Kydex Sheaths for Fun and Profit

Hey, all! Haven't posted here in a while, mostly because I haven't been doing much crafting. I've been seeing and hearing people talk about making kydex sheaths and holsters for a while, and I've been wanting to give it a try. Here's what I did and what I learned. My friend Werespaz came over to help out, which was definitely cool. Two heads are better than one, and that's doubly true when one of the heads is mine.

Start with a plank o' wood. Actually, this is a sheet of OSB. It should work just fine. This is 3/4" which is pretty heavy-duty. I decided it isn't heavy-duty enough for me, though.

Cut it into two 12"x12" squares. You can make it any size and shape you want, but 12"x12" is a good basic size.

I also cut four 12" pieces of 2x4 for reinforcement. I don't know that I needed to do this, but it may help make the thing a little stronger and last a little longer.

A little wood glue...

Some screws...

And we have forming plates!

We're building the sheath for this bad boy. It's a cheap Gerber knife but it has served me well over the years.

First, we used the bandsaw to cut the kydex to the right size.

We made a cardboard mockup first, to get a better idea of how it was all going to work. Since this is my first project and I hadn't really considered the details just yet, it took some serious thinking to figure out the design.

Now, we heat the kydex with the heat gun.

We didn't get pictures of the "putting the kydex around the knife and clamping them both in the foam" bit because it went pretty quickly, but this is the end product. Let sit for 5 minutes. While we wait, let's discuss the forming method. You heat up the kydex until it's floppy. We didn't heat it quite enough the first couple of times, and it won't form right unless it is really thoroughly heated. Next, you lay it on top of (or fold it around) the object you want to mold, and then clamp it between two sheets of foam. The foam puts pressure on the kydex and presses it against the object, which is what gives you your shape. This actually works really well for objects less than an inch thick, or where you're molding around something where you want front and back molded. I'm going to try vacuum-forming this stuff eventually too, but not just yet.

You can see just the barest outline of the knife in there. That's as much detail as we're getting with this blade and kydex this thick (I chose .080" for this batch, since it's sort of a middle-of-the-road thickness). You may also notice that the end are kind bubbly. That's because we clamped the entire knife in the foam. The handle material is too thick and drops off too suddenly for the foam to put significant pressure on the kydex right next to the grips. We re-heated and re-pressed a couple of times to get it right, and eventually just hung the handle of the blade out of the side so the foam pressed directly on the kydex. That worked much better.

That there is a test rivet and the holes we drilled once we got the shape right. The holes were very slightly too small, so a different drill bit will be in order for next time.

And there she is! She's ugly, but we ended up sanding to smooth the curves and than sanding more with finer sandpaper to put a really smooth finish on the cut surfaces. It's actually really nice. It hols the blade perfectly, I'd say. No amount of shaking up and down (with the handle down) will dislodge the knife, but it pulls free quite easily. We ended up simplifying the design so now it's essentially non-functional. Basically, we couldn't think of a good way to attach the belt clip with the tools and materials we had, so we just didn't. This is a first draft anyway, so I doubt I'll ever und up using it. It was a great way to learn, though. next up: a leatherman holster!

Thanks for reading!