Making an offset Kydex bootknife sheath, any thoughts?

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razorsdescent

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Jan 16, 2005
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So, I am trying to make a bootknife sheath for a female friend. She tends to wear high-top boots, think 14 eye Docs. Anyways, my idea is to use .060 kydex, and then fold it over taco style. Then throw the metal spring clip, forward of the blade.

My thinking is that if it is a thinner .060 Kydex it will help conform to the contours of her leg a bit, and ease some of the discomfort of boot carry. She as well as other of my other female friends tend to carry folders in this fashion, which seems to be uncomfortable, and difficult to access. So if it goes over well with my one friend I might start passing them out.

The knife is a Shadowtech Single edge Apex: http://www.stknives.com/APEX.html

Does this seem like a legitimate means of doing this? My Kydex work is rough around the edges to say the least, and I have never seen an asymmetric boot sheath, but I feel this would help to keep it thin, while allowing a bit of curved contour. My goal would be to make it slightly curved so that the clip is behind the laces on the tongue, and the blade is at about the 2'oclock on the leg, a very natural place to grab at.

Additionally, does it seem like .060 is the right thickness? I haven't used anything other than .080, because I am so rough on things.

Finally, how much of the handle should be sticking up out of the boot? I want this to be somewhat unobtrusive for nightclubs/concerts and the like, but I sure don't want it falling out in a mosh pit. Girls tend to get special leeway-on things like blades at concerts and such though, so I want to err on the side of ease of access rather than concealment. Is there a standard length for bootknife retntion or is it shooter's preference?

Any help from the master plastic benders (which is pretty much anyone in comparison with me) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.
 
I am possibly an even worse artist than I am plastic bender, but I would be willing to attempt it. No idea how to upload it to the internet though.

Let me attempt to give a clearer mental picture of what I am attempting though. I want it to me taco style, but I want the area at the spine to be extended. That means it will be wider like a more traditional two piece sheath. So this extended spine area will allow me to place the clip forward of the spine so that it can be hidden on the tongue of the boot and be less noticeable due to being behind the laces. Then the there would be a slight contour so that the blade which is only an inch thick would be at the 2 o'clock position on the leg. Finally the part where the thing is grommeted, forward of the edge, would be slightly curved again and be roughly at the 3 o'clock position. Granted it would be much more making to the angles on a hexagon since the blade part has to be flat, but I feel a hexagon is better than a flat sheath and better contours to the curve of the leg. Think of a duty belt, how it isn't truly curved, because things are clipped to it, but it contours roughly to the waist anyways. In this scenario, the clip and the grommets are both single stack magazines with one point of contact, and the blade is the holster which has at least two points of contact to the belt and necessitates a longer area of flatness. To continue on the holster analogies, think of how a cheap nylon holster is made by a company like Blackhawk. The clip is centrally located. I want this to be like one of the coolguy appendix carry rigs, where there is only one clip, and it is located forward of the weapon.

Think this:
http://www.crossbreedholsters.com/H...er/tabid/113/slug/Appendix-Carry/Default.aspx

With the blade's edge being roughly analogous to the trigger, and the blade's spine being analogous to the top of the slide.

The thinner Kydex will hopefully give it a bit of flex during movement, not much, but enough to keep it from being a huge pain.

I hope this kind of clarifies, I reread my initial post and realize it wasn't the clearest thing on earth.
 
Dig both the boot and the sheath.
However, I don't fully understand how you mount the clip properly if you want it centered. Do you have a pic of just the sheath and the clip mounting? It would be quite helpful.

I will probably end up doing it both ways, and letting her have her choice.
 
razorsdescent said:
Dig both the boot and the sheath.
However, I don't fully understand how you mount the clip properly if you want it centered. Do you have a pic of just the sheath and the clip mounting? It would be quite helpful.

I will probably end up doing it both ways, and letting her have her choice.
Click to expand...

 
@ OLW, post-punk. Punk is dead, haven't ya heard? ;-)

@Sonil, Thanks for the image. It will definitely prove helpful.
 
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