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Post by MessengerofDarkness on Nov 2, 2024 21:30:30 GMT
Since my primary experience is with Japanese swords, I'm more or less looking to see if anybody has any suggestions/pointers about looking into rewrapping the hilt of a European sword I recently bought. I'm aware of the basic general process, but any advice would be appreciated.
If it's something that might also be easier to just pay someone to do then I'd also be open to that.
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Post by larason2 on Nov 3, 2024 5:54:46 GMT
What I've done is wrap in cord, then glue on leather with hide glue. It's actually pretty easy, the variables are what kind of cord to wrap the handle with, and what kind of leather to put on. You can basically use any cord and any leather, but the aesthetic changes depending on what you use. To make it look nice, it's good to skive the leather at the edges so you can fold it over, but it remains flat. There are purpose skiving knives, but I used a very sharp chisel. Hide glue has a learning curve, but there's nothing better for gluing leather on a hilt. I have a small glue pot that goes on a small heating element, and I get the pearl stuff from Lee valley. Mix it in water, and mix with a wooden stick from time to time until the consistency is even, and you no longer get any globs. Once you've skived the leather to perfection, it goes on wet. This creates a very comfortable grip.
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Post by mrstabby on Nov 3, 2024 9:08:37 GMT
For me personally simple cord wraps just don't feel good, they are easy though. You can use round cord, flat cord feels softer and more uniform. Look for cotton, synthetics are too slippery unless you do some knotting work (and there isn't much variety unfortunately, either japanese, chinese or just putting knots in at certain intervals - that's the tree I could find tutorials for).
I use self fusing silicone tape as a base layer when I need it to be reversible and super glue the wrap to that, if you want it to be irreversible 5min epoxy works. You'll want it to be reversible the first few tries...
You don't neccessarily need to do skivving on leather (the edge overlap will certainly feel and look nicer though), a flat edge-to-edge glue on works too if you cut it well enough, there are a few tutorials about how to measure, mark and cut the leather. Maybe try it a few times with cheap PU leather.
Best leather is something soft and grippy (goat is good), I would not buy online since you can't handle it and don't know how it feels.
Where you would need to do either skivving or at least an edge coating (Fiebings Edge Kote for example) is when the edges of the leather would be visible. Those edges are pretty easy to damage.
To be honest: Doing it yourself might be just as expensive as letting someone else do it (you need to buy the materials and you'll be wasting a bit of material and time for training, don't need specialised tools neccessarily, but if your knives aren't literally razor sharp it's not going to go well IMHO). If you only want one grip, better pay someone lese. If you plan on doing it a few times it's worth it.
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