Thread: My first encounter with Kydex

I've been wanting to play with Kydex for quite some time, so I bought three 80 mil, 1 ft sq. sheets off eBay.

The first picture is my press, made from some scrap plywood and a piece of foam I fished out of the trash at the shipping/receiving dept. where I used to work. The hooks and chains were to clamp it down, but a much more expedient way to get good clamping pressure is to sit on it for 5 min. (I weigh 152 lbs). I also was not about to buy a grommet press and dies for a one-off project, so I did the riveting the old fashioned way: brass tubing, a tiny pipe cutter, and a ball peen hammer.

The knife is a Schrade Old Timer that Robert Williams reground for me to turn the curved spine into a usable hawk bill. The neck knife sheath has excellent retention, though the brass washers turned out to be completely unnecessary. Even without the washers, you cannot pull these rivets apart, and omitting the washers allows you to make a closer fitting sheath.

The revolver is a S&W model 64 that I got a good deal on. I cannot conceal this on my body. My GF has me in very fitted clothing ("With a body like yours, you shouldn't hide it!" she says) so I opted for the man purse option. I wanted a small holster that I could sew into the man purse to keep the revolver in place.

Lessons learned:

The way I did it works fine, but if I were going to make a lot of these, I would certainly buy a good Kydex press, a grommet press, and grommets. Peening the tubing by hand results in some deformation of the tubing. A #6 screw will fit inside a piece of 3/16" tubing before peening, but not after. Not a big deal, you can use smaller screws, but still it's not professional.

I like how thin Kydex is, and how easy it is to work with. It's very forgiving: if you screw up, you can re-heat the same piece and form it again. I also like the excellent retention without having to add straps, snaps, etc. It's also very cheap ($4/sq. ft). However, there's no way around the fact that it's a piece of plastic with no farkin class. There's nothing like the beauty of a nice leather holster or sheath. But working with leather adds a lot of time, expense, and bulk to your project.

How would Kydex work for scales??
~Richard

it wouldn't really. It may work as a liner, but it is not study enough by itself.

think it would work for a 7 day roll?

I was having thoughts along exactly the same lines. My inclination would be to use two pieces of Kydex and put a hinge on to turn them into a clamshell case. I don't think you would want to apply the high force to your razor that's necessary to free it from one of the sheaths you see here. These things have a lot of retention force. Also, I'd be reluctant to lay hot Kydex on top of a razor with plastic scales. Last but not least, you'd have to be careful not to damage the razor with excessive clamping pressure.

Awesome work with the Kydex!

It's hard to tell from the pics, but you might want to open up the trigger guard opening on that revolver holster at the top, and pinch it for retention just above the trigger guard, but below the trigger. It looks pretty safe how it is (because the holster is short enough to not cause problems) but with a DA pistol you have to be careful about not having a risk of trigger movement while holstering.

Ah, good tip for the future!

As it turns out, the holster has a bit too much retention. Will that loosen over time? Or can I reduce the retention by heating carefully with a heat gun?

Doubtful that it will release over time...may need to loosen/relax the kydex with the heat gun.

First may I recommend first sprinkeling some talc powder in it, then try it out. Sometimes there gets to be a bit of cohesion going on with such smooth surfaces. Maybe even some silicone spray.

If that doesn't work, then the heat gun will do the trick. When you pull the revolver from it, notice where it's hanging on the most and start there.

OK, the talcum powder didn't work. Most of the retention seems to be around the trigger guard, so I heated that with a hair dryer (don't have a heat gun), and that did the trick. I can now actually draw the revolver without using gorilla-like force to free it from the holster. Thanks, Shooter!

Betcha can't guess how I got that nickname....