Heat Shrink
We love this product. It's quick and easy to work with and very robust. Apart from being pricey in this size (70/35), the only other downside to it is the installation. The heat required to shrink it on your sheath is a higher than the de-molding temperature of the PVC. It's easy to scorch the paint as well.
If you are installing this yourself, you need to keep this in mind. We get around this by insulating the exposed part of the sheath from the heat gun and we focus the heat on the two flat faces, not the edges. This causes the wrap to half moon top and bottom but you can dress the edges up with Ranger Bands. It's probably best to let us install the heat shrink if you are going this route. We have done all the testing (A Lot!) and know how to get these on without warping the sheath or cooking the paint.
Motorcycle Inner Tube
Could not be easier! This is a good base if you are stacking the sheath with a paracord wrap and ranger bands. The right size for our sheath is a 2.75-3.00 inch tube. It's an easy slip fit with some hold but smaller Ranger Bands or cord are needed to keep it firmly in place. Inner tubes are curved so one side wrinkles up a little. We just spin that side to the back or keep it at the front if it is to be a pocket.
Keep in mind inner tube sizes between bicycles and motorbikes do not correlate. not even close! The correct size tube for small tight bands (cut about 25mm long) from bicycle tubes is 2.5inch (you are looking for a regular mountain bike tube code 26 inch by 2-2.5). The big slip is from a 2.75-3.00 inch motorcycle tube. You would think from the size codes that they are almost the same size. They are not. There is a massive difference in width.
We stick to these sizes as there is a limit to how much crushing force you can put on these sheaths. We haven't come close finding this limit yet and still had ample tension in these bands to keep everything snugged up tight. The sheaths are extremely tough but you will be surprised at how much force can be generated on an object when you start wrapping anything tightly around it.
