Thermoforming Kydex

stealth71

10 W
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Oct 23, 2015
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I recently made a battery enclosure for my eskate and documented it along the way. I used 0.080 inch Kydex sheet and heated it in the oven then pressed it with a homemade press. Learned a lot and figured I would share for anyone that wants to try something similar. What kind of things have you built by thermoforming?



[youtube]fkQT-MAEGbA[/youtube]
 

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Nice looks good. Kydex is definitely much easier to thermoform than ABS pretty durable too considering a lot of knives and gun holsters kydex is used.

In your oven though, I did that before. Bad idea.. I had ABS Pizza for days.. took 3+ hrs of cleaning to get rid of it.
 
Thanks for the ideas! I just found a dozen or more vacuum press builds too. Off I go! I love my Kydex holsters and now I can have Kydex battery cases! THANKS!
 
torqueboards said:
Nice looks good. Kydex is definitely much easier to thermoform than ABS pretty durable too considering a lot of knives and gun holsters kydex is used.

In your oven though, I did that before. Bad idea.. I had ABS Pizza for days.. took 3+ hrs of cleaning to get rid of it.

I put it on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Never got hot enough to turn to goo. I think Kydex has different properties than ABS as well.
 
tomjasz said:
Thanks for the ideas! I just found a dozen or more vacuum press builds too. Off I go! I love my Kydex holsters and now I can have Kydex battery cases! THANKS!

I though about vacuum forming, but wanted the box tightly formed to the shape of the deck. In the future I might try it after making a mold of the deck so I can use a smaller vacuum table. Building something deck size would be more difficult. This worked out pretty well and I think the end result was well worth the effort.

I will be making another one for the ESC soon and will post more videos. Editing the mounting video now and should be up soon.
 
Am I right in thinking this stuff is more flexible than ABS? If so, it seems like a great option for enclosures for flexible decks!
 
nicely done sir!
Having worked with Kydex before, I can say you did an awesome job. A piece that large and flat is very hard to do, and you managed to keep the texture even.
 
MrDude_1 said:
nicely done sir!
Having worked with Kydex before, I can say you did an awesome job. A piece that large and flat is very hard to do, and you managed to keep the texture even.

Thank you.
 
Here is the latest video Part 3 Mounting:

[youtube]0KA2P95bOPY[/youtube]

And Part 1 making the Buck:

[youtube]IZApJUW5uTg[/youtube]
 
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