Over the last few years I have become fascinated with reproducing some of the famous Bowie knives of the early to mid 1800's which meant making sheaths to match historically with the knife. This usually entails adding a metal tip & throat. These I usually make from nickel silver and find that the thicker the sheet, the easier it is to solder so normally I will order it in 1/16" thickness. This is a little harder to shape but much simpler to solder.

Dr. Dan Petersen, MS has already discussed making wooden sheaths so I won't go into that part of it but will say that's where it all starts. Normally I will stretch & sew leather around it with a seam sewn up the middle of the back but on the photo that I have today, I chose to leave the wood exposed as I wanted to add an inletted escutcheon. [Both ways work with simply a different look.]

When I first started making the metal tips & throats I was trying to do it by wrapping one piece of the nickel silver completely around a mold and soldering the one seam up the back but encountered a lot of trouble until Dr. James Batson, MS told me of a much easier way. He told me to make two halves and solder both sides which works much better.

Typically I will make a mold out of wood as close to the desired shape of either the tip or throat of the sheath as possible. This I will band saw & then grind on the 2x72. The thickness of the mold isn't important as you will be making two halves separately. With this completed, I will cut out the two pieces of nickel silver sheet allowing an excess of material which will be ground off later.

Next I will clamp one of the N/S pieces(centered on the mold) in a sturdy vise and with a 12 ounce hammer bend the edges to shape one at a time by using blows no harder then necessary to shape the N/S. Once this is done you will have two halves with irregular edges which need to be ground flat & straight.

This is the tricky part and a good deal of caution needs to be used. I find that the easiest tool with which to grind the edges straight is a disc grinder. (I use a 12" Grizzly disc grinder)

I would suggest that before starting that you secure a separate piece of sheet metal on the platform of the disc grinder as close as possible to the grinding disc to eliminate as much space as you can so there is no chance for the piece being ground to slip between them. Normally the two halves of the tip (or throat) have enough 3-dimension to them by now that you can grasp them with some needle nose pliers while grinding without the pliers ever touching the disc. Take your time and check each half for size often by placing it (once cooled) on the sheath. [It's easy to remove a little more but... you can guess where I'm going with this.]

Once you have the two halves shaped & ground to size it's time to solder by clamping them together in a vise while soldering. Another tip that I got from Dr. Batson is that borax makes an excellent soldering flux for silver solder. This however will usually require an oxy/acet torch to reach the required heat. If you don't have this then a silver bearing solder (500-550 degree) can be used which can be heated with most propane or butane torches and the solder can be purchased at any plumbing supply house.

Tip: When soldering the top on the N/S throat it is helpful to use a solder with a lower melting point then what you used for the sides of the throat simply to insure no separation of the two halves from occurring. Also I have found that it helps to leave the slot in the top of the throat slightly under size initially and filed to fit the blade after securing the throat to the sheath. This way if anything is slightly off center, it can be easily remedied.

Once you have everything soldered & cleaned up it's time to epoxy the throat & tip to the sheath. Once the epoxy has cured you will need to make & secure a frog. These can be made on a lathe or, if careful, ground to shape on the 2x72. Either way they should be center bored partially through from the back side and a wood screw (with the head removed) soldered in place with which to attach the frog. Be certain to grind the screw to length so that it doesn't protrude into the center of the sheath and touch the blade. (Typically when I screw the frog to the sheath I will add a drop of CA to the threads.)

I hope that this all makes sense. If not, you're welcome to get with me with any questions that you might have.

Gary