Rondel Scabbard - NOT RATTAN

[Gregoire de Lyon]

Hi All-

My wife got me a beautiful custom rondel dagger as an early Valentine's Day present. I need to make a sheath/scabbard for it but am not sure how it should be consturcted to keep it from contantly flipping over from the greater mass of the handle relative to the blade. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[James B.]

What style did you get? Is it a triangle blade or a cutting knife blade?


Medieval dagger sheath tend to be two layers of leather. A thinner layer against the blade; the hide side on the blade with the split side inside the two layers. A thicker peice of leather is wrapped over that with the split side inside the the hide side out. There is an example in Knifes and Scabbards.

[Gregoire de Lyon]

What style did you get? Is it a triangle blade or a cutting knife blade?

Knife blade. Good info on the double layer, I didn't know that. Thanks!

Any ideas on how to hang it from a belt though so it doesn't flip over from it's own weight?

[Kilkenny]

What style did you get? Is it a triangle blade or a cutting knife blade?

Knife blade. Good info on the double layer, I didn't know that. Thanks!

Any ideas on how to hang it from a belt though so it doesn't flip over from it's own weight?

I would say stagger the straps so the pivot point is on a diagonal across the blade. That ought to help substantially.

You also might want to look at some of the examples where the dagger rides behind/through a pouch. The pouch traps everything so there's no way it can flip.

[Ceddie]

I also have three daggers that need sheaths, one triangle spike and two cutting blades that need sheaths. let me know what you figure out about how to make sheaths.

Hell, it may be worth paying someone else to make them....

[James B.]

Any ideas on how to hang it from a belt though so it doesn't flip over from it's own weight?

A good tight fit is the only way I have found; both my daggers hang straight down with a single strap over the belt. A pouch over it when dressed civilian tends to help also. Like so:

[Kel Rekuta]

I would say stagger the straps so the pivot point is on a diagonal across the blade. That ought to help substantially.

Yes this works well even on massively out of balance Heimrich rondel daggers.


You also might want to look at some of the examples where the dagger rides behind/through a pouch. The pouch traps everything so there's no way it can flip.

Well not always...

[Kilkenny]

I would say stagger the straps so the pivot point is on a diagonal across the blade. That ought to help substantially.

Yes this works well even on massively out of balance Heimrich rondel daggers.


You also might want to look at some of the examples where the dagger rides behind/through a pouch. The pouch traps everything so there's no way it can flip.

Well not always...

chuckle.. The artist just didn't know which way a dagger is meant to hang

Seriously, the first one, yeah, it's trying to escape even from behind the pouch... The other two appear to show the daggers flipped upside down without a pouch involved. I interpret this as indicating that those sheaths are made to fit those daggers quite well, such that the daggers do not come out unless you pull them out.

There are some tricks known by sheath makers today for doing that, but I'm not knowledgeable as to what they are or how they work.

[william]

Hi!

Here's my interpretation of "scabbard thonging" after I've studied some of the finds depicted in "knives and scabbards". Quite a number of these scabbards have four holes on the back side arranged in a square fashion. I've interpreted these as part of a leather or linen string system (see graph). The belt is not just placed through the loop, but the string is double-looped around the belt (hard to explain ...).

The first try with my ballock dagger went very well. The scabbard did hang straight, but was also flexible enough to be comfortable while sitting.

Cheers,
William