How to Make A Kydex Sheath

all right what's going on guys today uh today's video i'm gonna be making a kydex sheath for this knife this is my scalp model these are the handles that i actually put together for that uh last video i put up about uh doing multi-piece handles so this has got a stonewash finish and uh we're gonna make a kind of sheet for it today so um i'm gonna probably bring the camera around and show you guys what i'm doing here to prep this knife uh for the kydex and for pressing uh basically the first step is turn your oven on i use like a little uh toaster oven and uh basically all you need is something to heat that kydex up to the right temperature to uh make it moldable and uh i'll probably try to show about how i get my kydex the right temperature uh before pressing because after doing a lot of these um the temperature of the kydex before you press it is super super important and also the amount of pressure you put on your press seems to make a big difference too those are the two variables that it's kind of hard to explain when people ask me um how i get the form and how i do everything it's hard to explain so i thought i'd just make a quick video showing how i do it and maybe it'll help some people out so stay tuned and i'm gonna bring the camera around and show the first step okay so uh the first step to this whole deal is i like to put a couple layers of tape on the blade itself and i go about that much and i bring it up the handle a little bit as well and uh basically what this is doing is just giving that kydex a little bit of space to where it keeps it a nice tight fit but you're not scratching up the blade um constantly and i've tried doing a lot of different you know maybe do three layers four layers whatever it is and what i found is if you do two layers of this thicker blue this is that kind of scotch the more expensive tape if i you do two layers of that on the whole blade that seems to give me the best outcome um and i think a lot of that has to do with how hot and how strong of a press you do as well like probably if you uh don't get your kydex super hot or your press is a little weak then you probably have to do more layers and that's why a lot of people uh seem to do four layers and stuff i've heard people do and uh i don't know i guess maybe it's personal preference as well but so i do two layers on both sides and my second layer i put on i don't bring it up the handle as far like i only bring it up to there and the first one's here i'll show you guys why in a little bit but once this is on i like to take just a razor blade or a knife or whatever and basically just trim this to fit around the edge of the knife just take like a razor blade or whatever and trim it like that so um i'm going to show you guys here real quick how i uh get my kydex ready and i like i said i trim this all around all the edges so it gets a really good tight form around that kydex and again this is just two layers of tape on both sides so basically like that is what you're looking for something like that got it on there pretty good all right and now i need to get the kydex ready okay so for this knife i'm going to do a fold-over style kydex sheath so it will look kind of like this one when it's done okay so it's one piece of kydex and fold it over the knife and formed around it that way you can also do like a pancake style where you take two pieces of kydex put them together but then you normally have to have the rivets all the way around it and you're getting a little more uh it just has a bigger profile so i like this the taco style or whatever you want to call it just because it's a little bit skinnier as far as if you have it on your belt or in your pocket or whatever it's just a little smaller and i find them just kind of uh simpler and i think they look a little better too so um this is a piece of kydex i believe this is the point zero like 80 size um and you can get it in all different thicknesses i've tried a couple of the different ones like i think i've tried some the 60 and the 40 and all that and i find that this thickness is good for all around you know these this is like a three inch blade three and a half inch blade knife it's pretty good if i would say if you're doing like really small thin profile knives then maybe bump it down to the smoke to the thinner kydex but for kind of everyday purpose knives i like this thickness so anyways i just marked out about roughly how much i need here and how i did that was basically just put it up against here like this and kind of fold it over like that and you got to give yourself a little extra room on both sides just for uh to make sure you have room for those eyelets and just in case the press gets off a little bit or something so i'm going to cut this out you can cut it with a razor blade i just use my band saw cut it out and i'm gonna put it in the toaster oven and get it heated up and then i'm gonna bring the camera over there and show just the the hotness of the kydex that i get it to before pressing because like i said that's super key so stay tuned all right so this is just a normal cheapo toaster oven thing but it works really good um what i like to do is set it to 300 degrees and then i take my piece of kydex and i put it smooth side down okay because that's going to be the inside where the knife is at okay put that in there down now as far as the time goes that it takes to heat that up it's normally i would say two to three minutes in there will get you the proper temperature um i like to just wear these aren't the right gloves for it or whatever but they keep it to where you can mess with that hot kydex without it burning you if you go fast enough um while that heats up hang on let me grab the knife real quick so i don't mess this up while that's heating up i'm going to show you guys how my press looks okay this is basically i think they call those piano hinges on a on a couple pieces of like 1 by 10 or something like that it'd be better to use a hardwood and then it's got this foam that i glued to it okay so that's that's it that's nothing fancy you can buy these and uh they're a little more expensive but um the foam i got from knifekits.com and i have used this same foam since day one so i bet i've made 500 sheets or something with this same foam and you can tell it's uh it's good to go it still isn't uh losing its shape or anything like that it still works good so i'm gonna check this see where it's at it's not you can tell it's it's soft okay but it's not quite soft enough i don't know how to explain the right consistency of this but basically it's a trial and error um if you leave it in too long it'll actually start to kind of melt a little bit and it'll get this kind of burnt look on the top of it and it's really hard because if you use it right when it's at that point it gives you a killer press but the coloration's off a little bit for the final project or the final product so um you want to just before it starts to look like that is kind of how you want it and like i said just uh check it and i'm going to probably get it to the right temperature right now and show you guys what it looks like and kind of just show it and then i'll put it back in and heat it up to do my final press because you basically want to go as quick as possible have it super hot right in the press and uh press it as fast as you possibly can so we're almost there on it right now and in the meantime this is the clamp i use and i guess it doesn't really matter probably which clamp you use however some of them you don't get as much pressure on like even though this is like some other big heavy duty clamps i have you can't get as much force on it as i can with this one um this is like an old irwin one i guess but man this thing just gets a lot of force and that's that's how you get a really good crisp press on this kydex okay so take that for what it is i guess so right there this is about it okay look at the consistency of it it's really pliable okay but it's not burnt or anything okay i'm gonna put it back in and then i'll check back in right when i go to do this press okay it's up to temp right now let me show you guys real quick just how i do this okay pull it out you want to go really fast put it in your press just like this form it fold it over it a little bit and push the tang of the knife up against or the spine of the knife up against that get your fingers out of it quick and press it really fast okay so i just get as much pressure on this thing as i possibly can so make sure and make sure when you make your press it's not a piece of jump because i you'll end up blowing it apart so now basically this is what it looks like you can use like a uh like a c clamp as well but this one works pretty good i got it smushed down really good okay and now i'm gonna let it cool for probably 10 or 15 minutes make sure it uh nice and cooled off before you start uh forming it or not forming it but shaping it and making the tension right so i'll be right back once it's cooled up all right so it's been maybe 15 minutes pulled it out of the press everything looks pretty good you can see that's the that's what you want is really defined edges and like i said it's all about getting it hot enough and pressing it hard enough so uh the next step that i do is i use these tech lock clips for the majority of what uh sheets i do and i basically have one that i just use as a template and i put it up these all get it installed in scout carry you can do it like that as well but these are going scout carry i just take a marker kind of line it up to where you have enough room to uh mount your clip and put some dots in there where you want your eyelets to be as far as uh what i do is with these scouts i do four eyelets then you can kind of adjust them a little bit because those clips are real versatile um you want them spaced far enough from the blade that it doesn't pinch it okay so i don't know maybe 3 8 3 8 of an inch something like that and then i put two little weep holes right here so if there's any moisture at least can vent a little bit uh and then it looks kind of cool so um now we're going to pull this knife out sometimes see this one like see how easy that came apart it popped right apart um that's what you want you can even go a little hotter because sometimes it's like you can't get them apart it's so hot and that's when you have your best press so there's like a happy little middle point where you want it hot enough to where it presses good but not so hot that you can't end up getting the knife out and you ruin the sheets so now uh i'm probably not gonna show it but i'm gonna go ahead and drill these spots right here with a quarter inch drill bit um and get it ready to put the eyelets in and uh i'm gonna drill my little weep holes out as well and then and then basically what i do is take it to the bandsaw and cut away all this excess that you don't need and i'm gonna do that off camera as well and come back and show you guys kind of what it looks like when we're ready to press it okay so here we go i got all my holes drilled i got my eyelets pushed in there i just push them in by hand they're not pressed or anything yet and then as far as the eyelets go you got to make sure when you order these things that you order the right size and you'll be able to figure it out depending on what thickness kydex you go with you have to buy the right size eyelets and then depending on what size eyelets you go with is how you know what size press to get these are like the cheapest simplest ones it's basically just a little press with a little die um and i have pretty good luck with it a lot of people use like uh whatever you call those kind of presses um those were good too maybe i'll get one at some point but like i said i've made hundreds of sheets just with this one so um one thing you want to look out for when you buy pretty much all this stuff um i get all my all my kydex all my stuff from knifekits.com um they seem to have the best prices on kydex that i found and their eyelets are good quality so i bought a big bag of eyelets not long ago from a different website i don't remember what it was i bought them in bulk and they were a lot cheaper however and i of course just put them in my container with all my other eyelets and now i realize that those cheaper ones that i bought sometimes when you go to press them they actually split a little bit which isn't the end of the world or anything like that but you know when you're going through all this trouble to do this when one splits it's just kind of annoying so um that's my recommendation at least go to knife kits and get them from there and uh that way you know you're just dealing with a good product and you shouldn't have any problems with it so the next thing i'm going to do let's make sure you guys can see this i'm going to press these eyelets let me just down a little bit this isn't rocket science or anything like that um and basically you want to be easy on them and just fold this little this little part over until it's uh smushed down flush flush a lot of good technical terms going on here so this is at least just how i do it hopefully you guys can kind of see what i'm doing um and if you're new to it you can kind of look at it here and you can see that that's pretty good i can do one more little tap on it but that's pretty much all you need right there and that one did not split that one looks good um you also have to be careful that sometimes it can bust up the paint or powder coat around these two so that's something that you'll just kind of figure out after you do a couple and figure out uh the right amount of force to use on the hammer and everything like that so i'm gonna go ahead and get these pressed and then the next step is start shaping it on the grinder so i'll check back in once i'm doing that so the next step once you get your eyelets all pressed and you can see i kind of uh see this one has a little brass showing and that's probably one of those cheaper eyelets that i got so that's annoying but luckily the clip goes over that and like i said it's not the end of the world it's just one of those things that you'd rather not have happen but anyways i uh you can shape this this kydex with you know up to 120 grit belts probably but you kind of want i just strap an older 36 grip belt that's kind of worn out on to do my my main shaping and then i pretty much finish it by hand um and with a dremel so i'm going to shape this up on the grinder get it to where it looks good i'm going to remove a little bit of this material it's a little too high and i think this video is getting really long so i'm going to quickly do this and shut up okay so the next uh you can see i've got it shaped down pretty good it's not finished or anything it's just shaped to the right size that i want it and i just started heating this up a little bit to start forming this for the thumb ramp but you can see how much material i have removed from that area okay now the key to this whole thing with kydex is every knife design that you do will take a different amount of material around where the blade kind of enters that kydex to make the right fit and i can't even really help explain it any better than that because it's just trial and error and figuring out how much material to remove to get that right tension but right now i'm i'm basically just making a little thumb ramp in this and just like you saw just heat it up with the lighter it's kind of hot and i'm folding it over with my thumb just to give you a little spot to pop that knife out of the sheath with okay i'm really bad at showing what i'm doing i think on these videos i'm trying my best so anyway see how that's kind of folded over just heat it up like i did with a lighter or you can do however however you want to do it but that works for me try to get it as even as possible but i'm gonna shape it a little bit with the uh dremel a little bit more but that gives you an idea so when you go to pop that knife out you can pop it against your thumb like that so now we're gonna kind of take the knife and this is what i was showing earlier is i'm going to take this top layer of tape off okay and uh the reason for that is you just want it a little closer to what your actual dimensions are going to be when you're test fitting your kydex to make sure but you also you want to leave a little tape on the blade so if you're uh if you still have it a little too tight then it's not going to scratch your blade all up so that's the least what i do and uh seems to work out pretty good so like i said i've got it cut out man it's so hard to tell but i've got it cut out a little bit right there to the kind of end of the blade and that's about how i normally have to do these scouts but so let's see if i can show it okay you don't want the blade to rub when it inserts like right there and where it's catching on you can see the tape is starting to rip away from it see that's your pressure point right there that's what's keeping the tension on the kydex and giving you a good positive click which is what you want okay so right now it's about perfect okay it's a little bit tight around the blade and that's how you want it with that tape still on there okay what i do next is take a 120 grit sandpaper and i finish the edges okay and i basically take all these edges up to like 400 and then i quickly run them on the buffer really lightly like this like that kind of just a real light buzz and it kind of melts the seam together a little bit it just it just gives it a little bit more of a finished look okay so i'm not going to show sanding this down anything like that i'm going to get this santa down finish it up and then i'll probably just show the final result here once it's done because i think that pretty much answered most of the questions so hold tight and i'm gonna finish it up [Music] okay well we're finishing this thing up right now i'm just uh putting the tech lock clip on and this one will be ready to go uh basically what i did off camera as i buff those little edges like i said and on and off this whole process i'm constantly blowing the inside of this out with compressed air and that's another reason why you put these holes in here is it gives all that dust and crud somewhere to go and if you don't do that that's how you get scratches on your knife so constantly blow this out while you're working it and when you're finally done sanding done everything blow it out again really good and i even take a little bit of three in one oil on a q-tip and get it down in there as far as i can just oil everything up as good as possible and uh make it to where uh none of that dust is going to be in there and scratch scratch your blade so i'm going to take this last layer of tape off and then we'll see how we're looking as far as the fitment goes this tape depending on how clean your blade is sticks pretty good still have a little bit of tape on there but anyways let's see and then the thumb ramp so you can pop it out there you go that's what it should look like at least something like that little thumb ramp weep holes and then you got your tech lock clip in there for scout carry and there you have it so that's quick simple how i do the majority of my sheaths uh hopefully i covered everything i don't know how long this is going to end up being but i wanted to quickly touch on the whole process if you have some questions or anything like that feel free to drop them in the comments and i will try to answer them as soon as i can and uh like i've said in every other video if you have any things you want me to cover in some future videos i'd love to do it and hope to just help as much as i can so make sure you guys subscribe to the channel that helps a lot and uh thanks for watching

Channel: GentryCustomKnives

Views: 103,725

Keywords: Kydex, Kydex sheath, How to, Kydex press, Knife making, DIY

Id: X5wteYMz2iI

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020