After some time spent on these forums and others asking around for advice, I decided to give some Kydex joy a go.
Thanks to Tom for some Kydex supplies, I got cracking and produced three sheaths over the past two weeks of varying design.
The first one never survived long enough to be used.
The second one was roughly the same as the one pictured, but when "field tested" for about 48 hours in a survival overnight, was deemed too tight, and also too hard to remove the sparking rod whilst in position. It also needed to be adapted to have a swivel on the belt loop. It was discarded and melted down to make elements of the belt loop.
The final product, which must have taken about 9 hours solid work (as I'm still learning, and moulded everything about 7-10 times, improving each time) is pictured below.
Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated - although this first sheath is going as a gift to someone in Scotland following some excellent training.
The orange panels on the black kydex are reflective, so it reflects the light at night. I found that the fluorescent orange was hard to pick out at night time under the warm glow of the fire. The black panels were used to contrast well against the orange, again the idea being that contrast works well in places where there's snow etc (although that's why orange was used!)
Front:
Back:
Side:
The sparking steel was mounted at an angle, so when it starts to wear down, it's still a solid fit due to the cord wrapped around the top that forms a friction lock.
The sheath has an eyelet at the bottom to ensure it can be used as a neck knife.
The orange "knife" part is actually fully finished with eyelets, so that if you take the sparking steel and belt loop off, it will still function as just a sheath.
The holes on the knife section are cut fairly low, to ensure that it's a tight fit to retain the knife. It can be removed with one hand when on the belt, but only just.
The loop attached to the back of the belt loop is to provide a little more friction on the swivel - as it's probably too easy to rotate. Full rotation is still allowed, as I found this a pain in the ****, quite literally.
The whole unit can be inverted, and shaken with great vigour with no risk of any items falling out.
Ideas on how I could enhance the next model still further?
Cheers,
Thanks to Tom for some Kydex supplies, I got cracking and produced three sheaths over the past two weeks of varying design.
The first one never survived long enough to be used.
The second one was roughly the same as the one pictured, but when "field tested" for about 48 hours in a survival overnight, was deemed too tight, and also too hard to remove the sparking rod whilst in position. It also needed to be adapted to have a swivel on the belt loop. It was discarded and melted down to make elements of the belt loop.
The final product, which must have taken about 9 hours solid work (as I'm still learning, and moulded everything about 7-10 times, improving each time) is pictured below.
Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated - although this first sheath is going as a gift to someone in Scotland following some excellent training.
The orange panels on the black kydex are reflective, so it reflects the light at night. I found that the fluorescent orange was hard to pick out at night time under the warm glow of the fire. The black panels were used to contrast well against the orange, again the idea being that contrast works well in places where there's snow etc (although that's why orange was used!)
Front:
Back:
Side:
The sparking steel was mounted at an angle, so when it starts to wear down, it's still a solid fit due to the cord wrapped around the top that forms a friction lock.
The sheath has an eyelet at the bottom to ensure it can be used as a neck knife.
The orange "knife" part is actually fully finished with eyelets, so that if you take the sparking steel and belt loop off, it will still function as just a sheath.
The holes on the knife section are cut fairly low, to ensure that it's a tight fit to retain the knife. It can be removed with one hand when on the belt, but only just.
The loop attached to the back of the belt loop is to provide a little more friction on the swivel - as it's probably too easy to rotate. Full rotation is still allowed, as I found this a pain in the ****, quite literally.
The whole unit can be inverted, and shaken with great vigour with no risk of any items falling out.
Ideas on how I could enhance the next model still further?
Cheers,
