Sheath made from PVC

EricTheRedBeard

EricTheRedBeard

Joined
May 17, 2018
Messages
969
I've seen posts about "What do you do when you need a sheath." Here is what I did.

I needed a sheath for a villager knife. I used a heat gun (in a ventilated area) to heat up a 2" piece of PVC. After shaping it to the blade I ground off the excess and epoxied it together. Drilled some holes for a cord and sprayed it with textured paint. Pretty easy and cheap.












I got the idea from You Tube.
 
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I was a bit skeptical part way through but it turned out really really nice. Well done.

I am going to push this over to the Cantina. This is the show room and while we appreciate informative post such as this we'll keep it in the Cantina for open discussion.
 
Thanks all. This is the knife I use when I go canoeing. Having a water resistant sheath is nice. PVC is worth considering if you need a good, strong, cheap sheath that it doesn't matter if it's pretty.
 
Nice job man! Looks bombproof! Im going to tell you a secret about dying PVC tho. Paint chips exposing white underneath. Get you a few packets of black RIT fabric dye (not liquid) and put enough water in to cover at least half your part. Add a 1/4 cup of salt and bring the solution to a boil and throw your part in. Turn the fire off and let it soak all night until it cools completely and you will not only have a bombproof sheath but when it chips and scratches you wont see white underneath. I add a bit of acetone to the water as well after you take it off the fire to help it soak deep into the plastic but it works surprisingly well.
 
Interesting. I happened to have some "chip resistant" wheel paint this time around. I'm sure it will get chipped. I will try dying the next one. I wonder how the epoxy will take the die.
 
You could use Acraglas and use the black dye that comes with it. that would solve that.

With the chip resistant paint or if I was doing it, I'd probably use bedliner, I bet it will hold up well anyhow.
 
I believe I did try some epoxy during a test once. I threw all kinds of crap in the dye bucket just to see what would dye. Some plastics wont dye at all and some will. My Dad used to make equipment bags for firefighters back when Kuwait was on fire and he pumped hot ethelyne glycol through the PVC pipe to thermoform the frames for them. He then did the fabric dye thing. Commercial dyes work best but are more expensive. You can also dye anodized aluminum in a similar way if ya watch the temp closely.
Acraglas would definitely work but that stuff aint cheap. $1.50 for dye or $15.00+ for Acraglas last I checked.
 
I would only use the acraglas to glue the PVC up. That way the epoxy would be black and match the dye using your method.
 
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