So I decided to give er' the old college try at making a Kydex holster. True to form I decided to dive right in and do it for a gun with an optic and a light, ummm yeah crawl, walk, run.... but here we are.

I have a Glock 45 I wanted a holster for and I got some Christmas money so I was off to the races.....errrr Good Will and Home Depot
-$14.99 toaster oven....CHECK
-$15.00 plank of wood....CHECK
-$20.00 worth of soft weight room flooring....CHECK
-Sheet of Kydex.....CHECK
-Popsicle sticks raided from my child.....CHECK
-Some old wood/dowls......CHECK
-Painters Tape.......CHECK
-Various Holster Hardware I Have Collected over the years....CHECK
-A complete lack of skill, talent, understanding or experience.......CHECK AND CHECK AND CHECK All systems go.

So first step. Half ass some kind of Kydex press.


She's not pretty, and she's a bit unwieldy but she did the job.

Next step dive right in.

At any rate here is the fruit of my labor. I probably should have started with a more vanilla build but retention is good, she carries nicely, the trigger guard is covered and it basically works. I need to do a little more clean up here and there but for a few hours labor it was a fun learning experience and while not great, its better then I expected.

Nicely done Sir. Your first attempt looks like it turned out far better than anything I would ever wind up with. Congratulations.

Looks great to me.

Looks great. If the holster holds on to the pistol reasonably well, you're in business.

Nice work, did you cut to shape prior to heating/pressing, or did you have to do post form trimming as well?

As a side note…isn’t the G45 with the SCS wonderful?

Thanks all for the kind words. I definitely learned a few things. I think I could turn out a “vanilla” holster sans light and optic now fairly easily. My goal was really to be able to throw together some holsters for guns that might be a little harder source for and or to be able to make some cheap just to have holsters for certain guns. It’s also kind of fun.

-retention is excellent.
-I did all the trimming after the form. Pencil, Dremel and sanding.
-I used a heat gun for some fixes/alterations.

Couple lessons learned
-I need more of a channel for the light as it sometimes hits the switch on drawing.
-I need to use more tape around the ejection port, first time too much of the port formed and REALLY locked the gun in place. Fixed with some heat gun work.
-I need better cutoff wheels for my dremel.
-It does not take long for the Kydex to heat up, too much and it loses some of its rectangular shape.
-If I decide to do this more often I need a better/easier press, and probably better foam media.

As for the G45 and SCS, it’s my favorite Glock setup ever. I am not a “Glock Guy” so to speak and prefer hammers but damn I like this G45 setup.

Take care, shoot safe
Chris.

Nice job. It’s addictive as well.

quote:

Originally posted by cslinger:
-If I decide to do this more often I need a better/easier press, and probably better foam media.

Your work looks good!

Give a shout sometime if you get into doing a bunch of pressing. I helped a friend with her setup a couple of years ago, semi-automating it for volume production.

Man, what talent! I love it.

Dang that looks great! Well done!

That looks great, Chris! I've made a few and while I'm happy with their functionality, none of them look as good as your very first attempt. Well done!

Damn, if I did that, I’d be proud of myself.

I'm impressed !

Great work

That's pretty impressive. Good looking, especially for your first effort.

Looks great!

Seriously?? That looks awesome!

Wish I coud do as well. Very nice work.

That looks great, cslinger! Well done, sir.

Also, I like your choice of carry gun. The G45 has quickly become my favorite. Bought one last year, then traded that for a West German P226 because the guy wanted a G45. I immediately bought another G45 and put the same sights on it.

Thanks again all.

I did a little more tweaking to it today. I made the light "channel" a bit bigger so now the light works as it should with no unintentional turning on during unholstering or reholstering. Retention is still perfect. Super happy with this little build.

Truth be told the G45 with the SCS is my favorite Glock and I wanted an IWB holster for it as set up should I want to carry it, but....my inner troglodyte still rules and I am still generally one of the hammer fired faithful and my primary guns 95+% of the time are HK P2000/P2000sk or P30's.

That said this G45 setup makes sort of a nice do it all piece.

Couple things I will do differently on the next build.
-If it has a light block that area better and run it all the way back.
-Make the clip "bump" a little bigger, more square.
-Use more tape on the slide/at the ejection port
-Drill the clip holes to allow for adjustable cant.
-Use a DCC monoclip or other metal hardware.