Once again, allow me to greet our deeply respected meeting.
I bring to your kind attention the long-promised tutorial on making birch bark sheaths. I ask for your indulgence in lengthy and excessive detail, since this is my first attempt to make a tutorial.
So:
This knife was made especially for this tutorial.
Blade "Kankapaa Leuki" 137x27x3 mm. Carbon. Handle 125x335x20 mm. Birch bark (assembled with PVA on the shank), birch suvel. Through installation on a screed. Finish: only 2500 sandpaper for now.
Sketch of a scabbard.
We make birch bark patterns (simply wrapping the knife with a folded sheet of paper) and spacers.
We make a spacer from a pine board 10mm thick.
We cut the birch bark. Here is the first ambush: for a knife of such a length it is very difficult to select pieces of birch bark in size. By the way: birch bark was kindly provided by uv. Hamakura, for which many thanks to him.
Place birch bark in boiling water.
2 hours passed. The birch bark changed color and curled into the shape of a trunk, inner layer out.
While the birch bark is cooking, prepare the knife. We wrap it in cling film and secure the spacer with electrical tape. Don't forget the spacer between the spacer and the RC.
After 8 hours we begin the most important operation. We take out one piece of birch bark from the boiling water, carefully unfold it and wrap it around the knife. Secure with clamps.
Once the first layer has gotten a little used to new form(about 10 minutes) and you can remove the clamps for a while, take out the second layer and repeat the operation.
The second layer is fixed, got used to the shape, we take out the third layer and then there’s an accident: it delaminates!!! The reason is very thick birch bark (the previous ones were made from thinner ones). There are no more pieces of this size, so we decide to leave two layers, which is enough with a thickness of 3 mm each.
About an hour passed and the birch bark accepted its fate. We remove the clamps and, without disassembling the bag, coat it with moisture-resistant PVA between the layers. Abundantly.
We compress the mouth with electrical tape, install clamps and leave for a day. The photo shows the prepared crimps. Chipboard 16 mm. with removed and rounded chamfers, which are covered with thick double-sided tape.
A day has passed. Neither the birch bark nor the PVA dried out, but they set a little. We disassemble the entire structure, remove the electrical tape holding the spacer and knife together.
Coat the spacer generously with PVA.
Using crimps, we clamp the sheath with the knife into a vice and clamps. And we forget for two weeks.
Two weeks passed. Birch bark began to look like tin. The PVA has become transparent. Let's analyze the design. When tapped, the birch bark rings. We saw off the excess length at the mouth
Let's continue:
We mark, based on the crimp marks, the location and holes (8 mm pitch) of the future seam.
Drill with a 5 mm drill
Using a hook we sew with a strap.
Let's do foramen ovale under suspension (drill, dremel). This is what happened.
We remove (Corvette 51) the excess birch bark and spacer. The sheath is mostly ready. Let's move on to the handle of the knife.
The time has come to tint the suvel and birch bark of the handle to match the color of the boiled birch bark of the scabbard. We use water stains.
Mixing (gradually) various stains We select the color by checking it on a piece of suveli.
The handle is covered with a compote of stains (brush) and wiped with a rag.
After drying and rubbing vigorously with a rough cotton rag, the handle acquired a completely different look.
Danish was polymerized (3 days) and also polished by hand with a rag.
The scabbard is also covered with danish and polished. A braided braid made from the same straps is inserted into the oval hole. Trinkets made from suveli are attached. All !
Next is a photo shoot and the theme “Tues”.
Ready to listen to criticism.
Each of us sooner or later gets a knife without a handle. You can throw it away, or give yourself a budget activity for a few weekends and weeknights... and this is what you can get!
One day I was given a decorative knife made by Chinese craftsmen. This ugliness did not live long, but instead of an urn, I decided to make a simple cutting knife and sent the remaining blade to torture: sharpened, hardened, tempered, polished, drilled holes for fasteners... the story is not about the blade, so “let’s move on.”
At the dacha, pieces of a cut pear tree (or apple tree - I don’t remember) were taken, and a fallen birch tree in the nearby forest was stripped...
The pieces of wood were boiled according to the recipes of the masters in a salt solution with pine sawdust and willow branches, and then dried. These recipes can easily be found on the Internet, so I won’t go into details.
The first step was to carve the bolster. The hole in it is drilled with an ordinary metal drill to the size of the shank, taking into account that it does not slip, does not turn and is put on tightly. A little epoxy for strength and voila!
It was decided to glue the birch bark directly on the shank so that it fits tightly.
The outer edge was cut out with scissors, the inner edge with the tip of a knife. The birch bark lay for several months in a dry room, but remained elastic, so to speak, so any additional processing I didn’t expose her.
Some tips:
1) do not try to make the outer edge of the birch bark blanks as close as possible to the shape of the handle - when grinding then everything will go away without problems, but you won’t miss the size;
2) it is important to place birch bark blanks in different directions with fibers so that the handle holds the load in all directions;
3) the more accurately the internal hole is cut, the better - over time it will not give backlash and will not scroll.
On a quick fix built from scrap materials simple clamp(the budget for consumables is ridiculous), the blade is wrapped with masking tape to avoid contamination (sticky side out so that the glue does not remain on the blade.
Birch bark blanks can be soaked for half an hour in hot water and just put it under the press, but I decided not to wet it, but coated everything with waterproof PVA (when grinding, PVA with birch bark gives such a charming smell!) and sent it to the clamp.
A butt hole was also made in the back plate blank. The rough blank was placed on epoxy, after which the formation of the handle began. The process is simple: we take a drill (it is important that the speed can be set relatively low), a rubber attachment with Velcro, sanding wheels different grain sizes and do what was intended!
My backplate sat very firmly, but since the holes were already drilled, I had to rivet it copper wire as planned in advance (I took a hammer and hammered it - the edges flattened themselves, and removed the protruding part with sandpaper).
Final stage- polishing with felt.
Birch bark is a durable material, but it is advisable to treat the wood with something additional. It's better to do this in advance, but I didn't know that.
In different forums I describe the process of waxing a handle with birch bark in different ways - don’t trust anyone: the birch bark darkens from the wax (the photo shows a small spot near the back), and if you wrap it with tape, then when unwinding it you can damage the birch bark stuck to it.
I decided to act as simply and inexpensively as possible ( linseed oil dries/polarizes for a long time, you need to look for teak oil or special impregnations, and they are probably not cheap) - I bought a piece of wax from beekeepers on the market, put it in a jar, melted it in a water bath and kept it, heating the workpiece in it until it stopped air came out, after which I polished it (directly with wax residues) with a soft cloth.
Now you can remove the tape from the blade and sharpen it.
On every fruit tree There is a place where the gardener annually cuts off a useless shoot, as a result of which a lump-growth forms on the branch/trunk. This growth is called suvel - an ideal piece of wood for needlework, because when cut it gives an amazing pattern.
I ended up with a bolster covered in wavy fibers, and the backing was covered in circles of knots. There was one large black knot in the center of the back plate blank, but I decided to leave it, and it, damn it, went to the side when stitching...
I took the photos with a file, so the quality of polishing and the pattern of the wood can hardly be assessed...
Due to the shape of the knife and personal beliefs, I decided to make a non-mounted scabbard, and, moreover, with a holster-type prague. The whole thing took four evenings.
The process is simple: glued together with waterproof PVA from three layers birch bark front, back and edge in the center and under the press.
Usually birch bark sheaths are made “inside out”, but my birch bark was very beautiful, so I didn’t turn it over - I walked around thin layer PVA for safety and that's it.
From a piece plastic corner, which remained during the installation of the windows, I made a blank to the size of the blade, inserted it between the blanks and glued them together. After drying, I leveled and sanded the edges. 
Last day - I drilled holes and stitched them with a pre-blunted needle.
Important: do not drill “for beer” - it may turn out as crooked as mine.
Tip: it’s easy to hide the ends of the threads inside if you wrap one around the other, and then insert it into the hole from which it (the first tail of the thread) came out and tighten. Then you cut it on both sides and that’s it (although you can still drip some glue into the hole).
Since almost everything was made from what was in the garage (I only bought a nut and wax), the budget for the craft turned out to be ridiculous.
And most importantly: if you decide to make a knife yourself, be sure to read the legislation on this topic!
Don't judge strictly - this is my first knife and sheath. ;-)
Stacked handle for a knife made of birch bark. DIY knife handle made of birch bark. Horn bolster. Bolster made of elk horn for a knife. Author YoNas_Kaki.Wedge - Lauri RT 77 - 77x19x3.3 Handle - elk horn, birch bark mixed with brass, again horn, pin. Parameters - 95x27x18 Sheath - beech liner, vegetable tanned leather, waxed shoe thread, shoe wax, embossing, brown felt-tip pen.
And now about how it was all done. A Ketaytska lighter was taken as a size guide
therefore, her sister will appear regularly during the story. So... I took the blade and sawed off a piece from the horn, suitable in size for the future bolster
(we don’t pay attention to the turned shank - the wedge was originally prepared for another product) Since the knife is unusually small, I decided to draw a sketch, although I haven’t done this for a long time
from the sketch it became clear that the tail would have to not only be cut, but also bent, which was done using the objects shown in the photo
Then he took the future bolster and, using the G-6 grinder from Seryoga Oberets, gave its ends (not Seryoga, but the bolster) the shape of graceful arcs
Having marked on the front side of the future bolster, I drilled three holes from the front side, and from reverse side, I made a selection using a drill with a cutter (seen in the photo) so that when adjusting, I would not use a file to scrape the entire thickness of the bolster, but only the thin (about 5 mm) wall. All tools used for fitting are shown in the third photo.
I have never been able to fit Lauri’s blade to the horn without gaps, and not only to the horn, to be honest. But, fortunately, I have long ago mastered the method of dealing with this (specifically on horn bolsters) and will now show you!
But first, you need to prepare the front surface. I sanded it thoroughly, almost polished it, coated it with highly fluid cyanoacrylic and put it in the sun to dry.
When everything was dry, I sanded off the excess CA and polished the front surface with steel wool. I cut out the brass plate next to the bolster and made it from scraps pine boards...it would probably be correct to call it a punch. Those. crap that will tightly press the brass spacer to the concave surface of the bolster (it can be seen in the general photo on the right bottom corner) Then, I covered the front surface of the bolster with regular tape and cut the tape along the edge of the hole with a thin sharp knife. Now it will be clear why.
I mixed white Poxypol and smeared it on the shank, in the area of the bolster, and on the inside of the bolster itself, smearing it directly on the front side sealed with tape. He inserted the wedge into the bolster, filled the hole on the back side of the bolster with the same Poxypol, lubricated the surface with it, put the brass and punch on the tail and clamped everything in a clamp.
We remove obvious drips from the blade with cotton wool or a napkin soaked in alcohol or acetone, but so as not to pick out the Poxypol from the crack. Next, it is important to correctly capture the moment when Poxipol has already stood up so much that it will not come out of the crack if pulled, but has not yet stood up so much that it has completely hardened. This moment occurs 8-12 hours after gluing. We grab the edges of the tape and - lo and behold! Nothing stuck to the bolster and all the excess, in fact, was kept only on the blade. Using a thin and sharp knife, carefully cut off the excess, trying not to scratch the bolster and blade. We clean it with the same knife inner side where is the brass?
Let's move on to birch bark. First you need to figure out how many records you will need. To do this, on the sketch we roughly measure the area that will be filled with birch bark, subtract from this the thickness of the brass spacers multiplied by their number, and divide the remainder by the thickness of the existing birch bark sheet (we measure with a barbell). We get the approximate number of plates needed. We add from 10 to 30 percent for shrinkage (the thicker the wood, the greater the shrinkage) and start cutting. I will not write in detail about the fact that it is necessary to clean it from the outside of small rags, dirt (if any), etc., and from the inside - from “cork-like” seals. I try to prepare birch bark so that one of its edges (across the grain) is as even as possible. This makes cutting a lot easier. On the bark, I first measure the length of the plate (it will be rectangular) and run it along the edge of the birch bark, then I cut it along the line and, having cut off a piece of the required width from the resulting strip, I cut this strip along it to the end, trying to bypass the damaged and problem areas. I measure the next strip not to the length of the future plate, but to the width. Those. On some of the plates the fibers will run lengthwise, on others across. Along/across should be the same and strictly alternate. This is a requirement for both beauty and strength (the result is a kind of laminate).
Then I take a AAAAA big pan, pour AAAAAA hot water from the tap into it (let the water drain for a while so that it is really hot!..) and throw all the chopped plates into it. I take them out one by one, “bite through” them with a special tool and cut out the partition with a sharp knife. I make “bites” so that the plate fits onto the tail as tightly as possible, without play, but also so that the edges do not break or stick out along the tail, this will greatly complicate the shrinkage. And I immediately fold them one by one - lengthwise/crosswise.
I put them on the tail, put another brass piece, support it from behind with the same punch and clamp it in a clamp. On a good note, it would be a good idea to let this thing dry. Then the bend of the lines will be clearer. But in this situation, the process can drag on for 4 days and, most importantly, there can be a big difference in color between the packages (I’ve already had this happen once). And I decided to do everything in one go. It all dried just as long as I made slits in the plates for the next package. Only I propped it up after typing, no longer with a curved punch, but with a straight one. Let's look at the photos.
I assembled the remaining two bags in the same way (I just had to make another punch - a concave one) and laid them out to dry. To once again emphasize the fact that assembling birch bark for wet is SELF-SUFFICIENT, I am showing a photo in which the handle has already been pre-stripped, but there is no butt plate yet. Those. Nothing holds the birch bark. However, it does not delaminate either on its own or when turning on a grinder, although the thickness of the package from the edge to the brass (brass does not stick to birch bark) is only 15 mm at the thickest point.
Everything is dry, stripped rough, let's move on to the butt plate. Based on the sketch, I roughly marked the required piece of horn, sawed it off, and used a small grinder roller to fit it to the arc formed by dried birch bark. I drilled and once again figured out the fit - everything was fine!
Initially, the installation was planned to be silent. But after gluing and peeling... in short, I peeled it all the way to the hole in the ass (I was overzealous with the drilling for the shank). What to do?.. Mobile, contact list, Finnish. ru - "Vasiiiiil!!! Help!!!" “Come on in,” Vasil answered. As a result, the knife in the ass showed this pin.
And from that moment on, the shoals began to appear like an avalanche! First of all, I have never implanted anything into anything. It wouldn’t work to just drill it - the hole is too big - 8mm and the tail is too close - one wrong move and the drill will move to the side and the butt plate will be kicked. I cut off a piece of the pin, traced it with a needle on the butt plate and selected the inside with a drill and cutter. But I didn’t choose a perfectly round one. And the pin itself is also not simple - it has two holes that also need to be filled with something. I thought for a long time about what, went through a bunch of options and decided to fill it with the color of the butt plate - brown. I decided to glue it not with Poxipol, but with 30-minute epoxy, so that there would be more time to spare. I mixed horn sawdust into it - everything was gray. I added tooth powder and it became much whiter. Okay, I think it will harden - it will be just what you need. Frozen - gray! It’s not that everything looks bad, but... I would like it to be whiter. And something dark got in there too... Ugh!!!
Okay, we need to sew a sheath. I won’t write about this in detail. And so, at least three people have already colorfully described this process, and I learned from them. I made an insert, soaked it in CA, cut the leather, soaked it with PVA, sewed it, molded it, dried it. A question arose about the design for embossing. We chose fireflower with the customer
The question is very interesting and that’s what they usually do. There are many methods for making a sheath, depending on which knife. The main thing is that the knife should not become dull, be securely fixed and easily removed. The knife is fixed either by the blade or by the handle. The simplest and most common. Two plates, for example, 2-3 mm thick leather, larger than the size of the blade, they are tightened at the edges with rivets or leather cord. Due to the elasticity of the leather, the knife is held in place. You can use wooden plates with a cut (chisels or milling) and covered with something, and then the knife is attached to the handle. The famous Austrian bayonet knives have a plastic body sheath with a latch behind the guard. Depending on what the knife is for, there will be different sheaths. A hunter's knife in the blood of an animal in a tight sheath with fastening by the blade will jam in the sheath in winter and it must be attached to the handle and the handle must be of such a shape that it can be pulled out comfortably .If the knife is for defense or hunting, the requirements are the same. Knives for a shoemaker, carver, which are not carried with you, the main requirement is to maintain sharpness during storage.An important part of the knife is the handle. And not only its shape, but also the material from which it is made. A frequently used material for making handles in Russia is birch bark - affordable, reliable and practical. A handle made of birch bark allows you to use knives in field conditions both in cold and hot weather due to the low thermal conductivity of birch bark and its velvety properties.
Birch bark is one of the most common materials for the production of knife handles in Russia.
The high water-repellent properties of birch bark make it possible to make knife handles without additional impregnation. The reason for this is a large number of the tar contained in it, which, among other things, gives it some disinfecting properties, thanks to which the birch bark does not rot. Perhaps the tar also inhibits the development of unwanted microorganisms on the surface of the handle. But making a birch bark handle requires care with each layer and in each operation.
Birch bark must be thoroughly cleaned before use.
First of all, it is necessary to thoroughly clean each piece of birch bark from the white layer with front side and a cork layer on the inside. To do this, you can use a wire brush or sharp knife to scrape off unnecessary layers. When assembling the handle, you should remember that each subsequent piece of birch bark should be positioned perpendicular to the previous one. Birch bark is placed in a bath of water with a small addition of PVA glue for some time to give elasticity. 
A birch bark briquette glued in this way will retain its environmental properties.
Small briquettes are assembled, about 10 - 15 millimeters thick, from which a full-size handle is then assembled using PVA glue. And again, gluing birch bark with another glue or impregnating it with drying oil or varnish “kills” everything thermal insulation properties birch bark And the birch bark itself becomes fragile and begins to crumble. The birch bark handle is pleasant to the touch. Exceptional material - soft and warm, AND very beautiful.
Try it yourself).