Open-sided magnetic sheath

[mklotz]

I have an Israel-made scriber that has a conventional scriber point on one end and a "thing" on the other end. I think said "thing" is meant to be a striking knife but it doesn't look like any of the other striking knives I have. It isn't flat on one side like my others but rather tapers uniformly on each side to a slanted chisel edge that ends in a sharp point.

I store it standing vertically in my tool block and the "thing" thus represents a real danger to my hand when I reach for other tools stored near it. I could hide it in a drawer but I use it frequently to remove flash from castings and other miniature scraping tasks as well as a conventional scriber.

The solution is clearly a sheath for the "thing" end. I tried bits of wine corks, rubber tubing and the like but the unusual shape of the thing made it easy for these to pop off. A more sophisticated sheath design was needed.

I cut two small squares from some 1/8" plywood I had. On one of these I traced the outline of the "thing" and cut that out with a scroll saw. On the other I drilled a 5/16" hole to accept one of those neodymium magnets HF sells in a little tube. After the two squares were glued together a magnet was glued into the hole.

The new sheath fits perfectly and its shape and the magnet ensure that it won't pop off if bumped yet it's easy to remove when I need to use the tool. I'm normally not a fan of magnets around tools but this tool isn't used daily and many of the materials it sees aren't ferrous so I can tolerate it; besides, I have a bulk tape eraser become tool demagnetizer.






Most conventional sheaths, e.g. those for knives, are pockets that the object slips into and which cover both sides of the object. The generality to take away from this is that open-sided sheaths work just as well if some mechanism, e.g. a magnet, can be used to keep the object in the sheath.