Robinhood4x4
06-28-2010, 08:29 PM
As some of you might know, I've been getting into shooting competitions lately and I needed some pouches for a glock that I'm borrowing. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I decided to make some. Keep in mind, I am very new to both kydex and organized shooting matches so I don't know if this is the best design or if something could be improved.
I started out by cutting the kydex with a hacksaw and a razor blade. The razor blade is used to score the surface and breaking it apart. A belt sander cleaned up the edges nicely.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-sGtvbSD/0/L/i-sGtvbSD-L.jpg
In my first attempt, I just formed everything by hand, which worked ok, but a jig is much better for making nice crisp lines.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-qvN32q7/0/L/i-qvN32q7-L.jpg
After cutting out the piece, the first step was to form the main body. The whole piece was thrown in the toaster oven and heated up.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-C9Q48Vj/0/L/i-C9Q48Vj-L.jpg
Step two was to form the belt clip with a heat gun. This step was easily done without an exterior jig; just an interior wedge was need to form the loop.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-zjRB7tG/0/L/i-zjRB7tG-L.jpg
Step three was to form the bottom mag stop, again with a heat gun.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-4cxwnsK/0/L/i-4cxwnsK-L.jpg
The final step was to form the small hook in the belt loop. It's a little hard to see what's going on in the picture but I used a thin piece of cardboard to insulate the rest of the mag pouch from the heat gun.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-dLzHSnw/0/L/i-dLzHSnw-L.jpg
And here's the finished product:
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-tv92BkN/0/L/i-tv92BkN-L.jpg
Here you can see the walls are at slight angles to help with mag retention.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-v54qktc/0/L/i-v54qktc-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-4kvdpLB/0/L/i-4kvdpLB-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-T7jDz4V/0/L/i-T7jDz4V-L.jpg
Here you can see my first two attempts. The left one was the first one. I found it didn't pinch the mag hard enough so a loaded mag would easily slide out. I then came up with the bright idea of using a bike inner tube to help with retention, which did work. Then I decided to try to make the inner jig/form slightly smaller and the overall height of the pouch 3/8" longer to help with the grip. That worked and the result is the middle one pictured. Another thing I noticed was the original design resulted in mags that were very close to my body and a little hard to grab in the heat of the moment so I wanted to space it out a little. All of those lessons learned culminated in iteration 3, the one pictured on the right.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-WHqxM5s/0/L/i-WHqxM5s-L.jpg
Total cost is about $6-$10 per 12"x12" sheet of kydex, depending on thickness and where you get it. I can get 5 pouches out of one sheet. For this project I used 0.093" thick kydex, but now I hear 0.125" would be better for this application. I guess the belt loops are the weak point.
I started out by cutting the kydex with a hacksaw and a razor blade. The razor blade is used to score the surface and breaking it apart. A belt sander cleaned up the edges nicely.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-sGtvbSD/0/L/i-sGtvbSD-L.jpg
In my first attempt, I just formed everything by hand, which worked ok, but a jig is much better for making nice crisp lines.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-qvN32q7/0/L/i-qvN32q7-L.jpg
After cutting out the piece, the first step was to form the main body. The whole piece was thrown in the toaster oven and heated up.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-C9Q48Vj/0/L/i-C9Q48Vj-L.jpg
Step two was to form the belt clip with a heat gun. This step was easily done without an exterior jig; just an interior wedge was need to form the loop.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-zjRB7tG/0/L/i-zjRB7tG-L.jpg
Step three was to form the bottom mag stop, again with a heat gun.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-4cxwnsK/0/L/i-4cxwnsK-L.jpg
The final step was to form the small hook in the belt loop. It's a little hard to see what's going on in the picture but I used a thin piece of cardboard to insulate the rest of the mag pouch from the heat gun.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-dLzHSnw/0/L/i-dLzHSnw-L.jpg
And here's the finished product:
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-tv92BkN/0/L/i-tv92BkN-L.jpg
Here you can see the walls are at slight angles to help with mag retention.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-v54qktc/0/L/i-v54qktc-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-4kvdpLB/0/L/i-4kvdpLB-L.jpg
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-T7jDz4V/0/L/i-T7jDz4V-L.jpg
Here you can see my first two attempts. The left one was the first one. I found it didn't pinch the mag hard enough so a loaded mag would easily slide out. I then came up with the bright idea of using a bike inner tube to help with retention, which did work. Then I decided to try to make the inner jig/form slightly smaller and the overall height of the pouch 3/8" longer to help with the grip. That worked and the result is the middle one pictured. Another thing I noticed was the original design resulted in mags that were very close to my body and a little hard to grab in the heat of the moment so I wanted to space it out a little. All of those lessons learned culminated in iteration 3, the one pictured on the right.
http://antinode.smugmug.com/photos/i-WHqxM5s/0/L/i-WHqxM5s-L.jpg
Total cost is about $6-$10 per 12"x12" sheet of kydex, depending on thickness and where you get it. I can get 5 pouches out of one sheet. For this project I used 0.093" thick kydex, but now I hear 0.125" would be better for this application. I guess the belt loops are the weak point.