The "How to" (mods and repairs) Thread

[zambo]

The team i play for this year has a xl jersey for me, but it is still tight. Are there any patterns out there to turn the jersey into a proper goalie jersey.
thanks

[McMuffin222]

Sorry, I don't know if this has been asked or not, I got threw 13 pages of looking for it then didn't feel like going threw the rest, but I have stock V3's, but I don't like the buckles at the top of them. I'd like to change them to leather, but don't wanna mess up my pads.

EXAMPLE:

Current:


WHAT I WANT:

If this can be done easily, PLEASE let me know, because I've never done any mods before, and again I don't want to screw up mah pads :]. Also, is there any where I can get thigh guards opposed to the thigh boards?

NOTE: I only want to get the leather straps for the buckles, not remove the whole knee lock xD Also, not a big deal if I can't do it easily. I still love the pads.

-Thanks

[kohomcm]

Originally Posted by McMuffin222

Sorry, I don't know if this has been asked or not, I got threw 13 pages of looking for it then didn't feel like going threw the rest, but I have stock V3's, but I don't like the buckles at the top of them. I'd like to change them to leather, but don't wanna mess up my pads. .......

There is a search feature to search with in the thread. Look for replacing straps. To replace them you will have to sew. Learn to use a sewing awl it is very simple.

[McMuffin222]

Thanks . Mah bad. The search was hiding from me :O!

[McMuffin222]

Well I searched, but I can't really tell which one is good to follow. From what I saw, none were straight up tutorials :P. If you have the time to link me to a good one that'd be great, if not thanks anyway .

[Martytoof]

I don't think you're going to find a step by step tutorial, but once you get comfortable with a sewing awl the process should be a fairly simple stitch job.

Find some buckles with a leather base, break a small section of stitching that your current buckles are being held in place by, place the new buckles into the pad where the old buckles were, stitch the pad closed with a fair amount of overlap between the old stitching and new stitching so the break in stitching doesn't begin to run.

Repeat for the other side of the pad, but sew in the strap, or another buckle so you can buckle the strap on both sides, or however you want to accomplish this.

I wouldn't recommend breaking any existing stitching on an expensive goalie pad until you've become comfortable with awl stitching though.

[McMuffin222]

Thanks I'm thinking I might just leave it as it is and wait til i need a new pair and just order it with leather straps :]

[The_Wall]

Does anyone know where I could get a prong for a pad buckle? I am sick of taping the entire strap each time. I took my pads to a pro shop and they indicated that the only way to fix it is to have the entire buckle strap replaced (my pads have separate straps for the buckle strap and the strap itself). The buckle strap is sewn directly to the seam of the pad. It seems that someone should just carry the prong piece that can simply be attached to the buckle? Any thoughts?

[kohomcm]

Originally Posted by The_Wall

Does anyone know where I could get a prong for a pad buckle? I am sick of taping the entire strap each time. I took my pads to a pro shop and they indicated that the only way to fix it is to have the entire buckle strap replaced (my pads have separate straps for the buckle strap and the strap itself). The buckle strap is sewn directly to the seam of the pad. It seems that someone should just carry the prong piece that can simply be attached to the buckle? Any thoughts?

Side release buckles are always sold in the pair, the female and male part. Replacing a buckle on a pad is not difficult. I can do it to a set of pads in about 5 minutes.

If you have a shoe repair shop do it it will not be expensive. You can also do it yourself. There are several threads showing you how to use a sewing awl and replacing pad straps. Basically the same procedure.


I know you are complaining, but you are not going to get any sympathy from me lol

[Beaver]

Originally Posted by McMuffin222

Well I searched, but I can't really tell which one is good to follow. From what I saw, none were straight up tutorials :P. If you have the time to link me to a good one that'd be great, if not thanks anyway .

Did a search and here you go. Great video... step by step.

How to change a leg strap

Here was the thread.

How to replace a sewed in leg strap

Russ

[Arctic]

A couple points to keep in mind;

This thing has been sitting in my closet since before the V2 was introduced. I hated this unit in it's original form but felt stuck with it so had no problem attempting to mod it. It's way too bulky for me. (It is protective though, except for the biceps which are disturbingly vulnerable.)

This C/A (and my pants) are worn as tightly as possible and have been modified with that in mind; C/A rides outside the pants.



1) reset the anchor points for where the backplate meets the shoulders. You can see the original anchor in the pic. The modded anchor is underneath the shoulder floater with an added guide strap to keep it from shifting. The unit was sitting way too high on my shoulders and the neck way too low even with every adjustment possible.

2) remove the gold 'wings' that were located under the shoulder floaters. That's just a cheat imho and losing them helps reduce the bulk.

3) shorten the side padding, and move the fastclip anchor point up the equivalent of 1 (or 2?) rows of blocks. Necessary to work in tandem with mod #4

4) remove entire bottom row of blocks. This was done in such a way that I can reinsert the entire row of bottom blocks if I want. The empty row of 'cells' was tucked up into the belly then the bottom was sewn shut. When worn tightly, the unit totally interfered with my pants so the bottom blocks had to go.

5) added velcro to the inside of the belly so the Itech 8.8 'skirt' could be attached. This skirt allows the unit to flow easily over my pants without getting caught.

6) tie down lace. I never finished this idea since the lace works just fine. The beaner clips to the back of my pants and holds the unit down tight against my shoulders especially when in a deep crouch.

I've used this modded unit for over a season now (i think ) and the mods have done exactly what they were designed to do which in turn has made wearing it at least bearable. However, this summer when I'm down south I will be shopping around for a new smaller style C/A

If for whatever reason I have to keep this C/A for a while longer, the next mods will probably be adding bicept protection and completely retooling the insanely large elbow blocks.

[reidman17]

Nice mods. I did somthing similar to the 8.8 skirt and was just about to post it but you beat me to it

[bellness]

With my RBK 6k C/A

The Right shoulder floater is stitched onto the chest like an inch or less out of place. it doeswnt effect just the floater sloapes to one side

[RichMan]

I thought it was worth mentioning. I was finding that the lace-in arms on my H5 were pulling my whole c/a off to the sides whenever i would stretch my arms out, say for a blocker of trapper save.

What i did is take an elastic lace that i had saved off of an old back pack i had to throw out, and i replaced the current nylon laces with these. Now i feel that i have a more independent movement from each arm. As well, the elastic makes that the arms snap back into their initial position and i don't have to worry about exposing my upper bicep or shoulder.

Of course the elastic laces will stretch out fast enough after a good dozen uses(hopefully more), so i'll need to get some stronger ones at a fabric store or something.

If no one else tried it, give it a shot. Might make things good for you too

[shutout35]

Coming from Vapor XXX pants with the built in telescoping knee protection that I liked, I felt like my Eastons were missing something. I had a pair of the first gen. RBK knee pads (Koho 590 type), so I decided to do something with those.

The Eastons don't have lace in flaps for knee pads, so I ran lace from the knee pad all the way to the top of the pant to an attachment point that I created.

As many of you know, the RBK knee pads can dig into the knee caps pretty badly. What I did was take that plastic knee cap out and replaced it with the Vapor XXX knee pad. I'll try to get some pics up later, but the Eastons basically have a Luongo type setup to them now that the XXX knee cup is in there. Much softer as well!