Custom Sized Hand Made chest Protector (Photo Gallery)

[Pensaump]

Originally Posted by Welpe

I admire your craftsmanship! It appears you've done a great job.

If you don't mind sharing, what did you use for the hard plastic shell?

Polycarbonate Acrylic. When I compared several physical properties charts of various types of plastics, it was pretty strong. CeCe told me he used polyethylene plastic.

I hand cut all the plastic pieces myself and then used a plunge router to cut the eye hole slits.

[johnnyg08]

nice...please post when you take a few shots off of it this coming spring/summer

[Pensaump]

Originally Posted by johnnyg08

nice...please post when you take a few shots off of it this coming spring/summer

I'm actually working on that test sooner than later. Pretty much my biggest umpire mentor has volunteered to be the crash dummy and step it up in front of a pitching machine.

I will surely make a video of this experiment.

[BretMan]

As an umpire, an engineer, an equipment junkie and someone who does some fabrication work with baseball gloves (see link: The Glove Shop), I find your project fascinating.

I've always wondered about the padding in a chest protector. What about that "memory foam" stuff- do you think that would work? I remember when this product first came out, there was a demonstration on TV where a guy laid a sheet over his hand and invited someone to whack his hand with a hammer, with no ill-effect.

[Pensaump]

Originally Posted by BretMan

As an umpire, an engineer, an equipment junkie and someone who does some fabrication work with baseball gloves (see link: The Glove Shop), I find your project fascinating.

I've always wondered about the padding in a chest protector. What about that "memory foam" stuff- do you think that would work? I remember when this product first came out, there was a demonstration on TV where a guy laid a sheet over his hand and invited someone to whack his hand with a hammer, with no ill-effect.

Brett,

I honestly think that it could be done. My first pad was 1" thick with two pieces of the white foam you see. By the time I added the vinyl it was very thick. Now it would have stopped anything with the plastic on top of it, but it just felt too bulky.

I cannot find 5/8" thick foam so I glued a piece of 1/2" & 1/8" foam together to get the current combination. This combination was actually about the 4th "foam experiment" I did before I came to my current selection.

I think anything less than 1/2" foam (uncompressed) and you would probably start to feel the impact on the plastic more.

CeCe told me the thinnest he has ever made was using 3/8" foam.

It would be interesting to see the memory foam incorporated, but honestly I think correctly measuring and sizing the vinyl and foam will create a better "fit" than the memory foam.

Know what I mean?

But custom fit memory foam could be interesting?

[SanDiegoSteve]

Excellent looking chest protector. Great job.

Have you considered becoming the new Cece, following in his fine footsteps, and take custom orders from umpires?

[Pensaump]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Excellent looking chest protector. Great job.

Have you considered becoming the new Cece, following in his fine footsteps, and take custom orders from umpires?

I don't think I could ever "become the new CeCe."

But I'm not opposed to making them for other people.

[briancurtin]

Originally Posted by BretMan

I've always wondered about the padding in a chest protector. What about that "memory foam" stuff- do you think that would work? I remember when this product first came out, there was a demonstration on TV where a guy laid a sheet over his hand and invited someone to whack his hand with a hammer, with no ill-effect.

In my recent past as a catcher, I used two different memory foam chest protectors from Rawlings. That material plus a hard plastic outer shell seems like it would be good to me.

[Lawrence.Dorsey]

Just curious as to where you picked up the shoulder caps ?

Lawrence

[Pensaump]

Originally Posted by Lawrence.Dorsey

Just curious as to where you picked up the shoulder caps ?

Lawrence

Some old used pads.

[Pensaump]

I have added the finishing touches to the chest protector now. Several things I will do different on the next one, but for now this protector works very well and is pretty comfortable (which was my ultimate goal). I used it in a fall ball game about 1 week ago it it worked well. I was hoping for a nice pounding hit , but it didn't work out.

Anyways, I heated up the plastic on the chest protector and molded it with some curves around the shoulder so it fits even better now.

Also, (as suggested before here I believe) I added some extra chest "extensions" that give a little bit more protection and does not take away from the comfortableness of the protector. I may/may not add the armor to these extra pieces, because its just so comfortable to me right now. However, this would be an easy request to implement or add.

[bluehair]

I have the WVP and like the shoulder protection. It seems to me that you may have a vulnerability at the strap attaching the shoulder cap. You might consider adding an overlapping piece of plastic over the shoulder cap attaching strap.