Sheath for a Hori Hori Style Garden Knife.

I've been a member of a local community garden for a while now and have done a number of projects for it, including this one;

https://www.instructables.com/id/Garden-Shed-Cubbi...

But I don't really consider myself all that serious about gardening. So when some of the people started showing up with these Hori Hori style garden knives I thought they were very cool, but I swore I would never get one. After all, I have this image of not being a serious gardener to uphold. But I am weak and bought one. Specifically, this one;

https://barebonesliving.com/products/hori-hori/?va...

It didn't come with a sheath and I decided it needed one. I was getting started and said to myself "Self, you should write an Instructable about this!"

So here it is!

Enjoy!

I new I wanted to make the sheath out of PVC because the knife is a garden tool and will be hosed off with water after it's been used, so leather and wood didn't seem like good choices. Trying the knife in some of the tubes I have around I decided to cut a section out of a tube and glue a flat piece to it. The first design change came when I put the two cut pieces together outside to inside and realized that it matches the profile of the knife. So now I'm all excited about gluing these two piece together when my friend shows up. He suggests heating a piece of tube and forming it around the knife...LIGHT BULB OVER THE HEAD TIME! Not only would this be a much more elegant solution, it saves me from running off to buy epoxy putty and means that the sheath will be done in time for the next garden work day tomorrow.

This was the first piece I grabbed back in the first step. Too small for the original idea, but when you imagine it flattened out a bit, it's perfect. Steps missing here are cutting the tube about 1/2" longer than the blade, smoothing and deburring the ends, and cleaning all the printing off with acetone.

After talking with my friend some more I found that I needed some kind of form so I would come out with a curved shape. This short piece of sewer pipe fit the bill. For the top form I'm using one of the pieces I cut earlier before the design changed.

Please do this step in a well ventilated place, hot plastic out gasses nasty stuff.

I heated the tube to around 250 degrees and it came out soft and malleable, but not squishy.

Slide the knife in, place in form, and press down hard. The steel rod is to help give me something to push on. Use gloves, the plastic holds the heat well and you will have to maintain pressure for several minutes. In the future, I may come up with some way to clamp everything. I also would try going a little hotter.

There is very little wobble and it sticks snug when you push it all the way in.

After cleaning there is a permanent change of color; looks kind of like a bone.

I took a few tries until I got the chain the way I wanted, I may still add a link.