Restacking Catt leather handle

[Reverand]

I fished this little Cattaraugus fixed-blade out if the 'Bay cheap. And by "little", I mean 7-1/2" OAL! I was surprised when I received it, as my big old hand covers both the pommel and hilt when I grip it!

Leather handle coming apart

Anyway, I have wanted to restack a leather handle, and I have a hard time passing up any Cattaraugus, so it was a good project, even if came with a Mora sheath.

Mora sheath

I cut up an old leather belt to use. Drilling and cutting the holes in all 14 pieces of leather went more quickly than I had expected. But the belt that I used was a reversible belt, and it had a "pithy" layer of ground-up leather glued between the brown & black layers. I had my doubts about it about halfway through, but I carried on anyway. I decided that it is terrible construction for a belt (it didn't last long at all holding up my big ol' belly!), but I like the look on a knife handle.

During

After, closeup.

I really need to build a 2x72 belt sander - I already have most of the materials. My Harbor Freight 1x30 works well, but runs so fast that it is easy to mess things up quickly. I let the edge of the belt catch on one of the red spacers near the pommel, and it chewed it up badly.
I also learned that the next time I restack a handle, I will not only lay the spacers out in order, I will mark them some way so that I know the top from the bottom, and the back from the front. THEY ARE NOT SYMMETRICAL! Even though they were all in order, it became quite the puzzle to get them back and looking like anything!

[#goldpan]

Good job on the stacked leather. I like it a lot.

[Colonel26]

That looks real good. Great job.

[1967redrider]

Excellent workmanship, Reverend.

[Gone2Three]

Great save on that old Catt Reverend!

Randy

[ea42]

Beautiful job Reverand, that multi-hued leather really looks good!!

If you can find some "J" weight belts they have a lot more flex and are much more forgiving on curved surfaces with a lot less bite on their edges.

Eric

[cody6268]

Nice job!

I am wondering, did you need to compress the handle? I found an old, pretty much destroyed Pal Mark II many years ago, and while Kabar said their leather washers would work, they said I'd have to have a pretty powerful press to put them into place. I eventually just bought a newer, less trashed Camillus version.

[Reverand]

Nice job!

I am wondering, did you need to compress the handle? I found an old, pretty much destroyed Pal Mark II many years ago, and while Kabar said their leather washers would work, they said I'd have to have a pretty powerful press to put them into place. I eventually just bought a newer, less trashed Camillus version.

Not really. The slot that I had cut into each piece of leather was slightly undersized, so each was a tight fit.
I had the knife jammed into a small 2x4, point down, and slid each piece of leather in place by hand. Then I took a large file and held it beside the tang and hammered it down to seat the leather firmly. I did this 4 times on each piece (one each side of the tang, then along the front and back edge). Once it was tamped down firmly, the leather stayed in place. Then the pommel was held on by a nut, which compressed the finished product rather well.
I wish that I had taken a picture of the process, as it would make more sense than explaining it!