daqotahforge2/id37.html



The sheath I make is the result of my years in the woods and years and years of working with knives at my job.



"I don't use snaps in this design, and there is a very good reason why this is. Snaps fool us into thinking that they are good at keeping a knife safely in its sheath. But what actually occurs is that snaps take so much time to use, that we tend to not place the knife back in the sheath when we should. That is why knives get lost too, not from falling out of their sheaths, but by being left out some place when snapping and un-snapping becomes too much of a hassle.

"



I got a whole bunch of emails from a knife maker named Ed Fowler and he has helped me a lot .



Start to finish this is just a few hours of work. a little more if you need to let the glue set up over night, but right now I can make this sheath in little time. its not that Im that fast, it;'s just that this is a very easy system to follow as I have worked things out so that you just draw the pattern on a yellow Leagle pad and then just transfer it to the leather....no talent needed at all....

Gotta agree with you on that sheath style DaKotah, that's the only way to fly.

Did I miss the welt in your sheath? I've found that little bit of leather along the blade edge is critical to protect the stitching and helps align the blade so that the sheath isn't pierced by the blade as easily.

I also prefer the pouch style. When actually pushing through brush, falling out of things, climbing or moving a lot of equipment it seems that the snaps will be almost certain to fail the designed function.

Im not sure what name to call that section of leather,,,In the Ed Fowler video he called it a " gusset."...



But I do add this leather between the stitching..(look about 1/2 the way down that webpage)



Note that I have learned that it is very important that you cut this section of leather a bit short so that you have a drain hole at the lower end of the sheath. At first I kept the leather tight and filled in all the way to the lower end, but then I used the sheath in the field and found there was no way to get junk out of it. mud and clay just built up and soon it was actually hard to get the knife to sit in the sheath. I now always have a hole in the lower end where the Gussit is cut short and so there is enough room to jam a stick up and kick out anything that might have found it's way into the sheath..



I also talk about how if you cut this leather just right you can actually have the guard sit on this and allow the blade to hover in the sheath and not hit anything. This helps the blade to stay sharp as even bumping the sheath as you carry will cause the knife to become dull....Thats why some guys talk about their sharp knives getting dull right in the sheath.