Kydex Sheath Additional Retention

[BouncerActual]

Afternoon everyone,

I am in the process of designing a knife and sheath combination for use on an upcoming deployment that will be experiencing hard use and salt water. Steel and everything has been figured out, but one of my concerns on the small boats is additional retention - Kydex is good, but I would like to include some sort of additional retention for the blade. My initial thought is something similiar to what some of us have done to our Kydex holsters, running a large loop of shock cord through the lanyard hole that can be stretched into a notch cut into the kydex; does anyone have any other suggestions that may work a little better/long term? The shock cord works fine, but has to be replaced often with the combination of salt water and sun.

Thank you in advance.

 

[john april]

i would use a strap with a snap closure. maybe rubber or canvas ? i would not trust the stretchy cord.

 

[Isley]

On some kydex flashlight holsters I've used rubber O -rings with paracord tied around the front of the ring (i think it's a sheep's foot knot), so it can be grabbed and pulled up over the top, releasing the light. You might check out the kydex sheath that came with the original Boker Fairbairn dagger for a look at what I'm talking about. It held up well. I've used sliding locks on kydex as well, made using rubber grommets and Chicago screws. The knife cannot be pulled free when the tab is in the up position. I think for your purposes I would still want that secondary retention though.