How to Make a Wooden Sword Belt

If you're designing any costume that includes a wooden sword, like a Peter Pan or Legend of Zelda costume, a belt with a makeshift sheath is a good addition. Adding an actual sheath to the belt will make it easier to sheathe and draw the sword and keep the sword from getting caught on the costume. All you need to know is how to fasten leather onto leather. Any super glue or leather glue will work, but knowing how to stitch leather works even better.

Things You'll Need

• Belt Wooden sword Leather strap Leather scissors Leather glue Heavy thread (optional) Heavy-duty sewing machine (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut a strip of leather that will make the sheath for the belt. This strip should be as wide as the belt you will use and about a foot long to start with. Try to find leather that is the same color as the belt.

2. Put on the belt you that you will attach the sheath to. With a felt marker, mark the spot where the sheath will be placed. This should be along the side of your hip opposite the hand you hold the sword in. If you are right-handed, the sheath will be on the side of your left hip.

3. Remove the belt and lay it on a flat surface. Place the sword's blade up against the sheath's location, lining up the blade's widest point with the belt length. This is usually the spot where the blade edges begin to converge toward each other to form the point (not the point itself).

4. Place a line of leather glue on opposite ends of the sword blade. Extend each line about two to three inches from the edge of the blade. Make sure no glue touches the blade itself.

5. Lay the leather strap on the glued surface of the belt, pressing it against the glue. Keep the sword blade against the belt so you can wrap the strap around it to the other glued side, thus creating the sheath that the sword can slip through. Wait up to an hour for the glue to dry; you can wrap strong tape around the glued areas to keep things in place.

6. Trim off the ends of the sheath strap that aren't glued to the belt once the glue is dry. You can also remove the tape.

7. Stitch the strap to the belt if you want something other than the glue to secure it. Stitch along each edge of the belt from each end of the sheath to the actual end of the strap.

Tips & Warnings

• If the sword's blade is noticeably thinner near the hilt than at its widest point, the sword will jostle while in the sheath.