Looking for a solution to store and carry my knife

Question

Like my username implies, I'm a shochet (though I'm still in training).

Like any shochet, I use a chalaf (חלף), which is a dedicated shechitah knife.

Among the rules of shechitah knives is that the knife has to be uniformly sharp, and without nicks, along its entire length.
This presents a problem, when I need to take my knife from one place to another. I can't really put it in my knapsack without it getting damaged, and if I'm travelling by subway I can't exactly hold it in my hand, especially not post-9/11.

How can I transport my knife safely, without wrecking it?

Now, there are those that use those really cool, dedicated leather sheaths, but I wasn't able to locate them in any online store, nor in any physical store I went to. ....If I were to be killing animals, I would consider making my own out of the skins of animals that I killed, but so far I've only been killing poultry.

Answer 1

I improvised my own case for my knife.

1. Wrap it in a towel:

2. Put the towel-wrapped knife in a pencil case, and close it:

This seems to work, even though the knife is a little too loose in the case, in my opinion, though it doesn't seem to have an affect on the sharpness of the knife, since it's protected by the towel. I suppose I could stuff the case with more towels, or paper, but I don't think that's necessary.

Bonus: if you use Japanese water stones to sharpen your knife, as I do, the case can double as a water container when you arrive at your destination, so you could soak those stones in it (as I do).

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While this won't help me so much for my special case, I noticed that a friend of mine improvised his own "case" for his kitchen knife, out of paper towel and aluminum foil:

Answer 2

You can easily make a sheath out of heavy denim material. Use brass rivets around the perimeter. No stitching is required. The blade should slide along the rivets upon entry and exit. Search google for "brass rivets". No need to post a link. Get the denim, order the rivets and tool, get a hammer, and you should be able to knock one out in an hour.

Answer 3

you can easy amend/alter a wooden box like this one here

on the ground fit in a felt or a foam material.
in the lid of the box stick on with wood-glue, 2-3 small wood-cames or a wood-bar, that fixes this nice knife down in the box.

this wood-boxes you can find easily on amazon or in your local hardware-stores.
if the box comes without a lock you can easy make your own or you take a strong rubber-band.

before you fit in the felt or foam at the bottom, you may must also underlay a wood-bar (in the lenght of the blade) to prevent bending the knife. this may now sounds like lot of work, but with a saw, glue, a knife and some small wood-bars, you can make an easy and nice little knife-storage-box.

Answer 4

If you happen to have any spare leather or thick material lying around you could try this method:

• Trace around the knife onto a piece of paper
• Draw the same shape around the knife outline - just bigger (the size you'd want a sheath to be)
• Get your material and place the paper over it and cut around your shape using a sharp knife like a scalpel or a Stanley Knife - do this twice so you have two cutouts
• On the inside of the leather / material, draw a sort of border (the area that you made bigger than the knife)
• Apply a strong glue suitable for the material you are using and compress using a stack of books or a vice if available and allow to dry and strengthen - alternatively you could stitch the material in order to keep it together.
• Add any decorations or a loop on the back so you can attach it to your belt, or you can just keep it in the sheath in a bag.

Obviously I understand that a lot of people might not have leather just lying around to be cut up but you can use other materials in place - such as denim (as in dmcdivitt's answer) or even wood (probably need to be thin in order for you to be able to slip the knife into it)!