Working with Kydex

 A while back a friend told me about Kydex.  Hmmm, sounded like a good alternative to doing cloth and resin for the application I needed...OK...wanted didn't really need.  I need deck plates for a canoe that is one of a kind and I wanted to make it sweet so went this route.  

I ordered a 2' x 4' sheet of Kydex at .08 thickness which from what I can tell is middle of the road and easily workable.  It came to the house in short order and like a kid with candy I took it to the shop and drooled over it while figuring out what the hell I was going to do!  I had bought a sheet that looked like carbon fiber on one side and the other was smooth as a babies ass. A couple cans of liquid courage left me pondering how I was going to go about this project and left it for the next day!

The Carbon Fiber Side

With the fridge stocked and a plan in my pea brain I set out with the first step being making a plug from the piece of crap deck plate I made out of aluminum that I hated right from the get go but despite wanting to puck every time I looked at them made due.  

Goddamn that is Fugly

I went to the hardware store and bought a new blade for my jigsaw and went and got a nice piece of Hemlock at about two inches thick that I thought would work.  What a dumbass I is, the blade was way too short to make it work so I needed to go to Plan B which of course I didn't have so made it up as I looked through the woodpile for an alternative.  I found a wide enough piece of pine to make a plug/mold which I ended up screwing into a hunk of 2x4 to work the Kydex on hanging off the end so the Kydex could drap down over it to form what I wanted.

So being a novice to this material I relied on YouTube videos on how to work on it which was all about make gun holsters.  WTF, I'm making canoe decks with folded down sides, not a top plate which is simple, cut and dry, any freaking idiot can do that!  So everything I read or watched said you can score it with a utility knife and snap it to the size you want!  Well, I can tell you that is a crock of shit or so it is in my case.  I tried for a good long time and finally gave in and used my jigsaw with the help of a silver sharpie to make my marks as I needed an extra 3/4 inch for the over hang that would cover the gunwales.  Yeah, it would be so much easier to make a top plate but I like challenges and am pretty much an idiot but dam this is a sweet hull and I need to make it good.  

The above picture is skewed and should be twisted to the left or right but you get the idea, I hate computers.  The line to the right is the section I'm cutting off which is about six inches wide.  Once I got that cut I marked out the shape I needed and then cut that. 

Silver Sharpie Outline

Cut and on the plug clamped in place

So now came the heating and forming part of this endeavor and like I said I have never worked with this stuff before so I knew it was going to be a crap shoot.  I started at the "bow" of the form and it quickly became apparent that there was going to be trouble meaning there was going to be folds and it would go well without a cut at the tip of the bend if you follow me.  Believe or not I did not swear once during this process as I had hopes it would work but of course hopes are there to be dashed upon the rocks and they were.  I needed to cut at the tip of of the arch and ended up using tin snips as three pair of scissors I tried to cut the Kydex was just a lesson in stupidity!  Once I had that cut I heated it up and tucked it in and let it cool.

Now I guess I need to take a step back here and mention the heating and forming part of this process which I am making up as I go along.  I'm using, from what I saw on YouTube a heat gun.  For other applications a toaster oven does the trick but I'm doing a section at a time so the gun works great although I do have to play with the heat settings, all two of them!  

Wagner Heat Gun Does The Trick

I knew going in I would be sacrificing at least one piece of this Kydex to the learning curve and I'm all good with that.  The nice thing about this material is that if I mess it up I can heat it, flatten it and then reuse it. "Damn" I says with a southern accent! 

A few pictures of messing with the heating part of this.  I do need better gloves as this is very hot work!

The last picture shows the cut I had to make and folded over on each other/ends which in my minds eye makes for a solid and thicker seal.  I am not one to lift the canoe on my legs and flip it on my shoulders, I plow the bow/stern into the ground and walk the boat up in the air to get it on my shoulders.  Yeah, I'm a wimp!

Now you are probably asking did it come out perfect?  Hell no!  Never done this before but I get the gist of what I have to do on the next try.  Am I happy how the trial run came out, damn right I am.  To me it looks like a mix of Beauty and the Beast meaning it came out better then I thought it would but has rooms and rooms for improvement.  

 

Here's a short video explaining what I got going on.

So for now there is.....

More To Come.

Round 2:  Now that I had some kind of idea how this stuff works I decided to go for Round 2 with hopes of keeping it a little cleaner looking and not messing up using my fingertips so much to form the heated Kydex.  Another conversation with a friend and a mention of using foam as part of press for making holsters and I was off and running.  

I cut a piece wide enough, roughly 3/4", and long enough to fit in my hand with fingers extended to help for the folding on the side of the deck plate.  

Works much better and keeps the heat of the glove

I did the same cut and tuck on the tip but this time I got the top fold much closer and flatter then on Round 1.  As well using the foam helped keep the Carbon Fiber pattern showing much better than using my fat old thumbs! 

From the above picture I still have a little heating and forming to do but not much.  What appears as bends in the side rails of the plate is mostly reflection from the shop lights.  Yeah, maybe I have Racoon blood in me, I like shiny things! 

Now I will admit the tip is still a bit of a conundrum for me as I still have to work it with my fingers a bit and that takes away the CF look.  Since I'm still learning...OK...making this shit up as I go along I'm open to suggestions and one of them is to make a different cut and try to meet the cuts at the tip rather then over lapping so on Round 3 I'll be giving that a try.  It makes sense as this stuff does have some stretch to it when heated.  

There is a good chance I will use this on the Adirondack unless the Round 3 turns out better so for now there is...

 More To Come. 

Round 3:  OK, on this try I did what was suggested to me to do a cut and then meet the cut ends at the tip versus overlapping them.  In a nutshell the tip end worked but because of no overlap the sides decided to revolt and just created wrinkles instead of stretching flat.  Yes, there may have been some swearing going on.  In the end I cut a new piece as this one got all FORKED up and set aside for future use for who the hell knows what!

Now, when measuring out and getting ready to cut this stuff make sure you have the right side you want to cut the right side up!  Yup, got it all traced and measured out and sure enough it was the wrong side! 

 

Damn, silver sharpie should be on the other side!  What a freaking dumbass I is some days!  I took some different lotions to it to try to get the lines off but fell short and when I used Acetone it dulled the whole finish/shine of the Kydex.  Lesson learned!  

Time to cut yet another piece but now on the correct side and another round of heating and shaping and trying like every living hell to keep the carbon fiber look without thumbprints and the such!  

This one came out just about right even though I had to reheat a couple of time and gently tease the Kydex to meet the form.  Did I mention that I've never done this before so am making it up as I go along?  If so get used to it or go get a beer to help me drown my sorrows.  In the end it came out usable and with some sanding of the edges at the vertical lip it fit just about perfect.  

So now that I had two deck plates ready to go it came time to screw them in and the choices of screws of course came up short or this case to damn long!  I did not want to use three quarter, one inch or one and a half inch screws which of course I had plenty of and then behind the crap of stuff that hides all the stuff you are looking for were the quarter inch screws hiding with a grin on their dumb faces.  All good now except these particular screws have a flange on them meaning the heads will be raised and not flush.  Damn It!  Off the hardware store for what I needed.  There is a difference!

With that done the Kydex plates went on very nicely!  For a first attempt I am happy! 

So all in all a good project with a new material used for an old application.  I will be using this again down the road.