Working on a fillet knife for a buddy of mine, he brought me some shark skin from a little shark he caught on a guide trip down in the gulf and wants a shark skin wrap on the handle. I've been trying to work out in my head how best to pull this off to where it will last longer than a month's worth of use. Thought about a recessed guard and pommel type handle where the handle material would be carved down a bit to where it fits snugly into the guard/pom for a mechanical securing of the shark skin. Also thought of flush fitting guard/pom to handle material with little triangle cuts folded over on the ends. 

Is this too much? Will simple well fitted strips epoxied to the handle material last? Best practice recommendations? 

Thanks in advance. 

 

I gather that traditional Japanese hilts often include a layer of ray or shark skin attached with rice glue and wrapped in cord. However, these hilts are designed to be removed and replaced regularly, so a water-soluble starch-based glue might not be best in your particular challenge.

Yea not wrapping it either, need it to stay non-absorbent as best it can. 

I would look into stabilizing it if it has not been tanned.

i'll be tanning it myself, been practicing on gar skins that have turned out pretty well. will be using gar scale on the sheath.  shark skin handle gar scale sheath, should be pretty neat.