Kydex Sheaths

[kyelkhunter3006]

After debating it for a while, I decided I was going to try to make some kydex sheaths.  So I bought some material, rivets, and some belt clips to make some basic sheaths for some of my knives.  I'm kind of proud of them for my first attempts...

[Swampman]

Very nice I've wanted to do some myself.

[Joel]

Nice construction/shapes on those.  For the life of me I can't bring myself to use the stuff, but your's did turn out well.

[v-man]

very interesting. I assume you use a heat source to bend and shape. Where do you buy the raw materials?

[AtlLaw]

yesyes!  tell us more on the actual making of the shieths and material!     I've got a project and I need to know!   

[kyelkhunter3006]

You can get the materials at any knife supply site or ebay.  I got some stuff from Jantz Supply and other stuff from knifekits.com.  I should have gotten it all from knifekits probably but I wanted some Dymondwood and I got it from Jantz so I ordered the rivets from there too.  You order the kydex in 12"x12" pieces, but if you order two like I did, it'll come in 12"x24" sheets.  I did those sheaths with .060 thickness, since they are all light weight blades.  I got some .080 to attempt a couple of holsters for small pistols.  I have to order some longer rivets for the thicker material.

I hit youtube for videos about doing it.  It's pretty simple really.  The biggest thing is either buying or making a press to mold the material.  I made my own press out of a 2'x2' piece of 3/4" ply cut in half, a closed cell camp pad cut to size and layered and glued, and a couple of door hinges.  I anchored a 2ft piece of 4x4 to my bench, attached the top half of the press to it with the hinges, then screwed the bottom of the press to my top of my bench.  In concept it's similar to a waffle maker or a Foreman grill, really.  I made my own because after looking at those in the supply shops, they're $185 or so.  Granted, they are REALLY nice, but I think that I've got $20 tied up in my homemade one.  Some people don't make a press, per se, they glue the foam to the boards, then use a bench vice to sandwich the press.  Either way works.

Kydex is a thermo plastic that melts around 400 degrees.  You have to heat it to at least 160 degrees to make it flexible.  Some people use a heat gun but that can be hard to regulate since they get really hot.  A lot of people use eletric toaster ovens since you can set the temp and not worry about it.  I was going to use a heat gun since I already had one, but then I read about (can't remember where it was) another guy that uses an electric griddle to do it, and I happened to have one of those that doesn't get used, so now it's my kydex heater.  It works VERY well.

continued...

[kyelkhunter3006]

Ok.  You have to estimate how big of a piece of material you'll need to make the sheath.  There are two "methods" or types of sheaths, if you will.  One is called a fold over and the other is pancake or sandwich.  With the fold over, you figure out how much material you'll need to wrap around the object and leave enough of an edge to put the rivets in and grind to shape.  With a pancake, you cut two pieces of material big enough to make a sandwich around the object.  I don't like the sandwich for belt carry, because you have to make it wide enough to have rivets all the way around it.  So a sandwich sheath ends up being much wider than a foldover for the same knife.  If I was going to lash it to a pack or was concerned about different methods of securing the sheath to something other than a belt, then the sandwich is much more versatile, due to the fact that you can have about as many holes in the sheath as you desire.

To figure out what I needed, all I did was take the knife and roll it from one side to the other across the material. Then I marked a little extra on the sides and length, then cut the square or rectangle out.  You don't have to cut all the way through, just score it several times and then bend it and it'll snap off.  The Mora Clipper, the Cold Steel Roach Belly and Canadian knives that I made sheaths for used a 6"x6" square.  Probably could have been a little narrower, but I didn't have much waste so I was happy with that size.  I'd rather have a little too much to take off than not have enough to secure it with the rivets.

Then you put the kydex on your heat source and wait for it to become completely limp.  It'll start to barely curl at the corners on my griddle, so I know it's hot enough.  Use thin cloth gloves!  That way you can feel what you are doing but you'll have enough protection from the hot kydex.  I set my temp at just over 200 degrees, it seemed to make the material much easier to work with than lower temps and the material didn't start to set as fast either.

[kyelkhunter3006]

When the material is limp (it will literally be limp like pasta) take it and lay it in the press, put the knife in it, line it up where you want the retention point to be, make sure it's all relatively straight, hold the material as you lower the press, then take your hand off and clamp the press with as much pressure as you can.  My press hangs out an inch over the bench top, and I use two quick-grip clamps to secure it.  Leave it in about 10 minutes.  Come back, release the pressure, and open the press.  You should have a stiff molded sheath around your object.  Take it out and lightly peel the edges apart (foldover sheath) to release the object.  

Mark where you want to put rivets or screws to secure the sheath.  You also have to figure out where you want your attachement point to be.  Some people secure the sheah then add additional screws/rivets to attach the loop/clip. etc.  Sometimes it looks cluttered that way, IMO.  I integrated my attachment into the rivets I was using to secure the sheath to keep it clean.  Don't put the rivets too close to the blade for a knife sheath or you'll never be able to get it out again.  I think the rivets on my sheath are around 1/4"-3/8" off the blade.  For the first rivet (closest to the handle) hold the sheath tightly with your fingers and try to pull the blade out.  If you can't, move your fingers farther way and try again.  When you find the point where where the knife is held securely yet relatively easy to withdraw, that's where the first rivet goes.  Then just space them out to suit your taste.  Too many rivets looks awful, again, IMO.  You don't need 10 rivets for a 4" blade.

I messed up and bought belt clips with no holes in them.  I thought, "no prooblem, I'll just drill holes".  Yeah, not gonna happen.  Spring steel is hard to drill and I gave up after one attempt.  The steel is hard and springy (obviously) and doesn't drill well at all.  So what I did was take a piece of material the same width as the inside of the clip and heat it up and bend it around the clip and clamped it in my vise until it cooled down.  

[kyelkhunter3006]

So then I basically had a piece of material with a steel clip wrapped in it, with about an inch so of extra material.  I drilled that "flap"  to make the holes in my sheath and riveted it to the sheath, with the bent part of the material pressed against the back of the sheath and the slot facing the back of the sheath and towards the rivets area, so that the clip can't slide or slip out of it.  It's a really long description for something very simple, LOL.  I put steel belt clips on my sheaths with the exception of the little neck knife, and big knife, and one of the Cold Steel Canadian knives.  The neck knife and the Cold Steel are really just a like a kydex pouch, for lack of a better term, with a hole in the sheath of the neck knife for a cord.  On the big blade, I made a belt loop out of a nylon web strap from a torn pack and riveted it to the back of the sheath.  I used the steel clips so that I don't have to take my belt off to remove or put on the knife.  I figured that steel clips work for guns and holsters just fine, and they're much heavier than most knives.  So why not use it on a knife sheath?  I'd call my sheaths a high ride type, with the exception of the big one.  I don't want a big knife like that to ride high, that would be too much of a good thing.

After I riveted everything, I used a coarse belt on my belt sander to profile the edge of the sheath to my liking, following the line of rivets, more or less.  I'll probably use a medium one next time to reduce the amount of "hairs" give a little better inital finish.  Then you can use fine sandpaper to finish the profiled edge and then rub it with cloth or denim to polish it.

Not a whole lot to it, really.

[kyelkhunter3006]

Nice construction/shapes on those.  For the life of me I can't bring myself to use the stuff, but your's did turn out well.

When I first thought about making some sheaths for my knives, I really wanted to use leather.  Same concept with the belt clips, but I wanted leather.  Then I priced good leather and thought "WOW, if I screw it up, I've flushed some money down the drain."  Also, I'm not very good at running a straight line when stitching by hand, and don't have the equipment to do it any way.  Of course, I could have just used rivets all the way too.  It was going to be a much bigger investment on my part to play with leather than with the kydex, and I wasn't too confident in my ability to make it work.  Screw up a piece of leather and not much you can do with it.  Kydex can be reheated and used or formed more than once if it doesn't turn out right.  It's also not going to rot or require much maintenance.  It's not nearly as classy, but I'm not going to use any classy knives with kydex.  It's for knives that get used, tossed around, and what not.

One HUGE advantage to leather is how quiet it is when drawing or sheathing the knife.  A good leather sheath is a testimony to craftsmanship, just like a custom blade it.

[drdougrx]

Very nice work Ky!!!  Thanks for the "instructions!"

[Dand]

Very interesting posts so I thought I'd bump it up to the top.  Thanks for all the info on Kydex. I needed to make a sheath for a machete last winter. Ended up using the plastic from a damaged kid's sled and rivets. Some of the tricks here would have been a real help to me.  Plus I'm in the market for another machete and will probably make a sheath for it too. Might try this Kydex.

Thanks for all the details.