Honestly, this one was fun. Received a telephone call from a gentlemen in West Virginia that wondered if I could do something “interesting” for his Tops Prather War Bowie. He and his buddy like to hog hunt (hawg as we say it in the south). He wanted something in leather vs. the nylon sheath that comes with it. He also wanted to be able to carry it vertical or horizontal on his belt or pack and to be able to strap it to his leg. I have also included images of his buddies sheath to show the variation based on different knives in the same sheath style. This custom leather knife sheath has the capability to accomplish all of the above.

This sheath is constructed of 4-5oz. tooling leather, is treated with neatsfoot oil for protection against the elements, and well… other stuff. The interior of the sheath and the outfacing belt loop is treated with Resolene in order to protect the blade and to waterproof the exposed backside of the leather. It has a loop for a firestarter and a molded pouch for whatever else he’d like to carry. Due to the thickness of the blade the sheath is layered and beveled to hold the knife just right yet allow a “quick” pull when required. The fastening mechanism for the pouch and blade strap are a brass stud, similar to those used in 1880 era Calvary holsters. The advantage of these is easy fastening, unfastening, very quiet operation and they never wear out. Adds a nice touch I think. The base price for this item is $200.00, as shown with pouch and firesteel loop $275.00. As it is fully custom the design can be made/modified to fit any sheath knife of any length. Different colors, leathers and other options are of course always available. All depends on what you’d like.   DH

Pocket Sheath, everybody needs one! I used to carry a Benchmade Mini AFCK in my right front pocket until I realized that every time I got out of my car it scraped my leather steering wheel. Then I shifted to a pocket sheath with a standard metal clip that didn’t do much better. Finally made myself a PCS and just carried my knife in my pocket. Not quite the same… About a two months ago I had a customer contact me about commissioning a pocket sheath for his Bark River PSK fixed blade ( 5.25″ short ). He originally wanted a standard pocket clip for the sheath and I recalled the difficulties with my clipped pocket sheaths. I had just purchased some .5″ neodymium magnets ( you know, the “don’t know what I”ll do with these but they’re pretty cool” kind of purchase ). I communicated with the customer and drew up a few concept designs. He agreed to be an experiment and off we went.

This particular piece is fairly small (to fit a small knife). Total dimensions for the sheath are 6″ long x 1.5″ wide x 3/8″ thick. The “over the pocket” fold is 2.25″. As mentioned above the magnets are .5″ neodymium and are layered between  3-4oz. vegetable tanned tooling leather dyed dark brown and a .5oz. piece of natural kip calfskin. The stitching is accomplished with white size 138 nylon. The magnets are very secure and are held in place with epoxy and the formed kip calfskin (They are solid as a rock). The premise for this piece is that the sheath goes “in” the pocket with the flap folding over the pocket rim and attaching to the inner sheath via the magnet. An added benefit is that the magnets are strong enough not only to secure the sheath in the pocket but as well assist in guiding the knife blade into the proper position in the sheath itself. To withdraw the knife you either grasp the knife handle itself and pull or simply slide the whole sheath out of your pocket. No more worn pockets due to consistent inserting and withdrawing of a knife with a metal pocket clip!

This design can be developed for any small fixed blade knife or any pocket knife if you prefer. Various leather types, colors and linings are available. However, the piece of leather holding the magnets needs to be strong and thin enough to allow for the magnetic properties to work as they should for a secure design. Base price for this piece is $175.00. A bit expensive yes, however, the amount of work that goes into this is quite extensive. If you have any additional ideas or would like one of these custom built for you just let us know…  DH