Lesche Digger & Pinpointer Sheaths

Side-by-side or inline: which Lesche sheath should you get?

Side-by-side gives you the fastest one-handed draw on both tools; inline stacks them so the rig rides tighter to your body, which is what most customers who asked for a change actually wanted.

The side-by-side was my standard build. Both tools sit next to each other, both come out clean, and you never fumble reaching past one to get the other. It works, and it is the configuration I would still recommend to most detectorists.

But people kept asking for something more streamlined. The only way to shrink the footprint is to stop putting the tools next to each other and start stacking them — piggybacking one on top of the other. You give up a little access speed and you gain a rig that does not swing wide off your hip when you kneel. That was the trade, and enough customers wanted it that it became its own product.

What holds a detecting rig on your belt — loops or snaps?

I used heavy-duty Line 24 snaps rather than a closed belt loop, so the whole rig comes on and off without unthreading your belt.

A sewn belt loop is simpler to make and it is what most sheaths use. It also means that taking the rig off at the end of a hunt requires pulling your belt out of your pants. Line 24 snaps in gunmetal solved that, and they hold a heavy loaded rig without complaint. It is a small decision that you notice every single time you gear up.

Why line the back of a leather sheath?

Because the tooled side of veg-tan leather is rough, and that is the side riding against your leg all day.

Every rig I built got a lined back. On the sheaths riding against a pant leg I used chrome-tan, which is smooth and finishes clean. On others I used oil-tan, which has a feel and a look I like better on a heavier piece. On the thigh rig I went further and burnished the back as well — a surface nobody would ever see. It is the sort of detail that separates a piece you made from a piece you shipped.

I also burnished every edge, including the edges of the belt loop. On a basket-weave-stamped Lesche sheath, burnished edges are most of what makes it look finished rather than merely made.

How thick does leather have to be before you cannot hand-stitch it?

On a standard Lesche sheath a saddle stitch all the way around is plenty; on the thigh rig, built from 12–14 oz saddle skirting, I had to use leather screws to hold the assembly together.

This is the most useful thing I know about this kind of work, and nobody teaches it. Leathercraft instruction assumes you are making a wallet. When you are building around real tools — a contoured shovel blade, a thick-spined bowie, a loaded rig on a thigh platform — you run out of what conventional construction can do.

On the Lesche Sampson shovel sheath, the blade's contour and its serrated edge meant I notched the leather to clear the blade and stacked five welts to protect the stitching from the edge. On a Prather War Bowie sheath, the welt ran three to four layers thick, and lining up a stitch punch through that stack would have taken hours I did not have — so I marked the line with a stitching wheel and drilled every hole with a 1/16" bit. The look suffered slightly. The function did not. I wrote up that build and what it paid, if you want the numbers.

Can a leather rig work with a finds pouch you already own?

Yes — the thigh rig was built to accept a magnetic-clasp finds pouch, and it holds it securely.

The thigh rig carries the Lesche, the pinpointer, and a finds pouch on one leg-mounted platform. I reworked the pouch design across versions — different cuts, sewn down at the bottom — because the first one was not right. That is generally how it goes.