M4G Venture

[ArdeFIN]

So the next patient on the line is M4G Venture which is a Czech manufacturer for hockey gear or atleast goalie gear. For the first pictures you can quickly tell that there is not a lot of their own design but more of a copy from bigger players of the industry. Interesting to see how deep the copying goes and is there any improvements to the design.

Glove is about 2018 build regarding the previous owner who bought this used few years ago. So it is already oldish and has been on ice for a lot but still in many details looks like it hasn't been used for that much. Normal wear and some sewings are worn out but nothing really broken found in a visual inspection. Small slice of jenpro is needed to cover the finger side edge but that is the worst area and is one of them easier spots to fix.

Backhand has nothing to tell either, normal muddy looking white nylon but no major issues. Velcroes might need a new soft side pieces.

The palm of the glove reveals some problem with the break once again. It doesn't seem normal that the break is so narrow and only bending on one line actually. But still I could bend the break area at about 20mm wide section which doesn't usually happen as there is a plastic sheet at the middle of the break. The glove is pretty stiff and I'm not able to close the glove completely with my hand in the glove. Part of that is definitely the T which seems to be very stiff as seen with CCM and others too.

And then a bit later found this from the insides. There is a pouch for the break plastic but there isn't anything in... Thumb side plastic seems to need a replace too.

[ArdeFIN]

Weighted some parts of the glove to get an idea what is the heavy part and where there is no weight.

Double T with all nylon webbing 180g

Backhand protection and cuff 188g

Plastic of thumb-cuff and thumb protector 181g

Palm/thumb felt and finger plastic 152g

One piece glove jenpro and some lacing  but not all of it 319g

And the whole glove measured before dismantling 1063g

Few notes after washing and parts hanging and drying. The finger plastic is terribly curled in at over 90 degrees. Luckily the felt is not sewn as usual but less to the plastic which helps a lot when heating the plastic to straighten it.

The binding is not very professionally sewn in on the wrist strapping. Not that it has any effect on performance but more of a poor craftmanship. There was one other spot too but I didn't catch it in a picture. Would expect this from a China etc made cheap things but M4G isn't really cheap.

New plastic is to be made and already started with that. Classically broken for a 590 clone. They all excel in copy process... There are some "hand made" elements visible on the original plastic.

Edited April 23, 2022 by ArdeFIN

[ArdeFIN]

One more picture of the finger plastic before it got some heat and pressure and got back to more straight shape. There was actually some bend or stretch marks around the lace holes where the plastic was curved so it was getting destroyed. Hopefully it stopped here and the plastic will last to the future.

Here you can also see that the plastic only sewn to the jenpro and not to the felt as it usually is done on other manufacturers gloves.

Then I decided that there has to be the narrow plastic sheet to support the break area so I made a piece from 2mm thick PE. A bit rough on the edges still, have to clean them up.

The palm side of the glove with some re-sewn spots and a slice of jenpro on the edge.

Few things about this design that almost all manufacturers use. Why is made of so many pieces instead of one big? You could still add the graphics with slices sewn onto.

Why is there at the finger area this separate piece of material? Is it for the lines sewn to the material and easier to hide the U-turns? What is the purpose of these lines sewn here, they basically do nothing. 

Just a heck lot of extra work for seemingly nothing to gain.

[MadsM]

Hi Arde,

I am following this thread closely as i was really curious about M4G.  How did you get ahold of it? 

I'd love to support a smaller manufacturer, but to me it just seems kind of crazy that their prices are basically the same as the big brands, when they as you describe it almost makes a  clone. Would you recommend some of their gear (if you tried anything apart from this glove)? 

 

[kohula]

Hello, If I can answer the question, the prices are a bit high, but this type of glove is maybe 4 years old design (maybe more). The M4G company is developing their design on their own. The latest models look inspired by big brands, but they have their own features. The materials are good and for the simillar price you can go for full custom. Even in external design - colours, motives, embroiding etc.

[ArdeFIN]

On 4/25/2022 at 10:18 AM, MadsM said:

Hi Arde,

I am following this thread closely as i was really curious about M4G.  How did you get ahold of it? 

I'd love to support a smaller manufacturer, but to me it just seems kind of crazy that their prices are basically the same as the big brands, when they as you describe it almost makes a  clone. Would you recommend some of their gear (if you tried anything apart from this glove)? 

 

Bought it used from I think second owner here in Finland who told me that he is having connections to M4G also and offered me services if I got interested to buy some gear from M4G. This glove is old already so it really doesn't tell how M4G is making their gloves today. 

It should be pretty easy to change some obvious details to look different and still retain that CCM feeling if that is what they are after. And as kohula noted M4G have improved their design so propably it's getting even better. And also the quality propably has gone up.

This Venture isn't bad glove by any means, just that it isn't really their own design and looking really much as a copy of a CCM.

Edited April 27, 2022 by ArdeFIN

[ArdeFIN]

Interesting feature in this glove is that the inside fabric that is against palm or fingers is actually jenpro upsidedown. It's not the most comfortable material but should be long lasting atleast. Still hopefully they have upgraded to suregrip or suede or what ever softer material there are available.

I don't know if it's from jenpro that the glove is feeling quite stiff no matter what I've tried. Or it just might come from the minor changes I made to the break area. Jenpro used in multiple layers in the glove (outside - padding - inside) is problematic as it does not offer a lot of flexibility or stretch.

And to say it out it's not stiff like CCM on the shop shelf not at all. Just stiff enough that I don't find it very useable for myself as I have a lot of gloves that are like warm butter.

So it's not bad glove, and it feels a bit different on hand compared to original CCM 590 Premier. Not much but different. A lot of the details tell that this model was really humble copy of an existing and known glove.

To see how much there is the same with the forementioned CCM it'll be my next project.

 

I didn't have a lot of pictures to put here so this is about it. Not a bad glove but just doesn't offer anything special. On the picture above you can see the small twist through the break which might have some influence to the stiffness of the glove. Now that the glove is fixed and almost like new it'll have a lot of life left in it. And will most probably become soft to use with some -eh- use.

Now lets move to the comparable CCM Premier glove.