So, I have finally been able to address a couple of issues that I have had with my 7.8 X-Wing glove.
First, I have to say that the glove was much, much stiffer than the 12.8 X-Wing glove, or, to compare to another mid range glove, it did not have that pre-broken in feel of say the RBK 8K glove. I steamed this glove twice in one night with a commercial steamer and worked the glove for hours. I have had it for 8 months and have used it probably about twice per week and I have recently just begun to be able to close it fully.
On the positive side, I do have to say that the glove flattens well to seal completely along the ice when covering pucks without that gap in the top of the tee like many newer gloves have.
Onwards to my major issues and mods: despite the fact that the glove is not the easiest to close, I have noticed that the protection along the break is lacking. I play mostly roller and most shots haven't affected me, but with some harder shooters that I've been up against, and in playing ice, I have taken some stingers on the knuckles at the base of my fingers mostly and also some on my fingers themselves.
I also noticed that the area of the glove where the knuckles at the base of my fingers are (red box in the below picture) bubbled outwards and very easily bunched up when pushing downward on the top of the glove.
this picture shows how the glove slightly bubbled outwards. It is much more extreme when flexing the glove. And actually affected closure by pushing into the thumb portion of the glove when closing it.
I suspected that the cause of the frequent stingers in this area as well as the bubbling up of the glove were both because the internal plastic in the palm of the glove did not come down that far.
I was right as here you can see that the red line illustrates where the plastic ended. This red line roughly corresponds to the stitching on both the foam inside the glove and the stitching on the face of the glove at the top of the box in the previous picture of the glove:
Here, you can see some other pictures, which show the HD face behind the skin of the glove as well as the thick layer of felt behind the plastic. Note the crease in the HD foam illustrates where the plastic ends and the area that bubbles up actually has a seperate piece of HD foam between this crease and the actual break in the glove.
What I decided to do was to create a pro palm in the glove. I basically followed this guide line put forth by Davieboy as to what a pro palm actually is:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Davieboy
Almost all pro models (any brand) have the same basic internals. There is a piece of felt sandwiched between the finger plastic and some skate liner material (tan jenpro) or NASH. A double palm has two layers of this material. Then the thumb plastic is backed by some foam. Those pieces create the break and shape of your glove. Now some companies will beef up these areas for pro's but for the retail versions they are all basically the same.
Dave
|
I added another layer of plastic and another layer of foam (since I didn't have any of this roughly 1/4" thick, heavy duty felt), to create a pro palm in the glove. The foam is 1/4" cheap/soft yoga mat that I have used on many goalie equipment projects. The plastic is the same 1/16" ultra high molecular weight (UHMW) Polyethylene that I have previously used in my slide plates and in other goalie equipment projects.
Here is a picture of the additional plastic, as well as the (gray) foam in front of the exising HD foam (black) and plastic:
I made sure that this plastic went all the way down to the break in the glove and covered the previously mentioned vulnerable area as well as the area in front of my fingers. note the holes that are punched in the foam and the plastic are how I secured the new pieces in the glove: I used the existing lacing to keep them in place. The holes in the foreground are where the lacing travels through the glove to keep the internals in place while the holes in the background are actually where the lacing that secures the binding and the catch glove pocket are.
Here you can see the stainless steel tanners glove lacing needle that I used. It has a dull point and a hollow back, which is threaded. You simply burn/melt the end of the nylon cord and screw it into the back of the needle:
In the process of adding these pieces, I decided to add my own lacing in the middle area of the glove that was bulging out. The lacing goes through the skin of the the glove, the foam and plastic pieces that I added and also knot behind the existing layers of foam, plastic and felt.
It is the white nylon cord (I didn't have any gray to match the existing cord) in the background of this picture. The blue smears are from a blue sharpie marker that I used as an indicator as to where to punch the holes for the additional lacing:
And the finished product:
Linear Mode
