ArdeFIN

Shipping from UK to Finland hasn't been really expensive while UK was in EU. Don't know if it's changed since. But the customs might ask for their share. How much for the Brians set? Edit: Friend wants to know for sure that he cannot afford

Some pictures as this thread is useless without pictures. The front of the pads. Not much to say or show. New bindings well made. Boot strap used to go over the boot area and those were removed and hidden. If you don't know you can't even notice the change. The new strapping system. I'm going to change the top calf strap to be attached with velcro to between the flaps and propably add the triangle there too to widen the lock in. Other than that it works and is simple enough. On the bottom right you can notice the boot strap hole covered with black jenpro piece. The leg channel. It is original and I couldn't figure any changes needed here. The Professor strap attachment went wrong, I wanted to have adjustability up and down the calf under knee but the tab is made to adjust the length of the strap. And the strap made by Kova already has plenty of length adjustment. But as said luckily the strap is in the right place. Maybe later on I'll try it in a different position to see if it's any better. Boot area pictures were not focused right so I'll be back here later on.

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.

@cuprajake Don't worry about us being non UK, you still can ship goods out of there too. What's the sizing? - Asking for friend

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.

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.

Attempt number one and first arm done and ready for testing. Lets start with comparison pictures, original right hand vs. modified left hand.

And some catchers... Repaired (new thumb plastic) Bauer Vapor 1X: Repaired (thumb plastic, T, patches of jenpro) Total One NXG: Repaired Total One (thumb plastic, T, jenpro patches): Original Premier 2.9 /w: skatelace pocket: Heavily repaired Eflex3 (new plastics, T, jenpro patches, beef): Original refurbished VE8XP: Repaired V6 1100 (thumb plastic, jenpro patches): Repaired (thumb plastic, beef) V6 2200Pro: Repaired (thumb plastics, beef, T) V6 2000Pro: Repaired Epic 8800 (thumb plastic, beef): Heavily repaired V3 7500 (plastics, T, beef): Repaired Simmons UL7 (?):

Lets include some blockers here too. There might be some that I've posted earlier but hopefully not much of a difference in results Fixed original 2X sr: Total One with Warrior palm mod: Like new original Eflex3.5: Heavily modified Eflex3pro with Warrior palm mod: Original SLR2Pro: Repaired VE8pro with something modded, as original weight was apparently 881g: Repaired original V6 2000Pro Repaired V6 2000Pro with Warrior palm mod: Original V6 2200Pro: Repaired V3 7500 with Warrior palm mod:

After I got the calf flaps done and back together I decided to send the pads out to Varusteverstas (Kova goalie) to install Vinyl on kneeblocks and make some minor repairs that were hard for me to do without getting a lot more tools and materials. These included fixing the boot strap holes and bindings on both ends of the pads. They also installed the professor straps and Bauer style calf straps while edges were open. And after fixing everything they sewed the pads and got them ready for me. It took a long time but I had no hurry to get them back. And when I got them back I couldn't be more pleased of the result. Everything is done and the quality of work is good. Not like factory new and you can tell the renewed parts and areas but that doesn't matter on pads that old already. And after two times on ice with them they do work. Beautifully. Different than my Warriors, but not so much that I could tell when game is on. They just are with my legs and get the job done. The weight of one pad now that I have everything installed and ready is a whopping 2510grams. A lot one could say and definitely I can feel it when I can compare to my Warrior GT pads one after other. But that weight difference matters a lot less than I would've thought from the numbers. I have the professor straps now and they are there without making a number of themselves. Nice. I didn't make any sort of boot or ankle strap and didn't need any. Actually after few ice times with these pads being without I took the step ahead and removed the strap from my Warriors. And on those pads, I think and trying to be objective, it made a positive change. My ankle feels more free and the pad feels to rotate even better than before. Then I made the toeties even longer for Warriors and they felt better again. On Reeboks I have 4mm elastic cord with skate lace over it to protect. On both pads the toe elastic runs through the cowling and is tied to the Lundy loop on my S29 skates. How about the vinyl vs. PE sheet on knee block? Well the vinyl requires a bit of snow to slide well. On a fresh new ice it was a bit sticky. But just a bit of snow on and there's no difference between, both materials slide like a dream. I do love that the pads slide a much as possible. Pictures of the pads will follow later on, I didn't get any of them yet. Quess I was so exited about them that I just forgot

For my hand: CCM in blockers is shortest on fingers, Bauer comes close by but just fits. Vaughn goes pretty well. Brians I only have older ones but those are really short on fingers. Width is enough on every one of mentioned. On catchers I haven't had any problems with my long fingers, all brands and model have fitted to my hand. I might be that some brands don't work really well by closure if you have shorter fingers or smaller hand. That is something I can't evaluate myself. And for reference I use size 11 / XL on working gloves solely because I can't fit my fingers in smaller sizes.

So to the "big invention" of the cuff. Cut the plate side of the cuff to a separate piece that is then installed to the base with one seam same way as it was originally. Then add the backhand fabric over it, originally for production reasons these done the otherway around and doesn't really matter. Then add a few holes to the sidewall side to attach the rest of the cuff with lace on that side too. Now we have the freedom and adjustability there needs to be. The red thread is there just to hold the fabric edge doubled while sewing it on place with machine and was pulled away later on. The hard PE foam inside the cuff was cut in two pieces to create a flat surface where the wrist strap is to be. With the edge laced in and more bending possibilities it tightens a lot better. Lacing on the original eyelets is still a lot off but after using the other 2000Pro above I think I don't need any better alignment on that side. The risk to get anything to hit that side is very minimal. Then some lacing to get everything back together and check that everything needed was done. The thumb protector was once again laced in instead of seam for later service purposes. I added a pillow to between the sidewall parts as there had been one originally and it makes the blocker feel more snug. It'll make a pretty pair with the Epic 8800 catcher even with the catcher having those white accents. I have to admit that I like the gear Vaughn makes. Nothing against any other manufacturers though.

So with a next V6 2000Pro blocker being done I'm going to make some upgrades that were bugging me with the previous one. Atleast try to fix them better. The blocker is in very good condition generally, only two minor problems. The wrist strap is broken and was repaierd a few times with glue and glue and finally some sewing. But the result isn't really looking very good and not working at all. The pinkys edge was broken too because of elastics pulling the fabric around and then the seam had worn out. What is bad is that it was "repaired" with sticktape and the glue is all over the place now. And once again while there I did fix the elastics so that there will be less problems in the future I hope. Note that I sewed the elastic differently than in the earlier version. Don't know why but I didn't check it and just did it how I felt it's good. Might've been better with the first way but it isn't bad either way. Then the pillow between main plate and hand, the foams inside were flattened out and basically non-existent. Replaced them with 10mm layers of soft and medium foam. Also I took the structure apart and left the pillow free inside the "cave". It isn't going anywhere from there anyway and now it is easier to change the foams when needed. First picture of the original foam sheets. New pillow in place.

The problem with the cuff, holes for the lacing are wide off and the cuff is really tight. I really don't think any of the C/A arms will fit in there properly and still allow some wrist mobility. Maybe it was a selected design of the time but in these days everything is for mobility, and protection. It could be done with loose lace but that leads to a too sloppy glove as the wrist strap is also somewhat failed. So I decided to add a triangle of foam covered with normal fabric, it is stiff enough to support the cuff but still gives some room for wrist to operate around. Then the big picture, strap is now tightened to what I would use, stiff to keep my hand properly in place but still I can remove the blocker without opening the strap (yes thin hands). The strap cannot really be any tighter than that as it starts to pull the sidewall in and that then hits the arm protection of the C/A which apparently isn't good thing. Could be somewhat fixed with reinstalling the red strap to another location or just make it a bit longer. Here's the mentioned strap from other direction and it is built in so that it takes a lot of work to move it. The thumb protections lock piece, also red, is now attached with lace so that the glove is easier to service later on and if needed there can be done a bit of adjustment too. Last picture from top view. In the black version of this (the next post in this topic!) I realized it is the sidewall side of the cuff that is the main problem. It is made of hard PE foam that doesn't really give any flex while it is fixed to the base of the blocker it prevents half of the needed flexibility of the cuff. A few completed set pictures coming in later on.

Just a little look up to the Franken project, took the AB arm to closer inspection. As said earlier the Premier arms had a terrible design idea that killed the elbow bending. The design here is better and there is only one short seam that I cannot understand. Or I might say that yes I understand it, but it could be done a lot better with just a little extra thought. That seam is in the midlle of picture holding the elbow floater construction on place. And at the same time it stiffens the elbow area so that there is no room or flexibility to bend the elbow properly. The elbow cup is very nice and simple, I like that one. Does the job well and is very simple. Added a bit of extra sideprotection here too. HD foam sheet. The bicep plating is hanging very low and is also a part of not very flexible elbow. Surpirisingly there is some 20mm of room to lift the plate up without any mods. Only the extra stripe is so tight that it holds against. It's actually so tight that I'm going to remove it and do something else in there instead. Seam is right next to my finger and the plate is pushed upwards as far as it goes. With all these issues seen and that one seam removed (last picture) the elbow floater is really wild so I have to figure out the attachment to make it a bit more rigid and hold its own place. But the arms seem really promising at this point!

Then we have only few pictures left to see. Skate lace pocket as it was when I bought it. I tried to make it as open as possible but the non-waxed laces make it look quite dense anyways. There's a lot of stretch available in that lacing. A little detail with those white patches around but not too much to change the looks. For some reason I really like this Vaughn logo on the side of the cuff. That's it for this glove. I'm excited to get this one on the ice. Atleast it's pretty lightweight and feels really nice. I just got a full black V6 2000Pro blocker too to match this glove for some sort of set. There's not much to do and for 40 euros it was a real bargain I think. If any of you kind moderators would move this topic to the Mods area to join all the other ones would be great. Thanks for watching and blaablaa...

I thought I should straighten up the break line to match the jenpro. I actually sewed the felt and all to the new alignment but then found out there was a mild misalignment in the newly made plastic and after correcting that there was no room to shift the break. And actually no need to either. Then a small fix to the outer edge on top side of the glove. Usually the edge is broken on the inside edge because the plastic is curled in. While the original eyelets are still there I think that it hasn't been repaired except for the new plastic. The finger protection had ripped through the nylon as usually happens sooner or later. A bit of jenpro added to reinforce that spot. Some holes to be done and the binding is still waiting to be sewn. Then jump right to the test setup to see how things are working. This proved itself again as I found out that the break was working without any modifications and I returned my mods back to as they were. New thumb plastic was made also. Not that the original was really broken but it was molded with heat gun in a few spots and looked like it was at the end of it's life. Easier to make a whole new plate that lasts for years again. Hopefully. Black jenpro patch to cover the almost worn through spot. Then some plastic to the T lip and lace the whole thing to see if it really is better than before. And yes now that it is laced as it should be (I think how it should be) it is really working again and I can definitely get the feeling of the glove. It's somehow "older" and for me somewhat familiar from a long time ago when I was playing street hockey with my friends. It'll be exciting to see how this thing works now that I have gotten more used to the new style of gloves. One with the lacing done. Feels really nice and a lot to my liking. Just a little bit more pocket would make it complete.

Then some, the biggest wear in this glove was on the cuff. These corners more than often wear through and what is worse that they are pretty hard to fix without taking apart the whole thing including seams. Some animal ate this edge? Or maybe just got rubbed against something. It was stiched somehow but not really estethic or durable fix. The corner rub against everything and inside there is an edge of the hard foam. The jenpro on the face side is just a bit too short so the nylon fabric runs over the corner and is worn a bit too. Velcro for the cuff is filled with all sorts of material but after cleaning it works like a new again. Add some jenpro and a few slices of nylon and some sewing and here we have it fixed. Not like a new one but fixed anyways. The nylon piece isn't the best ones I've done but it was a difficult one while trying to minimize the dismantling. The nylon on longer edge worked a lot better.

This is only my opinion based on what I've seen and think of what will happen during the break in. You don't need the shower to be hottest, but more so you need the unit to be througly wet. That will lubricate every seam and materials so that they'll take their place faster and easier. Also when wet I'd suggest you to do stretching to the unit, like bend your arms as much as you can for a little while, then do the opposite movement and try to work with all the fabric there is. Only moving will do the trick too, but I think it'll be faster when you give it a little stretch and give the materials a short time to "realize" what's happening. Sort of same thing that you do for your new gloves, first tie it closed for over night with some pressure over maybe, then for the next night put a stick to hold it as open as possible. The heat itself won't soften anything permanently and you don't want the plastics to soften at all and neither you want the foams to collapse. That's what is protecting you afterall, the rigid plastic parts and thick soft foams!

Thanks. Well not a master still, I'm just doing this for hobby and when I start some hobby I'm into it almost 100%. I haven't done any repairs for money so far but for friends and team mates and most of the repairs for myself. I did invest to a sewing machine a lot of money to get a machine that I get things done with. This Pfaff I have is my second machine and still I would like to have something different before having to own two different machines. But still I have invested a lot, I mean a lot, more to the gear itself. And only counting the gear I'm using currently. And playing hockey is my hobby too. The best part with that sewing machine is that it'll last my lifetime probably and when I'm done with sewing I still can sell it for some refund. But don't take this as a advice, just telling you. I still have to and partly also want to do some sewing by hand. FrankenCCM to mention. Keep up the good work, this really gives a rest to ones mind. As long as you don't do your daily work with the hockey gear repairing

There sure is a lot of length to sew by hand. But really nice work, hopefully it pays off. Have you considered investing into a suitable sewing machine? Would be worth it...

Good pick, might really be some vinyl or even a plastic sheet like PE. That's what I have on my GT pads and yes it slides. Kova is offering vinyl for kneewings and Varusteverstas makes a lot of vinyl swaps too. My Reebok XLTs are getting that too to test it IRL. Should be really slick from what I've heard but can it beat the PE plastic.

Add some beef to it! So here we go, the wood block is 2x4" and about 50cm wide as is my shoulder width. And it is trying to imitate my shoulder shapes in all other dimensions too. The shoulder cups from Premier aren't that wide I was afraid at first and actually very suitable for recreational gameplay. Not too big to annoy players but big enough to protect properly atleast. The height (and width too) adjustment of the CCM is just genius design, nothing needed to be redone. And then all the gadgets except for the ABs shoulder cups, which I just realised, installed on. Somehow the shape reminds from Bauer Hyperlite or Elite C/As.

Ok, some detail pictures of the FrankenCCM. First a basic overview without the floaters, pretty big shape with a bit of an optical distortion. Rib protection with the little tab to close the top plate. Same angle but the top plate opened. Don't even know yet if the tab is useable after all. Hopefully it is. Belly protection updated as it looks to me that the M size is a bit short now that it's not hanging low on my neck. Original flap with 10mm of soft foam and 1mm plastic sheets to add some rigidity. The foam alone was very floppy and this part will also hold things in place as I like to tuck my C/A with some specific modifications done to my Warrior pants.

Mixed feelings on this one, it has a new made finger plate which in my opinion is a bit off but not too bad. Previous owner had made a skatelace pocket but and someone had done the other lacing possibly the person who made the new plate but for the quality of that I wouldn't believe that person could lace the glove so wrong. So there is lot to rethink with this one but also it might be that the reasons for closure and all have already been discovered. It does look quite smallish but when I measured the perimeter that is about 115cm with some error margin. I would like a bit more pocket area but not possible without bigger operations. Dismantled the glove that took about an hour and then throughly washed as usual. Tomorrow all of it should be dry and clean. And when I get the body of the FrankenCCM done I'll get into this one.