Custom Weapon Sheaths?

[Phayze]

Hey all,

I've got a pair of battle-ready rapiers and daggers that are currently "naked", and I've been wanting to get some sheaths made for them. They're mainly for theatrical combat, but we'd like to start wearing them as costume accessories once they've been properly dressed.

I'd really like to have them made from wood, but the only places I can find online that offer custom sheaths are doing them in leather, which I'm trying to avoid for several reasons:

1) I've heard that storing weapons in leather sheaths can damage the blade because of chemicals used in treating and dying the leather 2) my wife and I are vegans, and we'd prefer to not have our weapons encased in dead animal parts and 3) I think they'd look cooler than leather or pleather.

I've got a feeler or two out locally in the hopes that I can work out one of those infamous "friend of a friend" deals, but I have notoriously bad luck sourcing anything locally, so I'm counting on having to turn to the internets. I honestly don't even know what a fair price for this sort of thing would be. Anyone have any contacts or suggestions?

Thanks.

 

[Phayze]

sooooo . . .. that's a "no", huh?

 

[Darkknight0667]

About the only advice I could give would be to head over to swordforum.com. They've got some swordmakers there (particularly the ones that make Japanese styled swords) that might be able to help (or at least point you in a direction.

Good luck.

 

[franz bolo]

<div class='quotetop'>(Phayze @ Sep 13 2006, 12:10 PM) [snapback]1319332[/snapback]</div>

1) I've heard that storing weapons in leather sheaths can damage the blade because of chemicals used in treating and dying the leather[/b]

I've had the brass on some knives tarnish pretty bad because of storing them in leather, but never had any blades damaged or pitted... Yet.

Making wooden sheaths aren't that hard. Can you do it yourself or don't you have access to the tools?

My friend makes custom Bows and makes wooden sheaths and stuff and I'll ask him if he can make you one. They will cost though.

Wooden sheaths aren't cheap. Leather is so much easier..

FB

 

[Phayze]

Thanks guys. I hadn't thought of the sword forum, but I'll try to poke around there later. Maybe I'll have some luck.

FB - Yeah, I don't really have the means to do it myself. I'm terribly un-handy with woodwork, and the tools that I would be able to beg/borrow/steal are pretty limited. When it comes to making things, I'm more of a sewing machine and hardware kind of guy.

That would be great if your friend is interested. Cost has me a little worried, but I've got some cash set aside for this sort of thing so I'm prepared to pay. I don't need anything terribly fancy, and I'd actually prefer to get them unfinished and just do any painting or staining or whatever myself.. If he's interested, he can contact me directly at [myusername]@gmail.com.

I know leather's cheaper and easier, but I have a bad habit of always wanting to do things the hard way. :lol

Thanks again.

 

[greatwazoo42]

Got just the guy you need: http://www.wolfgaardarmoury.com/

I've been going to him for all my leather related needs for ages. Dmitri is a great guy and stoopid talented.

 

[JunkSabers1138]

I know I've heard somewhere that you can take two thick sheets of this sort of plastic and carve/sand/do whatever to make one side of each sheet concave enough so your sword will fit it. After that, I think you drill small holes around the inside edges of the two halves and pour super glue into each hole and fit them together. When the glue dries, test the plastic scabbard by inserting your sword. It cant be so loose fitting that the sword wobbles around in it, but it also can't be so tight that it is a pain in the butt to put it in and take it out. Once you get it to the desired fit, wrap a sheet of leather or whatever you choose to use around it and stich it open seam. After this, the scabbard is now ready to recieve detial work and metal fitting of your choice. You now have a rather nice looking scabbard that costs less than the wood scabbards, but also is of better quality the the JUST leather scabbards that rip and tear easily (believe me, me and my friends have had to either fix or replace our leather scabbards with better ones because our swords tear them up something bad). Hope that helps .

Seth

 

[Kaylee]

I suppose you could even use a kydex liner, though that can tear up the finish on a blade something fierce.

Really, almost all the work with scabbard making is dremeling out the middle channel, so you could prolly do fine there.

If you want to go top shelf, you could talk with this guy:
http://christianfletcher.com/Site/Scabbards.html

Spendy, but beautiful. Typical construction is wood covered with leather.
I don't know if fake leather would work as well -- it doesn't seem to have the same stretch. But he might be willing to give it a try.

Finally, this is a quicky how to --

1. Get a couple poplar boards from your local lowes or home depot (or whatever) with a length a width sufficient to cover your blade.

2. Trace your blade and the outside profile of the scabbard onto the boards.

3. Cut around the outside traced line.

4. Hollow out the inside to match the blade. I used a dremel 'cause it was cheap. More professional folk use a mill. At this point it'll look something like this:

Be sure to sand out the inside of the scabbards till it's nice and smooth. You might want to glue in a lining, though I've not had luck with that.

Next glue the two halves of the sandwich together. Make sure your blade will move in and out, of course. At this point you'll have a great big wood sandwich:

Then lots and lots of profiling. I used a table-mounted belt sander, though you could prolly whittle it down with a decent knife then sand it smooth.

Next you might want to add texture to the wood core. I made a "napkin ring" to fasten to my sting scabbard:

Finally, cover the scabbard. Obviously traditional western scabbards are covered with leather -- you might be able to use fake leather, though like I said those I've used don't behave enough like real leather to work well. You might also be able to use heavy upholstery material or suchlike. Or just smooth and laquer it Eastern-style I guess.

For leather, I sew a piece of leather around the core inside out, take off the leather, turn it inside out, and cover the wood core with glue. Then I slide the leather down onto the core. (The "napkin ring" method prevented this, and I needed to partially sew it onto the core.. messier look, but necessary here).

End result is like this:

Not CF quality, but it's nice. And as you can see, I borrowed the metal from an existing prop scabbard. Professional types make their own from sheet metal, but that' beyond me.

-J

 

[JunkSabers1138]

WOW. That looks great. Is that a MC Sting? Or is it the basic version?

Seth

 

[Kaylee]

thank you.

MC Sting.. nice piece of work, actually. It actually feels like a real sword in the hand.

Oh, and one more thing. Be careful towards the end of the profiling step not to go to far. It's a real balancing act -- too thick and it's all clunky feeling and looks awful. Too thin and it has no strength.. or worse yet, you can go to far and find yourself blowing right through to the blade channel, ruining all your work to that point.

Yeah, three guesses how I found that out.

 

[Noeland]

<div class='quotetop'></div>

my wife and I are vegans, and we'd prefer to not have our weapons encased in dead animal parts [/b]

This jumped out at me. I know several vegans and they don't even like standing in the room with me if I have a pocket knife out. They are seriously "anti-weapon" of any kind, big or small.

I commend you for being an individual . . . or, a SET OF individuals as it were . . . :confused ahem.

It looks like you have adecent contact here for finding what you need, and I am glad, but if this doesn't work out for some reason lemme know, I know a guy in florida who can do this kind of work.

Njc----------------------

 

[Phayze]

Thanks for all the comments, folks - I knew I could count on the RPF to help me out.

Kaylee - Wow, thanks for all the info. Fletcher's stuff looks really nice, but that's a little more than I want to pay for just one of these. Of course, it looks like he's basing his prices off of broad swords, and my weapons are considerably smaller, so maybe he could be talked down.

More importantly though, that's some seriously nice work you did on that Sting scabbard. Maybe I will try doing this myself after all. My rapier blades are relatively thin, so maybe I could start out with some half-round that's wide enough to fit - then all I would need to do it the channeling, gluing and finish work (which will probably be an eastern style lacquer on at least one of them). The daggers might be a little more effort, but at least they're small.

Junksabers - I've heard of that plastic board stuff, but I've never actually seen it. It definitely sounds like it has potential, though.

Wazoo - That guy's got some impressive skills, but I didn't see anything like what I'm after on his site. Does he only work in leather, or does he do woodwork too?

Noeland - Haha. That's pretty funny. If there's one thing my wife and I are known for it's being "different". I can't imagine anyone being so skittish around weapons - I feel naked when I go out without my big ol' folding pocket knife. :lol

 

[JunkSabers1138]

<div class='quotetop'>(Phayze @ Sep 15 2006, 07:03 AM) [snapback]1320670[/snapback]</div>

Junksabers - I've heard of that plastic board stuff, but I've never actually seen it. It definitely sounds like it has potential, though.

[/b]

It is pretty much the same as Kaylee's method, but with plastic planks/boards rather than wood.

Glad I was able to help .

BTW, what are you wielding in your avatar? A two-handed sword given a lightsaber glow in photoshop?

Seth

EDIT--Do you think this scabbard making tutorial is worthy enough for archiving? I surely think so since I'm interested in making swords, both wooden (see my wooden swords thread for more) and metal, and wooden, plastic, leather, metal, or whatever material scabbards to cover them and this thread's tutorial is JUST what I was looking for when it comes to making wooden scabbards. Please. I don't want this tutorial knocked off the board.

Seth

 

[franz bolo]

Phayze, PM sent.

FB

 

[Phayze]

Thanks again, FB.

Junksabers, Actually, that's a 6' quarterstaff I'm using "long-form". here's the full pic - the guy I'm fighting was one of Barbosa's zombie pirates in POTC. Awesome fighter, great fun to work with.

I totally agree that this thread should be preserved - I can see this being pretty valuable info for anyone else interested in this sort of thing.

 

[greatwazoo42]

<div class='quotetop'>(Phayze @ Sep 15 2006, 08:03 AM) [snapback]1320670[/snapback]</div>

Wazoo - That guy's got some impressive skills, but I didn't see anything like what I'm after on his site. Does he only work in leather, or does he do woodwork too?

[/b]

Yes he does. Drop him a email thru his site and describe what you want. He'll work with you. Mention you know me.

 

[Phayze]

<div class='quotetop'>(greatwazoo42 @ Sep 20 2006, 12:48 PM) [snapback]1323346[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>(Phayze @ Sep 15 2006, 08:03 AM) [snapback]1320670[/snapback]

Wazoo - That guy's got some impressive skills, but I didn't see anything like what I'm after on his site. Does he only work in leather, or does he do woodwork too?

[/b]

Yes he does. Drop him a email thru his site and describe what you want. He'll work with you. Mention you know me.
[/b][/quote]

Cool. thanks for the hookup, Waz.

 

[greatwazoo42]

No prob Phayze. Glad to be of help. Dmitri's good people and VERY talented. He'll set you up good.

 

[Phayze]

Strike one.

Dmitiri at Wolfgaard says he doesn't do wooden scabbard work, but I'm still waiting to hear back from FB's buddy and a friend of a friend (who's actually a cabinet maker, but might still be up for trying this).

Thanks anyway, Waz.

More as it develops.

 

[Phayze]

Just talked to FB's buddy, and he suggested that any local cabinet maker might be up for the challenge (thus saving me shipping costs for four weapons to Florida, so . . . w00t.). His best guess was around $100 per weapon, which is about what I was expecting, though I'm hoping to get by with less for the daggers, because they're so small.

Still haven't heard from my friend's friend, which is my preferred option, mainly because I would expect a hobbyist to charge less to do the job in his basement than a professional with overhead is going to. But we shall see . . .