Tutorial on How to Make a Leather Sheath for the AK Bowie
(and similar large bowie knives)

Part 2 - Making the Keeper

Now, before we get too far, I want to back up and take you through how I made the special keeper loop and why we needed it. I'm not a big fan of snaps. They can scratch knives, get scratched themselves, and eventually loosen up and need replacing. Leather sheaths have been made for hundreds of years without snaps - the ancients must've had a way of figuring these things out - so we should be able to too.

So, the question then, is how do you make a sheath to fit a large-bladed knife, yet keep it from falling out? One simple solution is to make a very fitted pouch sheath (wet-folded over the spine to an exact fit). That would be fine on a regular knife, but the AK Bowie has a significant drop in the tip. Any knife with a significant bend in it (like a khukuri) and you have to use the "pancake-style" sheath design. Problem with that, of course, is getting the guard/bolster to fit and stay put. There are many solutions to this problem, only one of which has been chosen here. I've never seen a sheath with a strap like this one, so for me, it's a new idea. However, that doesn't mean it's not "out there" in use already.

Rather than just slap on a piece of scrap leather, I wanted to dress it up a bit. Also, I wanted the leather to be flexible - and that's what brought me to using a braided piece.

The follow pictures illustrate how to make what is often referred to as a "Magic Braid".

For this project, I cut a piece of leather 3/8" wide by ~6 inches long. I made two longitudinal cuts about 3.5" long. Then ran it under some warm water to soften it and make it more pliable.

 

Look carefully at the next set of pictures. This will help explain how it all gets braided.

For simplicty sake, we will refer to the strands as "Left, Middle & Right".

Right goes over Middle
Left goes over Right
Middle goes over Left

Now, open up the rightmost strand to make a loop, send the bottom half of the piece through it and pull it straight down. As you can see it will be a jumbled mess. That's ok.
 
 

 

Now do the following:

Left over Middle
Right over Left
Middle over Right

This time, open a loop on the left side, feed the bottom through it and pull straight down.

Like magic, the bottom returns to normal, no twists or overlaps. Simple, yet elegant.

 
 
 

 

Depending on the length of your piece, you may need two or three full twists to "fill it up". If you start out with it really tight, then you'll have more flexibility at the end to go back and loosen everything up (adjust it to fit).

Tip: Try this with a piece of paper first to get the hang of it. Once you've done it enough, it will feel more natural.

Here you can see one that is finished - but ended up being too long. I made 4 in all until I found the right length/width combination.

Trim the edges at an angle - adjust the fit a few times and I'm ready to continue stitching. I've carefully curved the hump in the sheath so that if I position the loop just right, it's a longer radius at the top, then on the angle. This makes for an easy drawing, yet tight-fitting keeper.

 

A few more pictures to help you see what's going on.

 

Now I'm ready to fit the knife to the sheath. Some folks wet form long before this, but for this specific example, I think it's better wait until nearly the end to fit it up. Since it's a simple pancake-style sheath, it will be easy to wet-mold.

I start by covering the blade in blue masking tape (easy to remove, no gummy residue). Then I wet the sheath in hot water for about a minute, getting both sides, but not the inside.

 

Then, cram the blade in there - it will take some pushing to get it all the way to the bottom. Wiggle it around a bit to make sure that fully stretches the leather - especially along the spine. If you find that your sheath is still too tight, the leather may not be wet enough. You should be able to easily fold it in half flat before you start to wet-mold. Be sure to check both the front and the back for any fitment issues or areas that need attention.

 

Finally the sheath design is starting to make sense. The shallow part at the mouth is kind of a "cutaway" for the handle. The high part is for the keeper loop.

When you've fit it completely, it's ready to be finished. There are many different ways to finish your sheath, and I won't go into them all here - I'll just give you what I did. There are certainly many other viable solutions to hardening the sheath, and I use a variety depending on the project, and on what I've got "on hand" in the shop.

For this one, I did the following (in order)

  • Run the sheath under very hot tap water
  • Use a hair-dryer to dry it completely (held about 6-8 inches away)
  • Coat the sheath in several coats of Mink Oil
  • Dry again with the hair-dryer
  • Melt a mixture of wax & mink oil and "paint" it on with a sponge brush
  • Back to the hair-dryer - this time about 2-3 inches away and hold it until it gets hot enough to melt the wax - it will even it out over the entire sheath - keep "brushing" it.
  • Into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
  • Go over the edges with edging dye (dark brown Feibings, in this case)

Ready to go!

This will give the sheath a nice warm-brown color as well as make it water resistant.

 

Finished Pictures - continued on Page 3

(back to Page 1)

 

 
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