AKCT - How to make a leather handled knife

You can do a lot with stacked leather if it is compressed properly. The knife with the reconstituted jade spacer and butt cap has been used heavily for several years, with no problems for the handle, the rather deep guard is completely solid. That is more than you can say for the blade though. I don’t recommend the use of reconstituted stone spacers in leather handled knives. The dust produced by sanding clings to the leather fibres. This knife has a strong rivet washer underneath the jade cap. The knife at the bottom is interesting because it was made the old-fashioned way with no glue at all; it is held together entirely by the strength of the rivet. You might like to try that for a later project.

How to make a leather handled knife.
By Michael Salmon

The techniques used to assemble a leather knife handle are very similar to those used for birch-bark handled knives, the processes involved in the finishing of the handles vary but in the main this guide can be used for both. The choice of blade is more or less infinite, provided it has a stick-tang and has either sufficient length to set a rivet or a lock-nut.

The blades shown in this picture are ideal for use with this kind of handle. The length of the tang will allow the handles to be secured using either rivets, peening over a washer or using a hidden tang method. When buying blades the pictures are often clipped so the full length of the tang is not seen - be sure to check the overall dimensions before buying.

To support the Leather handle it is necessary to add bolsters at each end. These pieces play an important support role. These end pieces can be made from metal, horn, antler or wood. The 3mm brass or nickle silver bolsters and butt washers shown at the top work well, or you can make your own, as has been done here. Moose antler is strong and attractive. I use rose crowns to avoid marrow which may weaken the handle. A strong ebony, or buffalo horn section will also work well at either end. So long as these end pieces are of sufficient strength the possibilities are endless.

The last 10 - 15 mm of the tang has to be filed (or ground as here) to fit through the butt cap and to form the rivet later on. If you have a strong material for the back section, you won’t need a rivet washer (pommel) to set the rivet, you can countersink the rivet and finish it flush. I’ll go into this later. If you make your own butt cap, drill a 3 mm hole for the thinned-down end of the tang to project through.

The solid front piece (bolster) should be finished perfectly before fitting it to the tang, it is much easier to do this now than later when the knife is put together. Most hand-forged blades have a curve where the blade joins the tang. This reduces the likelihood of stress-fractures, so don’t file the shoulder of the blade flat to fit the bolster. File the inside of the bolster to fit the blade!

The bolster should be fixed firmly to the tang before you do anything else. Wrap the blade and the front of the bolster carefully with masking tape, then smear with Vaseline; this makes it less likely that you will get epoxy in the wrong place. Use rapid set epoxy, but leave it overnight to cure.

The leather you use should ideally be 4 - 4.5 mm thick, I usually use thick shoulder leather. It will be compressed to some extent, so you don't want it to be too thin. It is best to sand off the glossy side of the leather before you make it in to a handle, this isn't essential, but it improves the line of the finished handle.

Cut the leather into small rectangles of about 35mm x 25mm. Draw in the centre line and use the tang itself (or a caliper measurement) to mark the position of the hole, so that it falls 1 mm or so either side of the top and bottom faces of the tang (see pic) Each piece of leather should be made to fit the tang in the position that it will sit.

The tang on this knife was just over 3 mm thick, so I used a 4 mm drill bit to punch in holes at the top and bottom of the proposed slot, then cut the remainder out with a sharp knife. If you do this sloppily, just drilling a big hole in the middle of them all, and pushing them on you will find the sections start to slip and rotate during assembly. Each section of the handle requires careful attention as you only need one piece to be out of line or twisted around to cause problems. As soon as you have marked the leather pieces for drilling, it is important to develop a system to keep them in order. After drilling and cutting, I gently buzz them with a barrel sander to smooth the faces.

Make sure that you test assemble the handle several times under tension in your clamp. If you are using spacers be sure to space them evenly throughout the handle to be assured of a balanced look to the finished piece. The small pile of spares is are important as it is likely some pieces will get spoiled during construction.
Before you do the final assembly, tape the blade and grease the top of the blade and the front of the bolster with Vaseline; this prevents the epoxy from getting where you don't want it!

Assemble the handle one piece at a time, applying only a small coating of 24hr epoxy all around the skin side of the leather, then press it down firmly on to the pile. Don't saturate the leather with epoxy, just lightly glue the pieces together and to the tang. Fix the top clamp bar in place and compress the pile. Don't try to squeeze the life out of it, you should compress the pile down about two or three thicknesses of leather. Fill the top hole with Vaseline, again this prevents any epoxy that might squeeze out from causing grief. Very little glue should come out under compression, this is not a messy process if done carefully.

You will need to rivet the knife tang to the butt cap. Rivet washers are the easiest to set and make the strongest form of rivet, because they press over a greater surface area. They are essential if you are riveting into soft antler marrow, but rose crowns, any decent hardwood or metal will take a simple rivet or a flush countersunk rivet. For a thick metal butt-cap, I would usually countersink the rivet, but in this project I am using a rivet washer to show how it works. Both are formed in the same way by even tapping with the round face of a ball pein hammer directly to the centre of the tang-end. If you do use a simple rivet, countersink the butt-cap slightly.

The leather pile should be compressed in the clamp for 3 days to ensure that it compacts evenly. When you remove the clamp, you need to set the rivet. The length of tang that should be left above the rivet surface is equal to its diameter. This will always make a good rivet. Tap accurately with the hammer until the metal deforms to make a strong rivet. It might take 5 minutes, but it will work. Don’t rush it.

A belt sander makes shaping very quick and easy, but leather knives are easy to shape by hand because the material is still quite soft. I always let the sander scorch the handle at the beginning of shaping. The heat hardens the leather and the scorching is only on the surface and is easily removed with further sanding.

Shaping should always be completed by hand with strips of abrasive as shown. This ensures a smooth and even surface. Some leather grease can be used to lubricate the surface of the leather. If you want a hard glossy surface, treat the leather with super-glue then sand it smooth with grits from 240 to 800, then treat with CCL knife handle polish. Birch bark handled knives can be finished with CCL oil without the need for superglue first.

My favourite more traditional finish is much slower than that. You need good quality soft leather grease such as Gold Quality Laederfedt and some gum tragacanth will help achieve a tough smooth finish. Sand to 240 grit using a light action. Now rub some grease into the leather with your fingertips, then leave it for half an hour. Wipe off any excess, then sand lightly with 320 grit abrasive. Rub in some more grease, wait half an hour and sand with 400grit abrasive. Repeat this for 600, 800 and 1000 grits, then substitute a drop of gum tragacanth in place of the grease. Rub this in very hard with vinyl or latex gloved fingertips (helps the polishing). Leave for half an hour, then sand with 1200 grit abrasive. Do the same for 1500 grit, then leave it overnight. The next day, rub in some leather grease very gently and sand with 2000 grit abrasive and repeat for 2500 grit. If you have a buffing machine, you can buff the handle with pure bees-wax after the gum tragacanth stage.