Kydex problem

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bitter1

Joined
Mar 3, 2008
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I was jacking with the screw that makes the sheath retain the knife and I unscrewed the screw and now the sheath does not retain the knife like it did before and I have heated it with the oven stove and a zippo and now have the sheath with the knife in it in between two large books and an old steel helmet now in my haste to get the sheath back to normal and perfect retention I fear that my little understanding of kydex may have lead me to somehow ireversibly damaged the sheath. I have now taken the sheath and the knife out from under the books and helmet and it retains the knife but the knife rattles more than it did before. Please help this idiot to get the knife back to original retention. I am pretty pissed with myself at doing this because I am really wanting to carry the knife and with the sheath in this condition I am not going to do that or atleast I do not want to do that. And another thing I will never do is mess with the screws on a kydex sheath those are there for a reason and not for me to mess with.
 
Books don't press the kydex at all the places.
What you need is a simple form of kydex press.
Easy to make from some foam, wood and double sided tape and you need one or two clamps.

IMG_0016-1.jpg


With some tools and materials you can even make yourself a new sheath.
It's not all that hard.
 
Ok do I have to heat the whole thing first to make it flexible and workable and if so how do I do that. And how exactly do I make the press I really am pretty mad at myself for doing this but listening to some music is making me calm down. I could always buy a new sheath from RAT but I do not want to spend $30. Thank you for your answers and future help.
 
No, you better heat up the places you want to alter and keep the rest cool with a wet cloth.
If you heat the whole thing it will loose all shape.
Now that is fine when you still have a nice oversized piece of kydex but that is not the case.

The press is the simplest thing around.
Two flat pieces of wood and two pieces of foam and some doublesided tape to keep them together.

Just lay the warmed up sheath with the knife in it on the foam and put the other piece of foam and wood on it.
Press firmly and put the clamp on them, wait 15 minutes and the kydex is stabil again.
Because it is foam, you apply pressure at all places and that makes for a snug fit.
At least it's worth a try.
 
Slow down, relax, and don't try to rush to fix it. If possible, post some photos so we can see how bad off it is. Worse case, you're down $30. Not a panic situation , and it really doesn't sound too bad yet anyways.
 
Which knife? Which holes did you put the screws in? On my RC-4 sheath there are two sets of holes near the top and depending on which holes you use there will be different amounts of tension.
 
Please keep us posted on your adventure into the world of forming Kydex :D
 
bitter1 said:
I was jacking with the screw that makes the sheath retain the knife and I unscrewed the screw and now the sheath does not retain the knife like it did before and I have heated it with the oven stove and a zippo and now have the sheath with the knife in it in between two large books and an old steel helmet now in my haste to get the sheath back to normal and perfect retention I fear that my little understanding of kydex may have lead me to somehow ireversibly damaged the sheath. I have now taken the sheath and the knife out from under the books and helmet and it retains the knife but the knife rattles more than it did before. Please help this idiot to get the knife back to original retention. I am pretty pissed with myself at doing this because I am really wanting to carry the knife and with the sheath in this condition I am not going to do that or atleast I do not want to do that. And another thing I will never do is mess with the screws on a kydex sheath those are there for a reason and not for me to mess with.
Click to expand...

Why didn't you just replace the screw you removed?
 
I was going to put the tension screw (2nd from the top on the rear facing side of the sheath or the edge side) and put it on the top one to see what kind of tension that would give me and the female side of the assembly would not come out so I kind of tried to get it out by pulling the two sides of the kydex apart and trying to push it out that way but low and behold the female part was stuck solid and would not budge so I put the screw back in and that is when I noticed that there was no tension on the knife in the sheath and that must have happened when I flexed the kydex but I did not do it all that much so I now realize that it does not take much to loosen kydex or at least the sheath that I have. I then tightened the screw all the way and still no more tension other than myself wanting to get the darn thing working again and I have now found that the screw is stuck in the female assembly since I tightened it so hard (GO ME!!!!).
I will post picture soon.
 
I still can't really follow what you did, but just putting a 2nd screw in the top two holes would have done it.

Sorry man - but heating up the kydex is risky. I admit I goofed up another sheath fiddling around with it by heating it. Once you go down that path its difficult to rectify. The press might work but consider you have inexperience working against you there is a high probability that you will make it worse.

At least you can always get a new sheath for the RC-4 or pull for a custom kydex one. They run about $30-40. The leather KSF ones offer a nice upgrade also.

Take heart - most of the problems encountered with rats seem to revolve around with people screwing with things that they aren't meant to really screw with :D
 
Heat gun works great for concentrating the needed heat in just a smaller area. I have a Milwaukee gun with a nozzle reducer. Can't recommend enough.
 
I do not know if you can really see this but the pics where my hand in not shown on the sheath the area that holds the knife in the sheath needs to come a little bit closer, and like in the other pics where my hand is on the sheath I am putting pressure on the area and that is giving appropriate tension and the knife is like it was before so I am thinking of making the press for cheap and heating the front area with the knife in it, I do not thing that will mess with the heat treat but I will not try this until I hear from you guys.
 
I'm not quite sure I follow, but if you can pinch the sheath and get the retention that you want, don't heat it. Mark the spot, drill a 13/64" hole there and drop an 1/8" Chicago screw in it.
 
I know what you mean about the female half hard to remove from the kydex, I used a pair of pliers.
 
That is an idea that I did not think of using screws I shall talk to my dad since we can sit down and look at the sheath and figure out what to do.
 
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