Forge finished 1084 and Bocote. Plus a question for you leather guys.

[tomsm44]

Between a new baby last November, a new job that started the week after that, and all of my other hobbies, I haven't spent much time on knives recently.  I actually have had four blades at various stages of completion that I hadn't touched since January.  Last week, I finally started back and finished one of them up.  Did the sheath over the weekend.  

1084 blade
Bocote scales
Three 1/8" and five 1/16" stainless pins
OAL:  7 3/8"
Blade:  3 1/2"

I also have a quick question for you leather guys.  When I fold my leather around to stitch, after finishing my stamping, it always seems to stretch and distort the pattern near the fold.  I see sheaths on here that have tooling that goes al the way around the sheath with no distortion at all.  What do I need to do to keep the tooling from being affected when I fold the leather.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lin Rhea]

I really like it Matt.

[D.Ellis]

Nice looking knife Matt. Looks like you could go a bit thinner on the edge as there is quite a lot of sharpening bevel showing. A 3 1/2inch blade will benefit from being very thin. Good looking design and nice pin layout.    
For the leather, I have the same trouble, it helps to stamp your design in the flat, and let it dry completely, then wet the inside where you need to fold it.......if the stamping is dry when you fold it, it stays crisper. Hopefully the real leather guru's have more advice.
Darcy  

[tomsm44]

Thanks Darcy.  I'm still getting the hang of the whole edge geometry thing.  I'll try to go thinner on my next one and see if it helps me out.  I'll try that with the leather too.  That may be where my problem is.

[Roughcountry]

Matt, I'll try to give you a few things to try.

First, a stamp that cuts the surface grain of the leather will stay a little better on a bend like that. But you must be pretty picky where you cut the leather from the hide. The butt up along the backbone is the firmest leather and will hold a stamp the best. But it also must be cased perfectly to hold in that bend.

The farther you go forward in the hide or down toward the belly & flank the more the imprint will wash out. Play with scrap leather stamping it and then bending and find what works the best with the leather your using. The tip Darcy gave you is a good one, also try bending right after stamping while it still has some case left. This works for me if the leather is real good and my timing is right. If I've lost to much moisture I'll do like Darcy does.

I like the profile of that blade, looks cool.
RS

[Thadbow]

You sure did a fine job on this one Matt. I am curious though, is that blue I see on the spine giving it the dark color?

[tomsm44]

Thanks Robin.  I'll try to play around with some of your tips.  I usually just put my border far enough from the fold that it doesn't affect it but this was a small knife/sheath and if I had moved my border in, there wouldn't have hardly been enough room to do anything.  I just do this as a hobby so it takes me a long time to get much practice in, but I learn something with each one.

Thadbow,
That's just the angle of the picture.  The spine is just plain steel sanded to about 400 grit.  I've used cold blue before and actually considered bluing the spine on this one, but I was trying to get the whole package finished before I go out of town tomorrow.

Matt