kydex ruin temper?

grnamin

grnamin

Joined
Oct 6, 1998
Messages
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Can kydex, heated to 350 degrees and then formed onto a blade, ruin that blade's temper?
 
Why heat it at 350? I usually heat at 300 for approx 2 minutes or until its a "noodle" then form over the knife. Besides the Kydex starts to cool as soon as you remove it from the oven so I doubt if the temp is still 350.
 
Brantley,
The kydex I'm using is 0.093" thick. If I don't heat it at 350 for at least 3 minutes, it won't form properly.

-Greg
 
Hey, I can answer this for certain: don't worry about it.

I heated some .090 Kydex (scrap kindly donated by Mad Dog) around two different cans of OC pepper after 10 minutes at 350F. NO, I didn't stick the cans in the oven, they'd have blown up, but I wrapped the hot Kydex around the cans. I was worried about overheating the cans and seriously stinking up the place but they never got too hot to touch, the extra heat went into the air versus into the metal and contents.

If the cans had hit anything over 150F or so they'd have blown up.

They didn't.

Jim March
 
I don't think there are many blades that have a tempering temperature below that. Uuually folks temper O1 at ~400 F and that yeilds a hardness of around 60 HRC. Ernest Mayer (I think) heat treats his ATS 34 at ~375 F, but that's about as low as it goes. As long as a person doesn't exceed normal tempering temperatures, I would figure they wouldn't ruin the temper on the blade. Hope this helps.

Spencer Stewart

 
Thanks very much for all your replies. I was getting a bit worried at first. As usual, you all came through for me.

-Greg
 
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