Has anyone here messed around with Kydex? I've completed one project in the last year, having made a cheek riser for a rifle. Thinking about other projects I could try, like sheaths, etc. What other useful items have you made from Kydex? Another thing I'm thinking about trying to make is a shell holder for hunting (lost a few .30-30 rounds in the field last year when they fell out of my pocket )

Also, has anyone here made a vacuum table to help form the kydex? There's alot of guys that use a simple press, but if I ever get into holster making, I believe a vacuum table would give better results.

Most of the kydex stuff I see would look so much nicer then you use leather instead fo kydex just sayin. Cheek risers is one of the things that are better made of the plastic stuff at times. But holsters...... in my book leather is the way to go. May not look as tactikool, but I am old school I guess. Shell holders ... make it out of leather and lace it to the buttstock.

Made a knife sheath once

I've made knife sheaths from Kydex before. I used a heat gun and made molds out of wood and foam, then clamped the hot Kydex between the mold with woodworking clamps. I haven't tried it, but I imagine a rifle shell holder would be pretty easy to make with a heat gun, some clamps, and a decent mold.

From what I've read on vacuum forming plastics, it works best if the whole thing can be heated up in an oven. Since I didn't have an oven that I was okay with getting melted plastic all over, I never attempted this.

Oh, I hear you. I've made a few knife sheaths and other odds and ends from leather - it definitely has it's place. My concerns with leather for the projects I have in mind are soaking up water/sweat and stretching.

Made a few holsters. Kept experimenting with the design until I got something I liked. Wanted a pocket holster that would fit my pocket.

I built a small plywood box with 100 little holes on one side as a vacuum table. Attached my shop vac to it. Would lay the gun on top, lay the hot kydex over the gun, and lay a piece of painters plastic over that. Turn on the vacuum and it pulled the kydex to the shape of the gun perfectly. In fact, I had to cut cardboard spacers because it got sucked into the trigger guard and every other little void.

made some holsters and sheaths , cheek risers , mag pouches

I have not tried a vacuum form yet in vacumm forming I htink you have to make the mold as a half like taking a blue gun and cutting it in half so that you form one side of the holster at a time

it is a higher volume production method

if your making 1 or 2 just forming to your original works


always make sure you have a magazine in the gun your making a holster for , or you can with hot kydex and a firm press press the sides of a polymer gun so that the mad is no longer drop free

I had to get it warm and stuff a mag in that I had built up several layers of painters tape to get the sides out right again , been good since after that I used a mag I could just barly stuff in the gun snug built up with painters tape so it never happened again

if your going to make more than a couple , purchasing a blue gun or other molding modle is the way to go then you can leave it taped up with all your forming

I would run a dowel taped to the sights so that it made a nice sight channel , I had pieces that left a nice flared edge to the holster so that it was easier to get the gun back in

That's what I'm possibly looking at making. What did you use for a pump? I've been eyeing up the Harbor Freight options, looks like they've got a 2.5CFM and a 3CFM model.

he said he used his shop vac

you can reduce the suction if needed by restricting the size of the hole

oops, didn't see the shop vac part

just my shop vac. Plenty of vacuum. Actually more than I needed. If you do this, you will want to figure out where you want some wiggle room and pack it with something...wooden dowels, masking tape, cardboard, etc. This is why I ended up making several. It took some experimenting to get it right. I actually bought several blue guns and sculpted them with body filler to get the shape I wanted. I had intentions of making holsters for sale and started a website to sell my unique design - which was adjustable to fit tightly inside your pocket. Other holsters tended to come out with the gun. Fang Holsters was the company. That was probably 10 years ago when Kydex holsters were sort of new. I sold a few hundred and was getting good reviews. But, I was late to the show and within a few months everybody else was making kydex holsters too and the market was flooded. The business idea never went anywhere and 18 months later I shut the website down.