Llew81

Yeah that sucks. Great guys to deal with and the gear is (or I suppose was) brilliant value.

18 hours ago, Vanniek71 said:

With the popularity of Wolverine (the Marvel Character) I have not seen any masks really with that theme. Anyone have any pics of a "Wolverine" Mask? (Again not the Michigan Wolverines, love them as well, but I want the Marvel version lol)

Maybe he's too hard to portray on a mask to get a decent representation so people know what it is? IDK just was thinking about it today and wanted to see if anyone out there had done that theme before.

I could paint one of my spares if you like.. at least you may get some idea of what does and doesn't work. (I need practice and have just finished doing one of my others).. what sort of thing we're you thinking?

47 minutes ago, MadsM said:

What a beautiful set! A few questions, how much did it cost? And is the sliding surface just normal jenpro weave or do they also have a fancy material for sliding?

Pads $1565, Glove $500, Blocker $420 all CAD.

Sliding material is just standard weave. Haven't used them yet. I'm not expecting them to be quite as good sliding as the Vaughn's which have the quickslide, but hopefully will be good enough.. cld always try adding that 3m tape people talk about if really necessary.

30 minutes ago, ilyazhito said:

This is an awesome set of pads and gloves. For comparison, what is your size in Vaughn? If the JRZ gloves are good, I might have to think about them when I am able to get a custom set. 

I'm a 33 +2 in the Vaughn SLR2 set

I just wrench the 2 straps as much as I can.. in the pic, the gold weave strap goes over the back of my hand and then the wrist strap is on the wrist.. I am lucky in that I have a thumb which is pretty normal if a little small. It is big enough to go in the thumb part and I can also then wrench the thumb loops tight on it..

Here's a pic of my hand.. it always makes me laugh when people make such a fuss about how gloves close etc.. I don't have a huge amount of experience with gloves.. a warrior g4, Vaughn SLR pro carbon and I also tried a CCM premiere 2 int with a d30 specked palm. You'll be surprised at how few pop outs you get if the shape of the glove itself is good at funneling the puck into the pocket.. closing the thing really seems quite secondary

Just received my JRZ fusion2 set and thought I'd put up some pics so people can see what they look like as there isn't really anything available for them at the moment.

Overall I'm very happy, though I am a little disappointed with the red colour. In the customiser the standard red appears very bright (too bright for me) so I went with their 'cranberry' which looked a dark shade of red better suited to the jersey I was trying to match to. Unfortunately this 'cranberry' is significantly less red and more a maroon/burgundy sort of a colour.. it just about works but not what I was hoping for (my fault rather than anything to do with JRZ).

It's fairly stock I think (bit hard to know as it's not official yet and I was just talking through what I wanted with Simon who is incredibly helpful).. pads are 33 +2.5 straight thigh rise with no breaks, soft 110deg boot . Glove is their version of a 580 with a 90deg angle (you wouldn't want this particular glove though) I don't have any fingers on my left hand so this is designed to stay open as much as possible. Not entirely sure what they did, I just left it in their hands and it works. I asked them to put in the 'professor strap' and calf pillow. The pillow I think is stock although there is no mention of it in the customiser, the professor strap was an extra but done at no cost. Blocker is stock with thick poly. I think I have a fairly average sized right hand and I would say the middle finger in particular of the blocker is maybe a little short (other fingers are fine). You can get a larger size palm.

There are a few areas with a little excess material particularly under the boot. Comparison picks at the end are with my current Vaughn SLR2's (the non carbon version).

I have the RX3 Pro (not plus). I can only compare it to a Bauer 2x pro and a THS spec Vaughn Ve8 pro carbon...

The Bauer I got rid of pretty quickly as it just didn't work for me.

I love the Vaughn in every way except the elbows. I managed to over do things and got quite a bad case of tennis elbow (only now after getting close to 2yrs has it cleared up, and I still take things like stick handling/shooting practice easy with it as it will easily flair back up again)... anyway, this injury meant that even fairly moderate shots to the elbow would be extra painful and so I got a bit fed up with the Vaughn.

The Warrior has been really good for me so far. It's a lot bulkier that the Vaughn but you get used to it (obviously you will be used to this anyway). Once you get used to the bulk you realise that it isn't far at all off the mobility of the Vaughn... without a jersey on that is. Putting a jersey on, even a goalie cut one does impact the Warrior a little due to the bulk in the elbows. The elbow flaps/floaters whatever they are called work really well without the jersey, but less so with as they can't move over the top of the other sections quite so well. It's a simple fix, just widen the arms of the jersey, but is worth noting that you may need to get a larger jersey so that the elbows aren't hindered too much. Also occasionally the elbow floaters make get caught up slightly on the other pieces, but when you are actually playing I have never really noticed this or felt I missed something because of it. I think when playing you move with enough force to overcome the occasional hang up.

There is plenty of adjustability within the unit to really get a nice fit. I can definitely recommend it. I haven't tried on or used the RX3 Pro Plus version, but in all honesty I wouldn't go for it. The protection in general is essentially the same as makes no difference (shot's I would feel through the Vaughn don't cause an issue here). The Plus version is obviously bigger, in the shoulder floaters and arms I think, but the RX3 Pro version is plenty big enough as is. I think the Plus version would be overkill for me and detract further from the units mobility. I'm sceptical the slightly extra coverage of the Plus version would actually translate into more saves... it doesn't give you 'that' much more coverage.

7 hours ago, Nova said:

What did you actually end up using for clear?

I used this one https://www.graff-city.com/spray-cans-c128/spraymax-2k-clear-coat-gloss-400ml-p4243

I did 2 light tac coats, waiting about 10mins between each.. I then did something like 4-5 much thicker wet coats, waiting prob around 15mins between each one. 1 can will do 1 lid like this. There is orange peel in the finish, but I didn't sand them back as by hand I simply have never been able to get the shiny gloss finish back. You only really notice the orange peel up close and the rest of the finish is really nice and glassy without sanding back and buffing, so I figured I'd just leave it.

21 minutes ago, seagoal said:

Agreed.  The Bauer in particular looks great, to me. It's got the most clarity and sharpness and the back plate looks really good.

I know what you mean, funnily enough though it is the worst fitting of them all... also the others are much harder to get a decent picture of as the reflection from the clear coat just obliterates most of the detail.

2 minutes ago, seagoal said:

What's so awkward about clear coating?  I've had several conversations with a few different airbrush artists over the years and it's a consistent theme that clear coating is different, awkward, tricky, difficult, etc.  Care to elaborate?

A few things (I'm no expert either). From what I've read about doing these masks, it seems the best way to finish them and protect the paint is with a 2k clear coat. To start with and probably most important, this stuff is pretty toxic and all-round just horrible. Ideally you need a properly ventilated booth to use it, along with a proper mask and protective clothing. It's one of those things that manages to get everywhere, I have mask, safety goggles, paper suit and gloves and have to spray outside or in my garden shed (this means I can't help but get little bits of crap in the finish, but you only really notice them close up).

The 2k is temperature sensitive and won't harden properly if temp is too low. Spraying it itself is tricky to get right. Seems that best practice is to do a couple of light 'tac' coats to help the later wet coats adhere to the surface. When doing the wet coats its a real balance between getting enough on but not so much to cause runs in it. It then takes a number of coats.

As well as runs you also get 'orange peel' effect. This is where the surface in some areas can go a bit odd. It gets a sort of texture to it that looks very much like the surface of orange peel, a bit dimply I guess. You need then to let it cure for at least 48hrs before it is sufficiently cured. You are then supposed to sand it slightly and buff it. You can sand and buff out some minor runs and orange peel effect. I tried sanding once but made a real pigs ear of it and no matter how I tried I couldn't really buff out the marks from the sanding, so now I just leave it. I do everything by hand, so I guess it may be easier to sand and buff with one of those rotary machine thingies but I don't have one.

All in all it's just a real ball-ache, and something that can ruin an otherwise nice paint job. It can also do funny things to the paint you spray it onto as well, although some of these are good like with 'candy' colours and metal flakes.

1 hour ago, seagoal said:

These look really good. You clearly have some skill.  How much experience painting did you have before these?

Not a huge amount... playing around with miniatures mainly.. there was a fair amount of trial and error (rather too much error) on these, and clear coating them at the end is awkward.

Thought I might post a group pic of my masks that I recently had a go at painting..

You've got a Bauer 960xpm with a Celtic theme (I'm Welsh).

In the middle a Pro's Choice with a reaper theme (kind of inspired by Terry Pratchett's Death character).

Lastly a Sportmask Pro 3i. Idea behind this one was for my kids.. my wife is from Hong Kong so they are half Chinese.. my son's Chinese zodiac is a water dragon and my daughter is a fire horse so thought I'd try and put them on..

Need much more practice but can't justify getting any more masks.. I suspect at some point I'll just end up stripping these back and going again when I get bored of them!

Both brand new.. I just play for fun a couple times a week.. I'm quite certain I don't "need" half this stuff, but I do like to have good gear if possible. I'd love to have a wonder around a good shop and try all these things but we just have nothing over here

So what do you think would be better to get.. an SLR Pro carbon or an SLR2 (non carbon) if they were the same price? Does the updated design of the SLR2 trump the 'carbon' designation of the older line? Would the rebounds be better from the carbon given it should in theory be stiffer than the SLR2 without the carbon?

Cool that's good to know in regards to the Vaughn's and their iterations.. I find the warrior a little wobbly unless I yank the wrist strap right down.. can't say it's a major issue and it's all I've known.. there is no chance of me trying this thing on as there basically are no shops here.. anyone used both the SLR Pro carbon and warrior gt2 can give a feel of their differences? I don't have the "Pro" version of the gt2, wld there be a significant difference in terms of going from the standard senior models to the "Pro" or in this case "Pro carbon" Vaughn?

Ok, being in the UK we don't get a chance to try these things. I've seen what looks like a pretty good deal for a Vaughn SLR Pro carbon blocker and wondering if there is any real material difference between this and the SLR2 Pro carbon that justifies the significantly higher price?

Also, I currently have the warrior r/gt2 (non Pro) version. Is the Vaughn SLR Pro carbon going to be much different to that?

I have changed from my old warrior G4 pads to a set of Vaughn SLR2 pads and am wondering if it might be worth doing the blocker too. From a vanity point of view it would be nice to have more of a matching set.. the original SLR is close enough to the SLR2 pads in terms of appearance for me, really just wondering if there is much of a difference between the SLR Pro carbon and SLR 2 pro carbon.

Thanks

Rhod