Glove break in technique

[coopaloop1234]

Been doing the open and close technique over the past week on my CCM glove. Working from home lends me a lot of time to do so. 

Anyone else with a 590 have a weird squared off feeling with the plastics/foams in the heel area? 

[shak0goalie]

So I just got a new Warrior Ritual G4 intermediate glove and I’m looking for a way to quickly break it in with involving pouring water inside the cuff of my glove. Additionally, I don’t really feel comfortable putting my glove in an oven, even if it’s not that hot and you turn it off. Is there anything else I could do, or am I stuck going old school?

[saitagoalie]

On 5/9/2020 at 5:29 AM, shak0goalie said:

So I just got a new Warrior Ritual G4 intermediate glove and I’m looking for a way to quickly break it in with involving pouring water inside the cuff of my glove. Additionally, I don’t really feel comfortable putting my glove in an oven, even if it’s not that hot and you turn it off. Is there anything else I could do, or am I stuck going old school?

Hot water (from the tap is hot enough) and tie the glove shut. Once it has cooled down, catch some pucks/balls with it. Just wear it. Then tape it shut again and allow it to dry. That should do the trick. Repeat if necessary.

[Windmill save]

I always use clamps and leave it for a few hours and boom it closes better. Leave it for a few days and you will definitely see the difference. 3 days before my game i would clamp my glove and as soon as i get in the game, it is ready to go. 

[A.YOUNGoalie13]

Close the glove, tie it shut and put it on the floor. Lean kettle bell handles or any other weights you have to keep it shut. I’ll leave it like that overnight and even throughout the day for a couple days until I have a skate and that starts to break it in. Actually using it works it in the best though!

[ArdeFIN]

On 4/25/2020 at 9:03 PM, coopaloop1234 said:

Been doing the open and close technique over the past week on my CCM glove. Working from home lends me a lot of time to do so. 

Anyone else with a 590 have a weird squared off feeling with the plastics/foams in the heel area? 

I just started a journey with P2.9 to find out what one should do to make it work. I'll make a topic to the "Mods" when I get a bit further with it. So far dismantled the whole pocket and T and without those parts the glove is butter. 

A terrible piece of gear to be honest, but it will be improved.

[coopaloop1234]

6 minutes ago, ArdeFIN said:

I just started a journey with P2.9 to find out what one should do to make it work. I'll make a topic to the "Mods" when I get a bit further with it. So far dismantled the whole pocket and T and without those parts the glove is butter. 

A terrible piece of gear to be honest, but it will be improved.

I ended up selling it last year. Not the biggest fan of gloves that aren't a 75 break, but especially a Lefebrve glove/blocker.

It's the type of gear that I'll never understand the fondness for, it just feels so poorly designed.

[ArdeFIN]

On 11/24/2021 at 9:05 PM, coopaloop1234 said:

I ended up selling it last year. Not the biggest fan of gloves that aren't a 75 break, but especially a Lefebrve glove/blocker.

It's the type of gear that I'll never understand the fondness for, it just feels so poorly designed.

Good choice to sell. They still have more value in the markets than I would give them. The design is poor and has only been renewed with Axis and Eflex5, atleast so much that you can say something is changed.

[coopaloop1234]

1 minute ago, ArdeFIN said:

Good choice to sell. They still have more value in the markets than I would give them. The design is poor and has only been renewed with Axis and Eflex5, atleast so much that you can say something is changed.

Spot on. They both were "different" but still seemed to falter from the same design flaws.

[ArdeFIN]

Now I have time to write about this surgery. Patient is the CCM P2.9. Used about 20 times, previous owner had loosened the lacing all around, cut the boot of the T free and added a bit of float and replaced the webbing with mix of skate lace. As is the glove is still unbelieveably stiff to close and even worse to open. I actually can't hold it wide open even when I use some help to push the T straight in.

I didn't take any video footage of the beginning but you get your hands on a new similar CCM glove.

Then I opened some lacing to find out what is making this glove so stiff. First was the boot of the T, while floating already I took all the pocket lacing off and also opened the edge there.

Result: not much, just noticeably softer closure and no change in the opening. I bit of WTF?

Next step was to unlace everything to the point where I got the whole T out. And now the glove was like butter, closed fully with laying it on the table and opened in full pancake effortless.

Ok. Just to make sure I laced the edges back but without the T and no change in behavior. Soft as a dream glove. Even the bumb of the plastic in the heel area didn't matter. Ok, closure was a bit off yes.

So with this evidence the problem has to be on the T as that is the only thing taken away now. What is inside is nothing new from previous mods I've made. The base material supporting plastics is rubber coated fibre material I've never seen before. A bit stiff and could be softer too. Plastics are 2mm and already bent somewhat, compare to the begin picture. The break area has about 10mm open area and looks to be off the line which might need some attention too.

So the first test is to cut the plastic on the thumb side right outside to where the thumb of the glove ends and lined as of. At the same cutting process I took a 5mm chunk out from the break to align it better. The finger side is already marked for cutting but first thing here is to make a test to see the results.

Insert the T and I laced it only so much that the T stays firmly in but to to the boot area at all. It's better now. Opens easier and closes easier. But still not really soft at all and not opening even close to the max. Next up is the cut on the finger side. The gap between is about 5mm wide and all corners rounded to prevent material rubbing through.

Now it got a lot more speed into movements and also the glove opens out a lot better than before. Still I must admit that it leaves a lot to desire when compared to the best gloves I have. To note, there still is the backing material which I could punch some holes to break lines and also the T is built of 4 layers of Speedskin material sewn in tight which already is quite a stiff structure.

But the main target for the break in of this terrible piece of gear was achieved and reasons found out. It softens in time from this state and is much more useable now. Not good but useable.

Next step was to take some more lace out and see what is in there. Everything looks pretty much new and no signs of use as there shouldn't be. The felt is only about 4mm thick while on Pro level gloves CCM uses 6mm or more. CAn't really understand this choice as said earlier it doesn't have anything to do with the glove being stiff. 

The wrist/thumb plastic was the next interesting piece and especially the hated bumb on the heel area. Piece of wood is to mimick the break line on the palm and easy to notice that the bumb is halfway over the whole break line. Not only it is heavily against when closing the glove but this also affect the hinge of break.

With some heavy heating and molding the plastic between wooden molds I got most of the bumb flattened and then I just cut out the excess of the plastic from the break line. 

Closure is close to perfect and easily over the "good enough" goal-line. CCM has improved here in the EF5 (and Axis?) generations and removed the bumb too. What remains to be unknown is what was the target with that bumb?

While there I also added some insole to add up to the thin felt padding. Just to try this out, it should be Poron atleast 

All this done I chose to put the glove back together, made some minor cleanups on plastic edges and moved the wrist strap to go just under the nylon fabric and not through the plastic to hopefully give some more life to it. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[xmikex32]

Fellas, 

recently picked up a Mach glove from SL , it was only used once and then sold. My issue idk if it’s my technique or the glove just needs more time to break in but when I close it the edges of the T/pocket don’t line up. It’s easy to open and close but when I squeeze the front of the glove T sticks out more and the thumb side of the T doesn’t meet the edge, if that makes sense. 
 

is this normal? I don’t want to break the glove in incorrectly. I have been just opening and closing it to get it to break in more. 

[coopaloop1234]

2 hours ago, xmikex32 said:

Fellas, 

recently picked up a Mach glove from SL , it was only used once and then sold. My issue idk if it’s my technique or the glove just needs more time to break in but when I close it the edges of the T/pocket don’t line up. It’s easy to open and close but when I squeeze the front of the glove T sticks out more and the thumb side of the T doesn’t meet the edge, if that makes sense. 
 

is this normal? I don’t want to break the glove in incorrectly. I have been just opening and closing it to get it to break in more. 

Like this? 

Mach glove kind of has a dual break so it can match your natural hand closure. 

It's fine. 

[Hockey34]

My Mach is the same way. 

[xmikex32]

Cool thank you guys! didn't want to start breaking the glove in the wrong way