making a new leather stacked handle

[willysjeep134]

I just finally won a vintage Marble's Woodcraft knife on eBay. The knife went cheap because its collector value is gone. It originally probably came with a stacked leather handle. The leather must have fallen apart, so somebody took a piece of 1" dowel and rounded the ends over. They kept the Marble's spacer washers and pommel, so all I need to do is remove the dowel and replace it with stacked leather washers. My only problem is how to shape the handle. I don't have a belt sander so my only option is to use a four-in-one file and then sandpaper. I have a 3/4" hole punch to cut the disks. I'm going to the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store right now to try to get an old weight lifting belt or someting of the sort with enough leather to get a handle out of. It should look almost factory original if I do this well enough. I'm also going to make a copy of the original style Marble's sheath, the one with the snap-strap near the top and the two slits for a belt loop. It should be fun if nothing else.

[Joel]

Texas Knifemaker's Supply sells pre-punch leather washers for making stacked handles...they're not expensive...http://www.texasknife.com.  Irregardless of where you get your leather for this project(sounds like fun), you'll need to compress the leather before putting it on the tang.  You do this by wetting the leather, after you've cut it out and made the tang holes, and then taking as big a goup of them as you can handle and either put them between two boards and use as C-clamp to tighten that down; or you can use your vise.  This way, when the handle is done, the washers will expand some and make a nice tight handle.  If you put them on just as they are, they may shrink when wet, and then not completely expand, making for a loose handle. Some sandpaper in grits from around 40 or so up to 400 or 600, along with a  couple of different size wood sanding blocks will do the job okay if you use the washers.

[willysjeep134]

I found an old harness leather belt that I cut up into squares. Then I took my hole puncher and punched three connected holes in a line in the center of each square, so that they would slip over the rectangular tang. I soaked these squares in a bucket of water for a while. Then, I stacked as many of them as I could on the tang, then slipped the aluminum pommel on and put the whole works in my 8 ton hydraulic press. I squeezed the stacks down until I could fit a few more squares on, then compressed the handel again. Now, I'm thinking if I treat the handle with sanding sealer or shellac or something of the sort it won't get so fuzzy when I shape it. I did a little preliminary shaping with a razor knife and a rasp. I figure the outside of the squares aren't under the same compression the inside next to the tang is, so the leather should be more dense the farther I work it down. Never the less, I think sanding sealer will help firm up the leather and maybe protect it a little too. I can't work on it again until Wednsday though, I'm at college and the knife is at home.

[Joel]

You may not need to do that.  As you get to using finer abrasives, the leather should start acting more like wood, and get smoother.  That rasp is probably ripping the leather out in shreds.  But, won't probably hurt if you add the sealer.  Leather is tough stuff.  I once used some 12 oz leather as slabs on a full tang knife, just to see what would happen.  After I glued them on I sanded sanded them  smooth; then rubbed a polytheurane varnish (Liquid Plastic by Watco) into them and let  dry for a while. Still have that knife 6 years later, and the leather  worked just fine for that type of handle.

[JeffG]

As a finisher on leather handles, I have gotten real good results with a power buffing wheel and beezwax.

[willysjeep134]

I think that's what I am going to try. I don't have a buffing wheel yet but I am tempted to get one now. I was hand sanding the handle down with 150 grit and the leather still had a napp to it. I even tried some 800 grit on a sanding block but that was too fine to cut down the fuzzyness. I ended up finishing with 150 grit and using Johnson's paste wax on it. I tried a little aresol shellac on the handle during the rough shaping. The shellac wouldn't penetrate deep enough for me to make the whole handle hard. There would be a thin, hard skin on the handle that looked wet and black. It would sand off fine but there would be un-shellacked leather right under neath it, so I don't think it did any good.

Anyways, I used Johnson's paste wax on the handle and I think it looks pretty good. I ended up cutting some extra decorative spacers out of the lid of a white 5 gallon bucket. It made nice thick white spacers that I put right next to the factory brass and fibre spacers, it looks almost original I think.

Maybe I will get a buffer or borrow one from a friend and give it a try, but even if I don't the paste wax makes the leather look nice and smooth, sort of slicks down the little bit of remaining fuzzyness. In any event, I am very happy with the knife.