stacked leather handles?

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Birdman

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OK all ya knife maker types, how do ya make a stacked leather handle for a knife? I've heard tell of raw hide soaked in poly or a varnish and just plain leather punched out, stacked n coated at a later date, but how do ya squeeze the leather or rawhide to make the handle so solid. Curious minds need/want to know.Thanks for any info guys. This is a great site with so many master craftsmen willing to put up with us basement hacks trying to give it the ol collage try so to speak YMHS Birdman
 
There is servals ways to does this. The one i have seen is you take a stick tang knife, then take oak tan leather, I used 10 oz. leather scrap. Some people put brass or mild steel or wrought iron,on the last piece you take a ball pein hammer and put the knive in a vice and tap the tang till it squeezez ,make shure to cover each piece of leather with a slow cureing epoxy. Then shape the handle with files , belt sander , or sand paper. the seal the handle is up to u.
 
I used some thick belt leather ( drive belts for old fashion machinery) scraps, and cut out squares. Then I cut out slots to fit the tang of my knife. I used Elmer's glue- because that is what I had then-- between the discs. At the rear end of the tang, I had tapped the tang to take a 1/4-20 thread, and then threaded a piece of cold roll steel I intended to use as an endcap. I use a wrench to turn the end cap down on the leather after stacking enough leather on the tang so that I could just barely start the end cap on the treads. Holding the blade in a bench vise, I turned the end cap until it hit bottom on the tang. The glue oozed out of every wafer. I let them dry over night, and the next day went to work with rasps, and files, and shaped the handle. The last thing I did was grind the end cap down at an angle to remove enough weight to balance the blade at the guard. I polished both the metal end cap with various grades of emery paper/sand paper, until I had the finish I wanted. The handle has lasted about 45 years now.


Today, there are better glues. You can buy a rubber bases glue from Tandy Leather, for instance, to glue the leather discs together, or use any number of epoxy compounds.

If memory serves me right, I got 12 leather disc on the tang, and use the endcap to crank them down and compress them. Then I added the 13th disc, and did the final compressing.


Actually, cutting the discs out with an exacto knife blade was the real work involved. I had to be careful with such a sharp knife, but I was cutting through thick leather, too, so it took a lot of muscle to get that blade through the leather. Using such a knife involves small muscle groups in your ands, and cramping should be expected. Take your time, and take breaks, to be safe. Don't work when your hands are tired or fatigued. My tang was 1/4" by 5/8" wide, so that is the dimension of the slots I had to cut in all those leather discs. I think the outside dimension of the leather was 1.5 inches square. I rasped and filed the grip to fit my hands, so the handle is " ergodynamic, many years before that word was invented. The sides are flatter than the ends, and the belly on the end where the edge of the blade would begin, is more round than the end on top.

Do treat the leather, and keep it dry so it doesn't mildew, or rot. I used Neatsfoot oil on the handle.
 

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