Gotland style sheath tutorial

[Petr Florianek 25]

Hello! here is little tutorial thing I had promised

 

First there is a picture of wet formed leather part, which was let to dry clamped

Edited April 25, 2009 by Petr Florianek

[Petr Florianek 25]

then i made a front piece pattern from paper, cut it and draw it to the sheet of brass. I had to decide on which hip the knife should be worn. I draw the design on the brass sheet.

[Petr Florianek 25]

then I cutted an punched the design and cutted the overall shape. (in this order, if you do it otherwise, the distortion of metal caused with punching is too big)

Edited April 25, 2009 by Petr Florianek

[Petr Florianek 25]

next step is to punch two leading grooves on the inner side to mark the bend over the leather. Then anneal the center. After that i fold it over some bar of steel. Of course you have to file the details with needle files

[Petr Florianek 25]

I put the mount to leather and start to drill and riveting. I use small brass nails, but u can use rivets or wire.

[Petr Florianek 25]

Lets go for chape - the horse shoe piece. I try to keep design on innner edge, because I sometimes need to grind some of the sheet out and the ornamenting would not be symetrical after that

[Petr Florianek 25]

TO BE CONTINUED

 

if you have any questions, dont hesitate to ask them

[Jacques Delfosse 3]

thanks Petr!

very good tutorial.

thanks to share it with us...

 

I will try

[Jiří Javůrek 0]

Hi Petr,

it's very nice work.

The hammer is faintly familiar to me.

[Alan Longmire 2,312]

Thank you for posting this, Petr!

[Ben Potter 2]

Thanks for posting this.

 

How thick of brass do you use?

[Petr Florianek 25]

this one is 0,6 mm but thats not so good as 0,8 mm, too live undre the hammer. i will continue later, as i have unexpected work to do

[Forrest 0]

Great tutorial Petr! Thanks for sharing!

[Bob Ouellette 8]

So THAT'S how it's done. Thanks for sharing Petr!

[Petr Florianek 25]

Hello! I am back and shy! I completely forget about this one. Here are twoo steps remaining. One is to make one or more suspension loops for rings. The rings on the pic (not from the same sax as above were cast. So i had to solve how to put them in the loops. I turned the back side of loops to a tube, put the ring on and then make it flat again. I you use closed, tied or riveted rings, its easier.

Edited September 7, 2009 by Petr Florianek

[Petr Florianek 25]

the last step is to fill all the gaps with U shaped clamps. I usually make them about 9mm wide and i drill them on the place and then rivet them. You can use them tightly ore loosely with some spacing.

 

I will make another sheaths like that, so I will try to put some notes here!

[Michael Pyron 0]

Thanks a LOT for this Petr! I will be using this veeeery soon!

[B. Norris 10]

Petr,

 

I hope you do not mind me posting this here, it seemed easier for others to find than if I put it in another post.

 

Here are some pictures of a tool that I made for making copper rivets for the Gotland style sheath I put together. Making the rivets for the sheath was probably the most time consuming part. The sheath I made required 27 rivets, if I recall correctly. More than 27 rivets were required after factoring in mistakes. I learned from this sheath to not put rivets close to any edge, internal or external. The rivet will bend when you attempt to form the head on the backside and it will sink into the hole instead of becoming a rivet. If you use brass, most hardware stores will have brass estucheon tacks. Here in the US, Tandy Leather carries them as well. The first time I attempted to make this tool the drill bit did not stay in the seam between the two pieces of angle iron. I had to file a shallow groove on both pieces to keep the bit from wandering. I used a 1/16" bit and it works well with the 20 gauge copper wire the hardware store sells. The wire comes with a clear coating of some kind and if I remove it, the wire will not hold between the two pieces when I'm forming the head of the rivet. However, the rivet fit into the sheath better when the coating was removed! Using this tool, the underside of the rivet head is not perfect but, the thin sheet it is riveting will dimple so it is not much of an issue. Forming the head of the rivet requires a light touch and patience, too much force and the wire bends, resulting in the head of the rivet not being centered upon the shaft. I hope that this helps out all of you who are considering this type of sheath but, cannot find appropriate rivets.

 

[athanor 0]

Thanks for shearing

verry interesting tuto

Dirk

Bourguignon

[Petr Florianek 25]

made another one, i thought i would add it here

[Paul Rohrbacher 2]

This is my approach to forging Copper Wire Rivets. You will need Number drills 45, 35, 32, and 20, steel blocks, 3/8" threaded rod, nuts and Wing Nuts, a spacer card (business card), 3/8" x 16 Tap and marking number punches. The drill size is marked on the block so when drilling the sheath, the correct Number Drill will be known.

 

I am in the process of making a test sheath for my prototype Seax style knife. The Rivet Swage is now made.  The next jig will be a Bending Break to bend the Copper sheeting into the hardware around the top of the Sheath. 

 

In the Viking period, I don't think Brass was possible to make. We have the Copper Age,  the Bronze Age  and then Iron Age, but no Brass Age. Bronze is a mixture of Copper and Tin which was harder and more brittle than Copper. Brass is a combination of Copper and Zinc. The Zinc melted long before the Copper melted so they were not able to blend the two metals to together.

 

I think that using Copper Sheeting and Copper Wire as  Rivets would be period correct. #6 Copper Wire can make very solid Copper Rings. A lap joint can be soldered to complete the Ring.

 

Since the aged Patina of Copper, Bronze and Brass look much alike, I viewed one sheath maker who places his Brass parts into an Ammonia atmosphere until the desired Patena has been achieved.

 

I used scrap steel to make the Rivet Swage.  Copper Wire Rivets are forged using two blocks of steel that are bolted together. My steel blocks are 3/4" x 1-3/4" x 3". A bar stock Handle was added. Two stiff compression springs are located on the two bolt in a recess between the two blocks. The springs forces the blocks open when loosening the wing Nuts to removing the Rivet. The bolts keep the blocks aligned.

 

The Swage was made by first match bolting the two blocks together. any block mismatch on the top surface was milled off .To drill the holes a business card was placed between the blocks to add a clamping space. #12 wire holes were drilled with a #45 drill, #10 wire, a #35 drill,  #9 wire, a #32 drill and  #6 wire a #20 drill. The #12 and #10 wire are for Copper Sheath Rivets. The #9 hole is for Annealed steel wire rivets and the #6 hole is for large Copper Rivets to be used on other projects.

 

By spacing the blocks with a business card, the drilled holes are no longer round when the card is removed. The clamping force by tightening the Wing Nuts holds the wire quite firmly. The short hole is 9/16" deep and the long hole is 3/4" deep for the #10 & 12 wire. The inserted wire bottoms in the hole. 

 

I have seen other approaches in videos where the end of the wire tip is melted into a ball and  just use a hand held vice to hold the wire. for hammering was used.  They all work to make a Rivet.

 

When lightly  tapping the wire with the hammer, observe to make sure the Head doesn't wander off of center. If the head is swaging off center, tap the hammer in a sweeping or glancing motion to force the head back to center.

 

Photos: #-47 swage with wire inserted, Hammer and Tin Snips--- -#-49 swage with wire ready to be  Headed.   #51 the Headed Rivet, #-53 completed Headed Rivet.  #-56 swage block open to see drilled holes.

[Alan Longmire 2,312]

Excellent thread necromancy!  I had forgotten this one.   Now that I have the ability,  I shall pin it in the sheaths forum. 

[Joshua States 1,441]

On 11/18/2019 at 6:05 AM, Alan Longmire said:

Excellent thread necromancy!  I had forgotten this one.   Now that I have the ability,  I shall pin it in the sheaths forum. 

A fine idea!

While I am at it, thanks to Petr for the original and thanks to Paul for the excellent addition.

[Paul Rohrbacher 2]

I have been looking at Seax Knife sheaths. They usually have a Brass or Copper edge over the Stiching. My question is: The metal fooled over the sheet top to male a "U" shape the length of the stitching. Or, is the metal just riveted to the sides over the sticking. This will leave the edges of the leather exposed.

 

Which method is correct? Or are both methods correct?

[Alan Longmire 2,312]

The long parts at the tip and handle are usually open on the sides, closed at the end.  The short pieces are folded over the edge.  Much of the time on these Gotlandic-style sheaths there is no stitching, just rivets and sometimes wire.