Home Made Izula Sheath

G

GunnerP

Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
133
I bought a square of Kydex to have a go at making a sheath. This is my first atempt with limited equiptment, so please dont laugh too loudly.

Firstly I roughly cut a piece of Kydex big enough for the job.

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Cooked until soft enough to manipulate. (I used leather motorcycle gloves to handle whilst hot)

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Out of the oven and quickly wrapped aroud my Izula then into my improvised press. (Two pieces of wood and a cloth)

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Popped the hot Kydexand knife into the folded cloth then between the two pieces of wood and applied pressure by standing on it:rolleyes:

Drilled out holes for screws and tekloc if required. Also drilled a hole for a rivet for neck chain carry.

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My small bench grinder was then brought into use to roughly shape the sheath

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Screws and rivet fitted, and I dont think it looks too bad for my first go. The knife fits with quite a reassuring click and when the screws are tightened fits firmly with no movement.

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Minor touching up and polishing the edges to do as and when. Its slim and very light. Im quite pleased.

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GunnerP
 
Good job!

A few words of advice if you plan on doing some more. Get yourself a peice of the blue camping pad from Walmart to use as your press foam. It's 5 bucks and works great. I got some of the professional pad from a kydex supplier and quickly went back to the blue stuff.

Nothing at all wrong with your shaping, but get yourself a Dremel type tool with some sanding drums, makes the fine finishing faster and easier.

Your results look good, keep working at it and soon, you'll be like me, black boogers every weekend and everything you have will be wrapped in kydex.

Wait till I post up pics of my knife, fork and spoon neck sheath.:D
 
You did one hell of a job for your first time and using improvised tools!!! Two thumbs up. It looks really good.
 
Looks great. I recommend the blue camping mat also. Pretty soon you'll find all kinds of things that need sheaths.
 
There are a few good youtube tutorials that got me wanting to do some kydex sheaths, too. I like your improvised home press, I may just steal your design, specially the part where you stand on it. :D Just need to convice the wife to let me use the oven...

If you want to use rivets, tandyleatherfactory.com sells them and also has cheap tools to set them manually.
 
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Another couple made since my first attempt. Spyderco Swick on the left, and Cherusker Messer Lapu Lapu Corto Military model on the right.

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Thanks all for the tips, I will get better as I go on Im sure.

This is fun!!

P

PS The nearest Walmart to me is about 3500 miles;)
 
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From the pictures the sheath looks pretty well finished and clean - nice job! So when are you gonna start taking orders? :p
 
I just did my first attempt at a kydex sheath. My "press" was some of that camp foam sandwiched between 2 2x4's with a crate of 7.62x54 as weight.
I need to work on doing rivets, but for my first time with just that "press", a drill, and a small dremel, I think it turned out ok.
If anything, it was fun making something myself.
I'll try to get a pic, but I am not good at pics and things like that.
 
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