Leather Pouting

Last year at the Minnesota State Fair I was watching Roger Abrahamsen doing some traditional old time wood turning - the lathe is driven by a flexible wooden pole above his head (not visible in this photo due to the high speed movement of the pole).




When he turned round, I saw a very special knife and sheath hanging from his belt - a Norwegian knife in an extraordinary sheath. The knife and sheath was made bu Knut Dahl who have been to the USA a few times - I have even met people who has taken knife making classes with him here.

The leatherwork for the sheath is done with a process called pouting - the leather is tanned so that the deeper layer is still rawhide, to provide a steel hard casing for the knife, and the top layer is normal veg tan leather, so that it can be "pushed around" to form the designs.




More of Knut Dahl's work can be seen at this LINK