Sgian Dubh Outside the Hose?

[Tobus]

There is also the friction of the sheath against the hose / skin to factor in, especially when compared against a "free floating" tether of just a garter and clip.

Luckily, I passed out of AP Physics in high school, and don't have much to do with it any more. I'll leave THAT up to my more skilled betters.

ith:

Exactly right. And I am a professional engineer!

With the sgian dubh inside the hose, you get the benefit of friction between the sgian and the skin, as well as the friction between the sgian and the hose. The compression of the entire portion of the sgian that's inside there, helps keep it from falling (and could be calculated if we knew the coefficient of friction for each surface, as well as the compression force).

And aside from the friction forces keeping it from sliding down, there's also the stabilizing force keeping it from swinging as you walk. With the sgian dubh only strapped to the outside with a garter, you get a pendulum effect from both the mass above the tie and the mass below the tie, making it want to rotate about the tie point. A clip would help with that, but it's only as good as the surface it's clipped to... which is just the garter itself.

In short, it would be more trouble than it's worth, methinks.

I do find it curious, though, that such a key component of Highland attire could be drawn in error. As much as people like to point to these old catalogs as references, it's worth a caveat.