The Backyard Bushman

First, I want to tell you about my philosophy on the sheaths that I provide, and then show some pictures of them so that you can know what to select from.

I feel that I am a custom knife maker, and not necessarily a custom sheath maker. I want to deliver that knife in a perfectly useable, functional and durable sheath. It would not be cool to wait for a custom knife for weeks, and then not immediately be able to tote it into the field and use it! : )

I also want to provide a sheath an extremely reasonable cost. I could spend hours, stamping, shining, carving on the sheath, only to drive up the cost of the knife/sheath combo. Besides, there are so many different “wants” in a sheath, and too many talented aftermarket sheath makers out there, to try and satisfy everyone myself.

That is why I also give folks the option of purchasing a knife without a sheath. If you know you want something different than what I make, I will take money off the order.

Knowing why I provide what I do, let’s take a look at what I do make.

95% of my knives come with what I call a “foldover” sheath. It is called such because the leather is simply folded over the knife.

In most foldovers, the leather wrapped around the knife is a thicker 8/9oz leather. The welt on my sheaths is ALWAYS 8/9oz leather. I want as much thickness on the welt as possible to make sure your knife edge is resting on leather, and not on a seem. In cases of smaller, thinner or lightweight knives, I will cut the out down to a 4/5oz leather, but keep the same thick welt. I can do this on any knife at request too.

Once I am done stitching this style sheath, I put in a bath of melted beeswax. When it comes out, I insert the knife and mold it. The sheath will dry very tight to the knife. It will snap in and hold much like kydex, but still be easy on the knife and scales like leather. It is a great combo, IMO! Additionally, there is so much wax in the leather that it can withstand lots of water, without every absorbing in, or staining, like many dyed leathers.

If I do this with natural colored leather, it comes out with a dark brown color.

Leather will continue to darken as it ages. I have been told that it “sun tans” even after it is off the animal. Here is a picture of a two sheaths. The one on the left was newly made. The one on the right is one that has darkened after about a year (just to let you know what the sheath will eventually do).

I love the color of those sheaths, and they are my favorite. Because of that, I generally don’t do any leather dying with any brown dyes. But, there are a lot of knives that look much better in a black sheath, and dyed black leather can also be beeswax formed.

I charge an extra $5 for dying sheaths because of the extra time, and having to buy the dye.

The presence of stitching on the spine side of the knife is dependent on the blade shape. If it has a fairly straight spine, it probably won’t have any. If it has a central point, and a hump in the spine, it will probably have stitching on the spine side.

On these “foldover” sheaths, I can also add a firesteel loop upon request. The default is not have one, but just let me know and I can put one on.

The only other real option I offer in sheaths, is for the Bushcrafter knife. I originally offered it with the traditional square bottom “bushcrafter” style of sheath, and I continue to do so.

You can get this knife with a foldover style sheath, but just wanted to show what the square bottom sheath looked like.

This sheath is not “molded” too the knife like the foldovers. It gets dipped in a combination of wax and oil. It gets a little stiff, but is more pliable, and still capable of rolling the water off it. Here it is in the natural color after the wax and oil process.

The other option with this sheath is adding a “dangler” loop. It allows the knife to hang lower, swing freely, and give on objects, rather than catch on them. It can also be removed, and has the same belt loop as the sheath has without the dangler.

Obviously, this sheath can be dyed and still go through the oil/wax process. Like before, I don’t generally dye in shades of brown (but will), and dying stuff is an additional $5.