Kydex harder than steel??

[yinyu]

I know I'm stupid on this but it puzzle me a lot.
all my knives with kydex sheath have more or less scratches from in and out
of the sheath. how is it possible if the kydex is softer than steel?
you might say that the marks are on the coating, not the blade itself, but
from my vague memory (correct me if I'm wrong), Strider's tiger stripe is
not from coating but some effect of heat treat. can any of my fellow knifenuts
teach me on this?

 

[fudo]

The scratches on the blade are from debris on the inside of the sheath. If you clean the inside of the sheath with hot soapy water, followed by oil, that should solve your problem.

 

[ginshun]

Yup, its little pieces of dirt and sand in the sheath that are scratching your knife, not the kydex itself.

As far as the stider stripes, I think that with most of there knives (anything made from S30V) the blades are colored after the heat treat and then bead blased to make the stripes.

With the older BG-42 and ATS-34 knives, the heat treat is what actually darkens them, then they are bead blasted to create the stripes.

Either way, the stripes can still wear off, its not like the metal itself actually has the color changed.