How do you wrap a Hilt in leather?
Anyone out there able to provide instructions or a link that will give me the basic instructions for wrapping a hilt in leather?

I'm actually making a few staves and want to wrap an area with leather but not sure how to start and tie it off so it doesn't come unraveled. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Hello, Jeff

You may find this thread helpful: http://www.myArmoury.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=3808 It provides quite a bit of detail , and pictures are included to clear up a lot of confusion. You can also use the "search" function. Just type in the phrase "rewrapping and hit" and pick the thread you want to read.

Good luck
Or perhaps this article: http://www.myArmoury.com/feature_bench_ws_estoc.html.
A lot of great information from these links but I don't understand is how the seam is finished? Is it sewn shut? Is the whole piece of leather glued to the wooden base or just the beginning and ends?
Jeff Schaber wrote:
A lot of great information from these links but I don't understand is how the seam is finished? Is it sewn shut? Is the whole piece of leather glued to the wooden base or just the beginning and ends?


It depends. MRL, Del Tin, and A&A stitch theirs shut.

The Albion-style wrap talked about in those links just relies on glue. The leather is cut so that it overlaps itself. It's glued all over its back so it's glued to the wood core and to itself (where it overlaps).
You could lash it, I lashed my bow grip.


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Chad Arnow wrote:

The Albion-style wrap talked about in those links just relies on glue. The leather is cut so that it overlaps itself. It's glued all over its back so it's glued to the wood core and to itself (where it overlaps).


This is true. There is also a trick to it. You need to taper the thickness of the leather both at the first edge glued to the grip core (generally gets wrapped over with something like roughly half a wrap of overlap) and the exposed edge where the wrap ends. This prevents noticeable bulges where the wrap covers over itself and where the exposed paper thin edge of the end of the wrap is actually visible with just a hair line of glue being evident. A wide knife (skiving knife) is really helpful for that. You can use sandpaper to carefully taper the dry leather down to paper thin thickness over say 1" of the leather's width if you don't have the knife.

You may find a slightly non rectangular (tapering a little with the widest part put on first) strip of leather to be more forgiving if you hand wrap the water dampened, stretchy, glue-covered, messing thing without the perfection of a machinist. Then you need to compress it (string wrapped tightly around the outside and left with a suspended heavy weight pulling tension on it) and keep it tight for a couple of days while it dries.
Jared Smith wrote:
This is true. There is also a trick to it. You need to taper the thickness of the leather both at the first edge glued to the grip core (generally gets wrapped over with something like roughly half a wrap of overlap) and the exposed edge where the wrap ends. This prevents noticeable bulges where the wrap covers over itself and where the exposed paper thin edge of the end of the wrap is actually visible with just a hair line of glue being evident. A wide knife (skiving knife) is really helpful for that. You can use sandpaper to carefully taper the dry leather down to paper thin thickness over say 1" of the leather's width if you don't have the knife.



If you use chamois leather, you don't get bulges at the overlap. :) But with other leathers, skiving is probably necessary.

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