Making a wooden insert in a Scandi leather sheath

Scandi leather sheaths are made with half-tanned leather.

This leather has a core of rawhide, making it stiffer and less pliable when dry.

The leather is wetted and then sown around the knife, creating a tight fit.

When the leather is dry, the rawhide core makes it stiff and rigid, holding the knife securely in place by friction alone.

If wanting to make a wooden insert for the scandi sheath, this is one way to do it;

1. Mark the profile of the blade onto a piece of wood. In this case thin pine from Bunnings. We will use one piece of wood on each side of the blade, gluing these together to form a hard shell.
2. Route out the blade profile with a dremel or other fitting tool. Go as deep as the blade thickness plus 1 mm or so. Remember to create a drainage hole at the bottom, by making a channel from the tip of the blade and out to the end of the piece of wood.
3. When ready, glue 2 pieces of wood together. One piece has the routed out hole for the blade, the other is just a flat piece. If wanting to centre the blade better in the insert, route out half the depth in two pieces.
4. Glue the pieces together, leave clamped until dry.
5. Shape the wooden insert any way you like. I used my Ryobi belt sander/linisher
6. Finished wooden insert
7. Showing a couple of different shapes of the insert. Be sure to have a good clean fit between the insert and the front of the bolster. A gap here will show when wet shaping the leather, if making a molded tight fitted sheath.
8. Sowing up the Scandi leather sheath, using linen thread. The wooden insert is shaping the bottom part of the sheath, as part of the wet shaping. 
9. Finished sheath
10. Dyed and sealed sheath, with dangler attached and stamped with makers mark.