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Flashlight sheath for Fenix LD22
Five years ago, I bought a Fenix LD22 flashlight. (The LD22 they currently offer is a significantly upgraded version of mine. The new one is 300 lumens, mine is somewhere around 200, and the way the modes work is a bit different as well.) I have worn it on my belt ever since, every day. And it's held up beautifully. The flashlight came with a belt holster or sheath. I quickly found that the belt loop on it was much too low on the sheath, making the flashlight come too high on my side and flop around. It didn't take much to cut the thread stitching the belt loop to the holster and sew it on higher.
The velcro also wore out. I bought some 1/2"x1/2"x1/16" rare earth magnets and sewed them into the holster where the velcro was. That improved matters, but eventually it wore out the sides of the sheath. I took it apart and rebuilt it using scrap jean material. That worked pretty well, but the flashlight had a tendency to flop a bit and the end would come out from under the flap of the holster, making it loose and leading me to worry I might lose it. And it started wearing through the jean material.
This time, I decided to build a better holster.
The idea was to create a very similar sheath for the flashlight using the same kind of material that had withstood the wear and tear of daily use: nylon strapping.
When making the cuts, I would cut the strapping with a sharp pair of scissors, then melt the cut edge with a butane lighter. When sewing, I used a sewing machine, but due to the thickness of the material and the number of layers, wound up driving the sewing machine's mechanism by turning the wheel by hand. Someone with actual skill with a sewing machine might be able to run it at speed, but I could not.
The main piece was 19.5" long, with magnets sewn into flaps on either end. The end of that piece which would become the flap, I folded over 2.25" and sewed magnets inside that. The other end I folded over 1.5" and sewed magnets inside it as well. I arranged them edge-to-edge, as if they were a single 1"x1/2"x1/16" magnet in each end.
I put a wide stitch into the ends to secure the magnets rather than stitching across. I positioned the magnets in the top flap so they pull the strap down onto the flashlight. This should also mean that the flap extends beyond the magnets by 1/4" to 1/2", giving something to grab onto to open the holster
I cut a 10" piece, then cut it in half on a 45 to create the two sides.
I sewed those to the sides of the main piece with a wide stitch. I determined their placement by wrapping the work in progress around the flashlight.
I cut a piece to use for a belt loop.
And sewed that to the back side.
And sewed the front edges of the sides to the main strap. For this seam, I sewed through the two layers, unlike for the back edges which I sewed across the edges.
And here is what it looked like with the flashlight in it:
And here is how it rides on the belt:
After using this for a few days, I had to make two small repairs to it. One was to reinforce the stitching near the top corner of the sides because I had not done that well enough during initial fabrication. The other was to melt the 45-degree edges again because they had started to fray; they're holding up better now.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the new sheath; it holds the flashlight securely, the magnetic flap stays where I want it, and it appears to be holding up to daily use very well over the course of about a month.
