TGN's Collection of Frankenchesties

[ArdeFIN]

Attempt number one and first arm done and ready for testing.

Lets start with comparison pictures, original right hand vs. modified left hand.

[ArdeFIN]

Here's one more of the foater structure and how it was while sewn to the elbow tightly. With the sideplates firmly sewn at the other edge the complete packet stretched when the elbow was bent or as much as some 400D nylon has a give inbuilt.

One from the inside. The short seam on top is holding the bicep plating on place and the other short seam is for the floater. Would be actually nice to know why CCM designer ended up holding the plate up with that short seam and not just adjust the pocket to the right place and size. In the picture above you can see the pocket for the plate with a lot of extra size there. 

In the Vaughn VE8 it was actually the opposite, all the plate pockets were so minimally sized that the materials were stretched to fit the plates in. That's not a perfect way either.

Few original part pictures after tearing it apart.

Elbow floaters top view:

Down under. Slight offset in the middle bridge but its soft and only thin soft foam inside.

The sleeve spred out. This one is from already modified one with the bicep plate sewn to new upper position and the top flap removed. I also had to cut the corner of the bicep plate to fit it better as the left side top corner is bit too tight. Don't know if it is meant to be so or just a little misalignement of the fabrics.

What's in the pad? This is the bicep plating consisting of 5mm layers. White is all the same rubberish HD foam. Black layer between is hard plasticlike HD material that makes the shape for the part. It is lightweight and still very rigid and I would actually use it alot instead of plastic sheets if I were to desing these things.

The whole sleeve includes 5-10mm thick soft foam to make that airbag effect next to arm.

Sideflaps include variation of the mentioned materials and different thicknesses. I'm tempted to modify the wrist flap a bit to protect the area better. That is the place where I get stung with Brown too. A bit narrower plate on top and more wrap around. It would also give more room inside the glove cuff where it is a bit tight in this form. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[ArdeFIN]

So then to the interesting part of this project aka. what was done to alter things.

The sideplates hold the elbow floaters in place. Originally it was sewn at the middle and starting from the strap on the right. New seam is visible at the strap too but is moved a lot towards wrist. Target is to give the floater ability to move away from the bicep when bending my arm while still hold it firmly over the elbow area. 

The top part of the floater is now more free to literally float and the same thing I did with the VE8 C/A modification I implemented here too. I removed the elastic strap from its original position on the sleeve and sewd it to the edges of the floater. This keeps the floater in place but allows again the floater to open forward when I bend my arm. The original strap around the bicep is now basically useless but is so much sewn in that I went with the easy way and left it there.

Sideview of the new arrangement. The whole floater is now positioned about an inch higher than before to get some more space to the cuff area. The attachment point of the upper elastics holding the floater plate was moved an inch to give the top plate more slack when bending my arm. But because of the structure it actually holds the plates inline with straight arm even without the strap. So it is more of a safety line there now.

Edited November 6, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[RichMan]

I like the oval side walls like on my TGC Reebok P1 but mine are kinda thin and they tend to curve like concave. Wonder if the original Koho did the same. I remember my H5 pro had the same walls but much thicker.

[ArdeFIN]

On 11/7/2021 at 3:24 PM, RichMan said:

I like the oval side walls like on my TGC Reebok P1 but mine are kinda thin and they tend to curve like concave. Wonder if the original Koho did the same. I remember my H5 pro had the same walls but much thicker.

I have 590 in the garage for no reason, old and beat up thing. I'll take a few pictures to compare.

They do curve some, but that also might change a bit now that the attachment is completely different.

The Franken thing went somewhat off as I didn't use any extra parts for the arms and only modded the originals. But have to say that these AB Pro arms are as beefy as my JB2000 had when new.

So here we go with two pictures, may I present the FrankenCCM:

And I had this with me on wednesday to try it out. It is bulky, nothing less. But it doesn't disturb me at all and as with the Brown when I got myself inside it is like a college on me. Bulky but somehow feels like taylor made for me. On yes it is actually. 

Not like it's a dream come true there are small problems still. First the arms are a bit too bulky on the wrist and don't fit inside cuffs like I would like them to. That is fixable though and might also be a bit of the arms still being not broken in from the original new. But I'm planning to open the forearms, narrow the padding down maybe an inch and modify the inner edge of the padding at the same time.

The Premier rib padding is just a bit too high in the armpits. Not like it's bad but just that much that it feels in there. I might only need to turn it twofold on the top edge and it's good to go.

Some adjustment to the straps lengths in front and back to balance the suspender effect. Not really a bad setting from nowhere but a little adjusment needed. Also the arm strapppings might need some to settle the elbow cups better on place.

How did it do protectionvise? Good, the chest area made a loud BOUM! when puck hit. Surpricingly to me it still felt through, not in any means bad but felt the hard wristers. The arms were better than I expected and were even better than on my Brown by a clear margin. This said the AB arms are still in a breaking in -time while the Brown is old and worn. And now the Brown is going to get a bit of upgrade at some time. 

It's lighter than the Brown but the arms are heavy, just as in the Brown too. Chest piece is really lightweight.

And due to being lighter on chest area it is by a margin cooler or at least it felt cooler. I haven't had any problem with Brown being too hot so I can't count this as a huge difference but still something to mention.

Edited November 12, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[ArdeFIN]

On 11/7/2021 at 3:24 PM, RichMan said:

I like the oval side walls like on my TGC Reebok P1 but mine are kinda thin and they tend to curve like concave. Wonder if the original Koho did the same. I remember my H5 pro had the same walls but much thicker.

The 590 Pro Koho has the floaters over the sides. Other than that there is hardly any difference to AB Pro. 

Edited December 6, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[bunnyman666]

Bauer Vapor 1X Pro with floaters and heartguard covered in softer material to control rebounds. Works as advertised!

[ArdeFIN]

So have been in with my FrankenCCM now for about 5 times and it's been mostly nice time.

It fits me pretty well, it's lightweight, mobility is no issue what so ever while playing and protection has been good, no stingers through.

Mostly, because I've gotten two hits to the same clavicle within these few icetimes. And never before I've noticed getting hit to clavicles. At first I just thought it was an odd shot and my actions (jump a bit for high puck etc...) caused it to happen. I then added some padding and modified my neck protector which is compilation of RBK and Vaughn.

Now I had the Warrior RX3Pro neck protector with me and again I got clavicle shot I was like what the hell is happening. It didn't hurt this time which of thanks go to the Warrior. 

But after getting back into locker room I thought that now I have the gear on me it's time to go next to a mirror and take a photo to get some idea.

As can be seen the neck protector is really snug around my neck and the clavicle area also protected. But the problem is that you shouldn't see that much of the clavicle area at all. Notice at this point that the picture is taken from down pointing upwards so it was even worse when seen from my eye level.

So the problem with the C/A is a bit more complicated and yet to be throughly examined. But from the picture already and some visual inspection done seems like the shoulder parts have flown down, or I did actually sew the Premier shoulders too high on to the torso of the AB. On the other side I have the setting on the velcroes maxed out to highest setting possible. Annoying it is because I think that the sewn in height should be exactly same that was on the Premier before project. (AB and Premier torsos are close to each other on neck area) And the Premier didn't suffer from neck hanging. This issue is evident from looking at the shoulder pads of the Premier (on top), on the picture they seem to be at 45 to 60 degrees from vertical but actually it was even more than 45 degrees to horizontal when I lifted the torso upright.

To fix the issue I'll detach the shoulder parts and sew them some 50mm downwards to pull the torso up. This should also move the back parts higher and give some room to loosen the adjustments of the shoulders and floaters.

Sidenote, I also need to balance and tighten the elastics running from the torso to my pants as a suspenders. There seems to be too much slack too.

Edited December 18, 2021 by ArdeFIN

[ArdeFIN]

Action time then. First some data of how it was. Picture of the Premier torso over AB. You can notice right away that the AB neck opening is a lot smaller than on Premier? Still I don't know of Premier having a problem with neck hanging. 

So everything about that fights against my thoughts of the AB having long shoulder pieces that lead to neck hanging low. Next thing to check is how the Premier back plate and shoulder were before modifying them more.

Easy to notice how the shoulder area is way too much back even with my narrow shoulders inside it would be almost the same. And yet again the shoulder pieces are from Premier.  One picture about the attachment of the shoulder parts.

The shoulder plate on the right is about where it should, but notice the top part of the cup which is rigid (plastic?) sheet. It rises far over the imagined shoulderline which might be one reason for the whole thing to flow downwards.

Then some detaching, cutting, thinking and designing. Hardest thing here is that there is no clean return to point zero when you begin cutting. And at the same time it's difficult to measure and try to fit things without cutting and sewing together. So the only obvious thing to do is cut some 40mm of material out and then sew everything back together and see how it worked out.

Then the final setup. I also sewed two lines to help the shoulder area to flex around my shoulder shape. Once again these are more of a good guess than proper fitting but this shouldn't be so exact and even necessary.

Then the other part was done with copied measurements.

I got the parts sewn to the torso too and found out that atleast the shoulder cups on Premier parts are awkwardly wide now. I cannot really figure how these were put together on Premier to keep them in line with torsos shoulder parts as the edges don't match without forcing them together. That might be the way it was done by CCM but is mostly just poor desing of the parts.

The hanging neck is pretty much done now and the head opening is very small. Not tight as I could easily get my head through and the fit is pleasant. Hopefully I got it sorted now.

Edited January 28, 2022 by ArdeFIN

[Kayen]

Time to revive this old post.

1st - Posts from Hockey Shop of Horrors here, highly reccomend his work.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0yPFVnY3dtFxxz7rjFAFD3h7LJ5NrMhjd5qsFgw8jmSep2jUQm2grk1EDagmKEcrjl&id=100073726163483&device_id=6db6dfe6-194f-4e3e-abde-2ca30a9338ee

Detailed desciption - got a McKenney body from a buddy here - and decided to add the warrior parts i loved. Ended up hating the body as it was too large for me still 

Traded the body away for some black steel for my skates that are still waiting to be profiled and sharpened. 

The arms? Oh my goodness they are fantastic - very heavy, but very beefy. These are the CCM AB500 arms i've had on there forever with some McKenney floaters, and all of the beef ups as described in the link above. 

2nd - 
So - keeping those arms, I had the leftover parts body, which I installed the neck and heart guard off of a Vaughn vision. Can't give this warrior body up - i'm at the point where I keep getting bruised up in this unit. Used it like this for the last 6 months or so. Added extra shoulder caps and a row of belly blocks to beef up this unit. 

 

3) 
Scored a used CCM Pro Medium off FB Marketplace for $100 CAD. Not bad, not great, not terrible. CCM Premier arms, wow they are stiff. Now I am reminded why my original arms (which are CCM) have lost their original elbow floaters. 

Anyways, easy fix - throw my modded to hell and back arms on.

Now I do want to do a few things - these arms are actually a wee bit long on me still - so i'd like to shorten the arms and change the attachment style to what most modern c/a with removable arms use (velcro strap) and the white colour on the mckenney floaters are too ... stand out there. Any suggestions on dyes, or paints? Thinking of finding some fabric paint to black it out ... thoughts? 

 

EDIT: If i hate how huge these CCM floaters present themselves, then you bet you'll see the return of the Warrior shoulder floaters. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by Kayen

[coopaloop1234]

11 hours ago, Kayen said:

Time to revive this old post.

1st - Posts from Hockey Shop of Horrors here, highly reccomend his work.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0yPFVnY3dtFxxz7rjFAFD3h7LJ5NrMhjd5qsFgw8jmSep2jUQm2grk1EDagmKEcrjl&id=100073726163483&device_id=6db6dfe6-194f-4e3e-abde-2ca30a9338ee

 

Quote

EDIT: If i hate how huge these CCM floaters present themselves, then you bet you'll see the return of the Warrior shoulder floaters. 

Those Premier shoulders have always been obnoxious. It's the only recent C/A where you can immediately tell a goalie is wearing it under a jersey. 

[Kayen]

On 6/21/2023 at 9:49 PM, Kayen said:

Time to revive this old post.

1st - Posts from Hockey Shop of Horrors here, highly reccomend his work.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0yPFVnY3dtFxxz7rjFAFD3h7LJ5NrMhjd5qsFgw8jmSep2jUQm2grk1EDagmKEcrjl&id=100073726163483&device_id=6db6dfe6-194f-4e3e-abde-2ca30a9338ee

Detailed desciption - got a McKenney body from a buddy here - and decided to add the warrior parts i loved. Ended up hating the body as it was too large for me still 

Traded the body away for some black steel for my skates that are still waiting to be profiled and sharpened. 

The arms? Oh my goodness they are fantastic - very heavy, but very beefy. These are the CCM AB500 arms i've had on there forever with some McKenney floaters, and all of the beef ups as described in the link above. 

2nd - 
So - keeping those arms, I had the leftover parts body, which I installed the neck and heart guard off of a Vaughn vision. Can't give this warrior body up - i'm at the point where I keep getting bruised up in this unit. Used it like this for the last 6 months or so. Added extra shoulder caps and a row of belly blocks to beef up this unit. 

 

3) 
Scored a used CCM Pro Medium off FB Marketplace for $100 CAD. Not bad, not great, not terrible. CCM Premier arms, wow they are stiff. Now I am reminded why my original arms (which are CCM) have lost their original elbow floaters. 

Anyways, easy fix - throw my modded to hell and back arms on.

Now I do want to do a few things - these arms are actually a wee bit long on me still - so i'd like to shorten the arms and change the attachment style to what most modern c/a with removable arms use (velcro strap) and the white colour on the mckenney floaters are too ... stand out there. Any suggestions on dyes, or paints? Thinking of finding some fabric paint to black it out ... thoughts? 

 

EDIT: If i hate how huge these CCM floaters present themselves, then you bet you'll see the return of the Warrior shoulder floaters. 

For some reason last year before I burnt the Warrior Chest protector into oblivion (jk i threw on scrap parts and donated it to a ball hockey goalie), there was actually a video done explaining every piece of it.