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Looks good my friend,

maybe take a little sand paper to the edges & use the blue painters tape on the blades when forming.

Also be really careful to not get it too hot, that is what made the shiney area on the waki sheath.

for the eyelet flare you can go to the leather factory on line or in ATL & get a single eyelet flare for under 10.00, I used one for years.

Or you could just send me some dough & I will save you a bunch of time, frustration & pain <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks a lot David - I appreciate the comments.

I haven't really worried about cleaning up the edges, as these are "working class" sheaths and I am not very concerned about the looks. The painter's tape idea would have saved me some serious hassle with the waki sheath being too tight, though. Live and learn.

I definitely knew the waki kydex got too hot - I got distracted with important real life stuff for a minute and knew before I even got back to the oven that it had been in too long. When I got back there, my suspicions were confirmed - the kydex had shrunk by over an inch in length, and was barely long enough to cover the blade. I figured the sheath was a complete loss at that point, but I slapped it into the press anyway, just in case. It ended up looking pretty good considering how badly I screwed it up <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Thanks for the tip on the eyelet flare - I picked one up at ace hardware and it wasn't quite the right size, so I decided to wing it, since Knifekits.com is out of stock on them. I'll check out the leather factory. I've actually been wanting to get an arbor press for a bunch of unrelated projects, so I might pick up the fancy bits to do it without the hammer.


Thanks again for all the comments everyone - this has been a fun learning experience.