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Is Kydex actually useful for making things and other makers are missing out, or is the firearm community missing out on other better materials for diy holsters/sheaths? Fire arm folks use kydex as a generalist material for anything and everything. Others don't use if for anything, at all.

I happen to have a huge amount of kydex when I bought some in bulk when I was younger. It's slightly handy when I need a sheet of plastic more generally or if I need some plastic where I have control over its dimension because it's a score to cut material. But in looking for excuses to use it up I haven't found it very handy. Searching for what things others have made out of it not too many other people have found it useful besides gun enthusiasts.

For those completely out of the know kydex is also a thermal plastic, meaning if you heat it up to around 300F you can bend and shape it. You can also score it on the "wrong" side to make angled bends without heating.

Basically in the analogy between metal and plastic, sintering would be 3d printing while kydex would be sheet metal. But no one besides the firearm community finds that useful to have the plastic equivelent of sheet metal and with my own experiences I find you have to think pretty damn hard to find an excuse to use it. Do you think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the idea of a plastic equivelent to sheet metal?

Is Kydex actually useful for making things and other makers are missing out, or is the firearm community missing out on other better materials for diy holsters/sheaths? Fire arm folks use kydex as a generalist material for anything and everything. Others don't use if for anything, at all. I happen to have a huge amount of kydex when I bought some in bulk when I was younger. It's slightly handy when I need a sheet of plastic more generally or if I need some plastic where I have control over its dimension because it's a score to cut material. But in looking for excuses to use it up I haven't found it very handy. Searching for what things others have made out of it not too many other people have found it useful besides gun enthusiasts. For those completely out of the know kydex is also a thermal plastic, meaning if you heat it up to around 300F you can bend and shape it. You can also score it on the "wrong" side to make angled bends without heating. Basically in the analogy between metal and plastic, sintering would be 3d printing while kydex would be sheet metal. But no one besides the firearm community finds that useful to have the plastic equivelent of sheet metal and with my own experiences I find you have to think pretty damn hard to find an excuse to use it. Do you think there is anything fundamentally wrong with the idea of a plastic equivelent to sheet metal?

(post is archived)

[–] • 3 pts

Did you know the word plastic comes from the Greek words plassein and plastikos? As a teenager reading James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel Last of the Mohicans I came across the word plastic. How in the world could the word plastic, with which I at the time associated only with the modern invention plastic we know today come to be in a book written so long before it’s invention. Come to find out it meant to mold, shape, formable, etc.

Kydex sucks in my opinion btw. Leather knife sheaths and holsters only for me. Plastic being both a curse and a blessing at the same time I try to have as little of it as possible, which is impossible.

[–] • 3 pts

There some well known clip of a guy shooting himself when holstering his gun. Turned out it the leather holster was old, started curling in and that caught the trigger when he holstered it. Can't happen with kydex.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

Yeah I shouldn’t say kydex sucks. Lot’s of reasons to take kydex over leather. When I carry I’m usually in the wilderness. The wilderness for me means leaving the plastic world behind, which as stated is hard to do, but I try as much as possible when out there. Used to do mountain man rendezvous so a bias may be in play from those days of having to be period correct. I loved to make my own gear and clothes for it. Leather, steel, cloth and wood just seems more fitting and there is a artistic uniqueness that can be applied in the making of equipment with those elements. Not so much with kydex, but you are correct it has its place and I should have explained myself better. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Edit; spelling

[–] • 0 pt

I think there are hybrid holsters too. Kydex with leather over it or something like that.

[–] • 0 pt

Kydex sucks in my opinion btw. Leather knife sheaths and holsters only for me.

Knife sheath, of course leather is better imo. Gun holster? You'd be a fool to not use kydex, even iwb carry. It just holds better for many reasons and never loses shape. And while leather is more comfortable, it just isn't as safe.

[–] • 0 pt

I won’t dispute your assertions.

[–] • 2 pts

A lot of cos-play people use Kydex

[–] • 2 pts (edited )

I used it to make a phone stand before the market started producing them and phones with kickstands became popular.

The stuff is relatively easy to work with and simple tools required. It's low effort to make professional looking stuff. I mean it's basically get hot, smash together.

The shooting community is also notorious for willingly spending $1000+ on a gun then crying when accessories cost more than .25¢

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

I can think of some fun uses.

You could make custom phone cases. First you would have to make a phone shaped blank though.

Really you could make all manner of things. The main limitation would be that you have to make a blank for anything for thermal forming it.

You could make a re-usable egg organizer for the fridge.

You could make sunglasses holders or any manner of organizers for the vehicle.

I don't know if the heat from the sun through the car window could warp it though

You could probably use a cricut to cut some pre figured shapes too.

[–] • 1 pt

I didn't know this material existed. Now that I am aware of it, I can see many uses in the maker community. Unfortunately Kydex being a chlorinated thermoplastic means I cannot cut it in a laser cutter due to the gas byproducts being quite harmful to the laser optics and metal parts of the machine. I'll have to find another means to cut it with precision, but it does look a good material for custom parts that acrylic, PLA/ABS and wood cannot handle well. I am going to order some sheets and give it a go to see what kind of maker related things I can do with it. It may just be the next great material I have been searching for to add to my maker projects. Thanks for introducing me to this very interesting material.

[–] • 2 pts (edited )

You don't really need a lazer cutter to cut custom shapes in it. I just cut an oval in it a couple minutes before I posted this. The thought came up for this post when I decided to use some. You can score to cut, and the score can have some degree of bend to it without it failing. You can meet multiple score lines to get a compound shape but have a sharp corner where they meet, but such ends seem to be way more responsive to a knife so you can just smoth those out with a box cutter.

I suppose that's not quite as push button or reproducable as a laser cutter but you can definately do it.

What I am using it for today is probably a very silly way of hanging a monitor upside down. I'm going to eventually be doing it with a 50" tv but the display system I'm making could benefit from a prototype in the mean time so I just need a non-try hard way to hang it. I was going to mount it to wood but that would involve drilling through the base of the monitor stand. So instead I'm temp gluing a piece of kydex to the bottom of the monitor stand while leaving an unglued gap, threading a ribbon of kydex through that, and then just screwing that ribbon in. No damage to the mount. The glue shouldn't be that strong so it should be reversable.

But seeing as it's taken about a seven year gap to see any practical use for this material.. it's not exactly a goto material when the firearm community thinks it is for everything (and they are the only ones).

[–] • 0 pt

Anything for firearms require manufacturers to be very careful with materials. Kydex is on the stronger side of polymers, so its more expensive, so it is more limited because people dont want to buy more expensive things that last longer when chink shit is a tenth of the price.

[–] • 0 pt

If I had to guess, I'd say it has these Applications Electronic and medical enclosures Springs and tensioners Equipment housings Instrument consoles Door liners Kick plates Seat backs Aircraft pull-down trays Motor covers Aircraft fairings Air exhaust systems

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

Nope. Just guns.

Aircraft pull down trays would never work with this stuff. It's pretty flimsy. I guess that's one of the reasons why the gun guys like it so much. When you holster a gun the plastic has a little give to get out of the way and then hold the gun tight, and you can add structure to it to control the rigidity. But it would never be rigid enough for a pulldown tray.

As for equipment housing. Some kidex and duct tape can make one hell of a low effort instant custom box or cover to anything.

Motor covers: this stuff gets soft the second it gets warm.

[–] • 0 pt

Other than (Kydex) pits the oil industry directly against the steel industry;I forsee great uses for 'Kydex'.