Making a Wet Molded Leather Tool Sheath

[Music] hi I'm Chuck Dorset for Weaver leather Supply let's make a very clean simple yet highly useful project how many folks do we know that landscape professionally or folks that just work in the yard on the weekends or how about somebody that works in a shop that needs a tool that's protected yet easy to get to I happen to be one of those all right so anything I use in this video weaverleathersupply.com or check below we've got links there going to take you straight to the website also if you want to know when our video is released just click your notifications you'll know exactly when these come out so let's step over to our pattern table get started this is a relatively simple pattern so let's have fun with it make a beautiful project now we've got a digital pick we'll jump over to that shortly but let's start here because we need to be able to make our pattern from scratch because there are so many variations on tools let's make our pouch fit our tool exactly so I've got a piece of copy paper here not great pattern material but we're going to work with this I've got a center line and let's go with a heavy duty pair of Cutters it's a good tool to have in our shop if you've ever dealt with the copper rivets that is the perfect tool for clipping those off that is a solid piece of equipment so let's start right here I'm going to do my best to Center this on our Center Line okay we've got it let's trace this in we've got that okay right here I've got a piece of tape that's going to be the top of our pocket or our throat and I've just dropped that in roughly where the tool handle starts to curve back in so let's make a mark there now let's take our square and I'm going to Center or I'm going to square to my center line so I make sure our pocket throat is squared good well there we are that's easy enough okay now to make our main body our backing piece I'm going to come out about 3 8 of an inch that gives us enough room for a bend and a stitch line 3 8 of an inch or about about nine and a half millimeters so let's make two Marks here 3 8 there and let's come down about right here and go 3 8. you'll see where this is going to work for us okay let's lay our tool back in and let's just scoot that over to our marks starting right here let's trace this in right up to our throat so we've got that now on this end let's come out about a half of an inch maybe just a little bit more than 3 8 and let's just do our best to mimic the shape of the tool there we go now we're working in halves here because we're going to fold this over and then trim so it's going to be perfectly symmetrical if we're not perfect anywhere along this line it's not going to matter it's going to be the same on both sides so it's going to look like it was designed that way okay up here let's continue up what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my Square because I want this to be parallel to our Center Line and I can see that it is because I'm using the one inch arm so let's come up to the top of our paper easy enough now we can trim the backing anywhere we want if we want the handle sticking up above the pouch we can do it but what I'm going to do is come up just a little bit past the handles so let's go about three inches give or take about 7.62 centimeters let's draw that across well there's the top of our backing now and I'm so I'm notorious about this let's scribe our center line but let's don't scribe that's hard enough to where we actually cut through the paper I've done that so many times just scribe that lightly good now let's just fold that over on our Center Line how easy is that so let's cut this out and we've got it so easy enough we've got a good looking pattern easy to create now our pocket let's take a second piece of paper this by chance does not have to be perfect by any means but let's come up let's give ourselves at least an inch between the bottom of the paper you'll see why here shortly so now let's trace this in but let's just come up to our line good okay now let's draw this line because on this part this is the only thing that needs to be cleaned so let's draw a line across there that's our throw now I want to come out about an inch give or take about 2.54 centimeters because we're going to need to make a bend a curve and then our Stitch line so just freehand that's all we need let's come out about an inch that's going to give us room to work on our wet forming good there's the piece we're going to cut for our pocket let's cut this out and there we are does not need to be perfect by any means Okay so we've got both of our pattern pieces now we're going to go simply with Oblongs there we go we're going to go with Oblongs here simply for belt loops we can always go with our clip and we sell these and I love them in fact right here great example this pouch is about 10 years old that clip is still solid that's not going to give out on us but again let's just go with some simple Oblongs for a belt so let's jump over to our digital pick all I've done here is I'm going to go with a one and three quarter inch oblong and if you don't have one it's no problem we'll talk about that but I'm going to come down about three quarters of an inch about 1.9 centimeters and I'm going to come in from my Edge about three quarters of an inch well for the most part there's our pattern okay well let's step over to our main table cut some leather I've transferred our pattern over to some poster board it's a little easier to trace from this than say the copy paper we're probably only going to make one of these well if we're going to make more yay but if we are let's transfer our pattern over to our pattern sheeting it's easy to cut easy to Mark very durable that makes a great pattern so let's start right here with our main body I'm going to go with an eight to nine ounce Natural veg this piece is cut out of one of our single shoulders and I love our single shoulders very affordable good quality leather and we've got it in a number of ways in fact both pieces come out of our single shoulder now I'm going to go with a pen hate to go this route but first off we want to make sure we clean our pen off right but if we actually cut inside the ink line we've got a more accurate pattern but also any ink we have below this will never see it above this we're going to Edge that so we're going to knock that right out so let's trace this in good we've got that now with our Square let's start again new blade every time but let's trim this out there we go we've got our body okay next step let's go with our Corner knife we've got six sizes in this we're going to go with the 12 millimeter or about half of an inch let's just clip our Corners notice this is not a dry punch yeah how easy is that how very clean and professional is that corner nice okay next step let's take a groover Let's Groove all the way around now my groover I've got this set at 1 8 of an inch good now we're not going to sew up here but that that adds actually a relatively nice Edge decoration makes our Edge look more complete so now we're going to Edge on the front but we're only going to Edge above the pocket because when we have these two pieces come together I want them to meet and I don't want two rounded edges coming together so let's take our all there we go let's mark right there and right here and now we're going with an eight to nine out so we're going to go with a number two master tool edger but let's edge up around and back to that Mark and there we go and let's come off right there good now let's flip this around Edge all the way around there we go now if that's a little confusing that'll make sense when we drop our pocket on and then Edge both sides and select that edge okay so now let's take this Mark with our pattern our oblong holes I'm going to Mark those on each end that's going to help me keep those straight very nice okay that's ready to punch let's set it aside now let's jump over to our pocket now on this doesn't matter here how bad our pin is because we're going to trim most of this off but right across the top that's the one place we need a very accurate line good okay again on the throat let's cut this with a square but we'll cut the balance freehand foreign place where I very accurately split the ink line doesn't matter okay now a step that I always forget before I wet form Let's Groove and Edge our throat so let's go across with our groover once twice maybe three times okay there we go now let's come back with our number one edger I'm going to add to the front and the back there we go that is going to look good we're going to reset here wet form our pocket when we went Farm we need two things we need some water and our thumbs now I'm going to soak this in our water but not long it's a four to five ounce that water is going to Wick through it but the longer I soak it that just means the longer I'm going to have to wait for this to get to a point where we can wet form so all told I'm probably just going to go a couple of seconds at most and there we are okay so let's lay that down let's give that about 15 minutes let that water Wick thoroughly through we've got some good dry time what I'm looking for is I want that water Wicked through and through but I don't want it dripping wet so let's take our pliers basically our form now I'm going to drop this right on our tape now we're going to trim this to size so if it's a little left or a little right it doesn't really matter but nonetheless I'd still like to get that as centered as I can and I want that line right at the bottom of my tape so let's start to work this down simply with our fingers foreign let's come around the bottom now we're going to work this several times as it dries but look at that we're already getting a very good form just with one pass so let's work this for another minute or two that looks good we're even getting some of the detail from our tool in that what I'd like it's on here right here on our sample notice how that clicks down in there I can even shake that up and down hard and the tool is not coming out that's a good form that's what we're looking for but two things we need to watch for first off our throat it's easy to not pay attention to this part and it starts to work left or right we're uneven but secondly fingernail marks these can absolutely make a big Mark in our leather but that just looks great so let's do this we're going to work this about every 10 15 minutes over the next hour as it dries while we're doing that let's jump over to our punch table drop in our oblong punches we're going to have a belt strap moving through our Oblongs typical belt width one and a half inches so I want to bump that up I want to go with a one and three quarter inch now that's a little bit of an obscure size if we don't have that even with a one inch we can step this out and we can make an oblong just about any length we want so we've got our Marks here let's drop in our oblong Center this on our marks and let's just do our best to make sure this is parallel with the edge of our leather that looks good okay let's jump back over to our main table check on our wet formed Piece One More Time well this is looking good and it already feels like it's starting to dry got a nice form on that now I'm going to work this again over the next hour every 10-15 minutes a couple of times but then after that I'd like to leave this on the tool to let it dry well I don't want the tool to rust so let's just take some cellophane make sure that tool is dry typically by this point it is but let's just lay some cellophane right there and now we can drop that back on not going to worry about the tool okay so let's give that about 10 12 hours to dry and I'll work it a little bit in between ample time to dry that looks good very nice form all we used are fingers and some water now we're not going to dye this project we're going to leave it natural but I would like to add a top coat give it a little gloss give it a little protection we could certainly do that when we're assembled but we won't be able to get our top coat down in the pocket well that's not really that big of a deal but since we're going to add top coat let's go now so always over to our leather ball my favorite absolutely and we're going to use two Rags so I'm going to apply I call this my wet rag then we're going to buff with a dry cotton rag so let's go sparingly just work our way across we've got our top coat there let's give that a second to dry jump over to our pocket now we want to go slowly like I said sparingly because we don't want streaks on this the one thing we really don't want is say bubbles that's going to show up so let's go easy let's jump back over here now let's just buff so there we go that looks good we've got a nice gloss to that do the same thing here and there we go okay we've got top coat on both pieces let's reset here glue our pocket on there are a number of ways we can do this but to me the easiest way to do it let's simply Mark the inside we're going to glue this on flip it over and trim to size makes the whole thing very easy we're not trying to work this around to fit our main body we're actually using the body as our template so let's start right here I'm going to take a wing divider we can do this by hand absolutely but I'm going to set this at about half of an inch because we're just mainly making a guideline here so I'm going to butt that right down in the bottom there we go and let's use our wing divider and run that around I can see that not very well but we're going to take care of that so let's work this around most likely the camera's not going to pick that up but I can actually see that line now here's the problem when we add glue to this that's going to Disappear Completely so let's go with a pen and let's mark this line it's simply a guideline we're going to trim this off there we go I can certainly see that now over here we're going to add glue well first off we've got a top grain but we've also got a top coat on the top grain where I'm going with this is let's rough this so that glue is going to stick well we've got our marks right where the throat of our pocket is so let's rough this downward now I don't want to rough off the edge of the leather because that's going to make it fuzzy but let's just keep that right there on the Edge Let's just break up that top grain in that top coat so our glue will sit nicely thank you that looks good that's going to take our glue nicely so let's go with our S18 this is a contact cement so we're going to need cement on both pieces so right here let's just come in about a quarter of an inch at the most try to start a little bit a little bit below our mark well that looks good okay now we could go with a number of different glues but I want this to stick because we need to Chisel this over on our pocket let's do the same thing but let's make sure we go over our line we've got good glue on this so let's give this about five minutes let that glue set our glue has set so let's do this let's take our body and I'm going to press the point right to the bottom of my mark and I'm going to work this in because that's going to stick out just a little bit but let's work that in and press that right up to that ink line and press down on that so our glue sets that glue is set nice okay next step let's take a brand new blade since we've got a pocket on this what I'm going to do is come right up to the edge of my cutting surface and let's simply use the body as our straight edge well there we go actually that looks pretty good doesn't it so easy to line up now if we need to we can always take a little sandpaper if we've got a little rough spot we can always sand a little bit in fact if we sand that's going to give us a nice Edge well all told that looks good let's reset add our groove and our edger here's a good trick for our groover now typically the guide arm comes out about that far I tend to trim this down because when I'm grooving I don't want that hitting my finger it's going to give me a bad Groove but right here if we're doing something like a pocket notice I've trimmed this all the way down now the boss wants me to say if we trim the guide arm that negates the warranty on that but all told those are pretty inexpensive but also I'm going to set my Groove Line at 1 8 of an inch in to me that's a good distance in for a stitch line not too far in not too far out so let's just Groove our pocket foreign off there so we know exactly where to lay in our chisel line now let's jump back over to a number one edger since we've got a lighter weight up here and let's add edge down and back all told that looks good already when we had a stitch line in this is going to be beautiful which that's our next step let's jump over to our punch table drop in our chisel line because we're almost done here we're going to go with an eighth inch flat chisel this is my favorite chisel well first off looks just like a machine Stitch but secondly it's a little more room to get two needles through so we don't tire out our hands when we're sewing now we're going to go through a four to five and an eight to nine hours that's some thickness what I'm getting at is let's go with fewer times I'll explain that so right here when we go through the leather not an issue we've got a mallet the trick is coming back out of the leather I don't want to ream open my Stitch holes or stretch out my leather so if we go with fewer times like say a four over a six that's simply less metal we're trying to get out now we could start right at our throat and Stitch or chisel all the way around the problem is is we're not guaranteeing that we're going to get a chisel hole right in the point so let's start with a single chisel now I'm going to lay this in horizontal to my project so let's drop that right on the point right in our Groove Line there we go now one more good I can feel chisel on the back side so let's work that out good easy enough now another thing that I find difficult is trying to get our stitches consistent when we go around a corner or a point so let's take our take our two tine and I'm just going to Mark where my next chisel hole needs to be on both sides so if we start at the bottom chisel up that means we're going to be even on both sides so now I would like to go with a single tine again there we go and as we progress we'll get a feel for how much pressure we need we need on the Chisel same thing on the other side there we go I'm just trying to see if I can feel that tine pull through okay we're on our way now we could certainly go up to a four but we've got some curve and again we're trying to pull this out so let's jump over to a two now one at a time that can be a little tedious but what we can do let's just Hammer that I know exactly where that next time is so let's drop that in yeah I'm starting to get a feel for how hard I need to hit that now working this out so we don't ream out our holes or stretch our leather let's just easily work that back out there we go so I'm going to work my way down to the top of our throat now when we get to our throat let's take one more chisel go past our throat so we can secure that down in fact I'm just going to use my one time there there we go okay well that looks very clean and consistent already looks good so I'm going to do the same thing to the other side and one more well that looks good already very nice let's jump over to our pattern table drop in our Stitch line we're going to do a basic Saddler Stitch it's a great Stitch easy to do but very strong now we've got a good video on hand sewing so I'm not going to go into all the details but just the high points well first off good General hand sewing needle this is the John James number 18. it's my favorite size on our thread we're going to go with the Ritz of 0.8 millimeter again that's the one size I use most often but we've got a utility project here I want a thicker thread now we're going to do the Saddler Stitch so I would say let's go four times our length well that sounds long but actually we're going further across than down so we're going to chew up some distance but we're going to do this a little bit differently we're going to do a double knot right here at the throat on both sides so let's start here let's come down to our second hole or the first hole on our on our pocket let's even out our distance okay now let's come back to our first hole good let's tighten that down now that's going to pull that thread in the second hole towards us so therefore that hole is wide open and I'm not going to split a thread good okay now let's start with our basic Saddler Stitch needle from both sides let's come halfway through make an X move our fingers from the eye to the tip and there we go we could actually move pretty fast when we're hand sewing so I'm going to continue all the way around foreign as we get down to our last two holes or the last hole on our on our pocket let's go through but let's don't tighten our thread down just yet let's leave it about right there now let's come down to the last hole and let's back up so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this needle and I'm just going to go through the top ply and the same with the back okay we've got that now let's tighten these down one at a time well that looks good let's step over to our main table tie a knot cut that we are almost done let's tie a square knot so I'm going to take my right gonna circle around my left and I'm going to draw that down in there in fact I can use my finger or my thumb in fact I'll flip it around this way because I want to get that down in there so let's pull that tight okay we did right over left now let's go left over right circle around let's do the same thing that's a good knot now to clip this what I want to do is I want to pull these taut and I'm going to lay my knife down I'm not going to touch my leather but what I'm going to do let's pull these taut I'm going to try to keep my hand out of the way let's pull those lay my knife close to my leather but then let's pull that thread across the blade so therefore we're not cutting into leather that looks good let's reset for one more step let's slick our edges last step but this is a nice touch so when we select what's going to happen is our Edge is going to get rounded it's going to get glossy it's going to look good feel good but also a little extra durability now we used our main body as our Cutting Edge we could always sand if we need to but I would advise against too much sanding but we can always use that to even things out also an add benefit to slicking if we hand cut our corners and they're not perfect this is going to help so let's go over to some of our leather balm just with a good cotton rag we're going to apply this again somewhat sparingly and only to our Edge good we've got that now on our Slicker we've got a four to five and an eight to nine that's going to be too thick for This Groove but what we can use is the shank because we've got a rounded inside corner there but let's start right up here at the top the top Groove here now we can let this hang off of our table to give it a little stability but let's just work this end very nice I don't know if the camera can pick that up but that's now rounded slick looks good feels good so now we jump down to our four to five and an eight to nine well we could use this shank but notice that's a little wide we might leave a mark on our leather so let's flip this over what I'm going to do is burnish from this side then I'm going to flip over and burnish from this side trying to round that corner now big Point here pressure not the point more heat and friction I don't want to press so hard that I develop a lip along here we can Edge that back off but now we're working backwards so let's work these edges for just a minute well that looks good feels good knife's Edge now the big test does it fit look at that almost perfect we're a little short but as we use this and as it softens up I bet that's going to be spot on perfect but boy talk about fit that is nice just what we're looking for our tool sheath is like so many leather craft projects what's great right where it is looks good very useful but we could add dye or antique we could slick our edges add a belt loop a clip we could lace add paint so many possibilities and that to me is one of the best parts of leather craft but I hope your sheath looks good and fits like a glove good luck with your projects foreign [Music]

Channel: Weaver Leather Supply

Views: 19,634

Keywords: leather tool sheath, leather tool holster, leather holster, diy leather tool holster, diy leather tool pouch, tool holster diy, how to make a leather holster, leather tool holder, tool belt holster, leather tool belt pouch, leather tool scabbard, making a leather multi tool sheath, tool sheath, diy leather sheath, diy leather tool sheath

Id: XFFsFqCyo90

Length: 30min 17sec (1817 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 14 2022