Hello, thanks for checking my post out. This was a fun project and I am happy with the results. I know not everything I did was necessarily the "correct" way but this is how I did it. Any advice or constructive criticism is welcome. Most of the pics are just phone pics so I appologize for the quality. Any questions? Just ask.



I started with gathering my leather and cutting out squares a little bit larger than the handle. I had a bag of scrap leather I bought at a swap meet for $10. I'm not sure what kind of leather it is, but it is wax impregnated and extremely tough stuff. Some of the pieces are 1/4 thick! If anyone knows what this kind of leather is called I would love to know.



Gettin stacks'



Full stack.



Taped up.



Cutting the handle off was easier than expected.



What I found underneath, cleaner than expected! Careful of the tang, It is sharp! I cut my hands pretty good handling it.



Part of the reason I decided to do this rehandle was that the handle had a rattle to it. It turned out to just be these spacers that had become loose.



I can tell you the shoulders have a nice radius.



Out to the shop. Yes my shop is a mess. yes, I should clean it up. I used a chisel and a knife to cut the squares out for the tang. This method worked really well, and was pretty easy.



Full stack.



At this point I decided to replace the first washer with a piece of micarta. I used a drill, dremel and files to cut out the square shape.



I made the pommel out of similar pieces of stacked micarta. sorry, I dont have any pictures of this process. I epoxied it all up and let it dry for about a day.



all dried.



Squaring the handle up



Drilling the pilot for the lanyard tube.



Lanyard tube added, another day of drying.



And the rest was just shaping down on the belt grinder, mostly using a 36 grit belt.





Lastly I used melted sno seal to seal the handle up and wax it. Sorry, no pics here.
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Overall, I think it turned out great. I drew inspiration from the Falkniven thor bowie, aswell as the randall model 1 handle shape. It is definitely not perfect, I nicked the guard in a couple places shaping the handle, but overall I'm happy. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

I'd buy it

I have made hundreds of knives and I think you did a great job...especially for a first time job.  Figuring out how to not nick the guard is just an experience thing, but you can easily clean most of those nicks up by wrapping some abrasive paper around a small jewelers file and going with progressively finer grits.  If you change the direction of each grit by 90 degrees it is easier to see the scratches from the last grit.

Yeah, Ive made a few blades but this was my first go at stacked leather. Part of my problem is that I have a cheap belt grinder that doesn't track very well. Thanks for the comment!

That’s awesome! Great work and thanks for sharing.

Looks real good.

What sheath is that?

Thanks, Its a patriot leather works sheath.

That looks really nice!

Wow!  I love it!  That's the handle Cold Steel should have put on there to begin with.  

Wow, that looks better than the rubber original!

You did a good job.  And you didn't burn the leather by rushing it.  Nice!

+1

Nice job!

Nice.

Sounds like Latigo.

nice job.

Great job.  I would like to have a handle like that on my Trailmaster.

Nice job.

That does look better than the original!

Same here.

Op, you have the beginnings of a cottage industry here...

I've been pricing and looking at Trailmasters just so l could do this.

Looks great, and the fun is, you did it. Fun to do something new and have a great outcome. Congrats!