The first order of business was to purchase some leather making supplies. I bought an inexpensive starter kit off Amazon which arrived nice and quick. But, it was clear from a thorough inspection that the quality was less than stellar. And, from watching the YouTube videos it became clear there are a few items that are best not to skimp on, among which are the stitching groover and edge beveler. I finally took the plunge and visited the Tandy Leather Supply website and ordered those items, as well as a couple of leather dyes and a 7-9oz Veg tanned shoulder. Delivery was a bit slow, but finally my leather supplies arrived and I was ready to begin. Or so I thought.
My first task was to create the paper templates that would be used to cut out the leather. Simple eh? Ha! It's been a lotta years since those high school drafting classes! What took Chuck Dorsett about 10 minutes on video took me some 2-1/2 hours and three attempts! But, I finally got my templates created.
Once home I ensued upon the sheath project. Wow! That 7-9oz leather is a tough cut! Of course, for a beginner everything is a learning process. It took me a while to discover I could use less elbow grit and pass through the same line twice or three times to cut my leather.
I'd have to say there was never a moment without trepidation that day. But, by the end of the day I had my leather pieces cut for face, welt, back & belt loop, and hold-down strap. I then whetted down the face piece and worked on applying a weave pattern (made a few mistakes there, but dye and antiquing helps hide them some). After that, I pounded stitch holes in the face piece. Then it was on to dying the leather pieces. Finally, it was time to apply contact cement and bring face, welt, and back & belt loop together as one. This is where some of the drama set in. I came to realize only too late, that my face piece and back & belt loop peace, were not an exact matching fit for each other. Now they were bonded, and the bottom of the back piece (blade tip area) was a bit short. And I had already put stitch holes in that face piece that were now much too close to the edge of the bottom piece. In my beginner's ignorance I tried to cut a sliver of leather and cement it into that area of the bottom piece to match the top piece. I spent a fair amount of time trying to sand it and make it work. But, it looked wonky, and I was not all all satisfied with it. After a night of sleep I decided the better approach was to just trim the sheath at the bottom and create new stitch holes there. After applying the dye and antiquing to the leather my boo boo at the bottom was not as blatantly noticeable as before. I finally decided to just live with it.
Then it was time to do the stitching! I found out quickly that I had NO IDEA how to do a saddle stitch. I had saved several YouTube videos showing how to saddle stitch, but apparently they were all moving too quick for me or something. Somehow I was just not "getting it." I got disgusted and angry and a little voice in my head told me to "go take a break" (i.e., just walk away). I went upstairs and found the couch. Took some time for some personal reading, and then after a prayer for help, I went into my computer room and did some looking for an article that might explain this "saddle stitching" to me in a way I could understand. I found one! And after a couple reads it made sense to me! LoL Well, I headed back downstairs and got myself setup for stitching the sheath, with the article close at hand on my iPhone. I have to say, for a new-to-leather-working guy, this was a lot of tedious work. Part of the problem was that it was hard to find a way to keep tension in that thread after each stitch so they would be nice and tight throughout. It really was a bit exhausting. If I understand it correctly, those 64 stitch holes turned into 128 thread pass-thorough's. I finally got it done, and without having stabbed myself to boot! Ha!
