Before I made my slide plates, I did a lot of searches and reading of old threads about slide plates, what they’re made of, how to make them, their advantages, etc.
Why Use Slide plates?
Protect your pads from wear while playing on concrete or other abrasive surfaces.
Also to give you a little bit of slide on your movements while playing on sport court
What are they made of?
I found that other people have made them of Lexan (which apparently shatters), ABS plastic, Teflon (which is pretty expensive), and Delrin (a cheaper form of Teflon). Finally, I settled on UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight) Polyethylene. 1/16” thick is sufficient. However I ordered a 2’ x 2’ piece 1/8” thick, simply because that came in black (which matches my pads) and the 16” thick only comes in ‘natural’ (white). I ordered the plastic and most of my supplies from
McMaster-Carr.
What you’ll need to make them:
-2’ x 2’ x 1/8” or 1/6” thick polyethylene
-Some poster board or a light cardboard to make your templates
-A drill and a 3/16” drill bit
-Tinsnips, a powerful rotary tool, or a jigsaw to cut the polyethylene
-3 (1/8”) mm diamond braided nylon cord
- a lighter to burn the ends of the nylon cord is also useful
-Clarino/jenpro/leather/vinyl to make medial rolls (if you don’t already have them)
-A leather punch or a soldering iron to punch or burn holes in the medial rolls
-A leather awl to stick the medial rolls in (again, if you don’t already have them)
-A utility knife
-An oven (or a heat gun) to mold the slide plates
How to make them:
Before you do anything, you should take a look at your pads and figure out how they’re going to be attached. The easiest method is to poke, punch, or burn (with a soldering iron, etc.) holes into the medial rolls of your pads and lace them in using nylon cord (typically 2.75-3mm thick in goalie equipment). Make an even number of holes if you want the knots at both the top and the bottom to be on the same side.
I ran into problems here because well, my leg pads (Heaton Helite Z II 2005 Seniors) don’t HAVE medial rolls. So, I was left with a few options: glue or Velcro the plates to the inside gussets of my pads, or what I decided on. I was going to make medial rolls. I cut some clarino into strips 1 ½” wide and folded them over. I used netminder_32’s advice and glued the folded clarino on top of itself to keep it from shifting while sewing. I just used a regular old glue stick since the stitching is the real actual binding material.
I stitched them into the side of the face of my pads using a leather sewing awl. I was a bit apprehensive about this because I’m not very good with a needle and thread, but once I figured out how the awl worked, things went pretty well. The directions on the awl say to pull a length of thread through that’s about twice the length of the seam that you intend to sew. I suggest that if you’re not very good with an awl or if you haven’t used one before, pull two and one half times or even three times the length through. If you have any slack, you can always cut it and use it on a small repair job some other time, but if you run out of slack, then you’ll have to cut and tie the thread and start from where you left off.
No Medial Rolls:
Medial Rolls:
(Sorry for the awkward angles on these pics)
Once I had my medial rolls completed, I cut some poster board into the shapes that I wanted my plates to be. I cut them fairly large to make sure that they’d be big enough. You can always trim the plates down later if they’re a bit too big. I placed each shape onto the sheet of Polyethylene to make sure that everything would fit. I even had enough left to make some puck foils (pictured on the left), which I ended up ruining when I was testing my cutting ability in the plastic. Remember that on the polyethylene, there’s one side that’s more polished and smooth and one side that’s rougher. Make sure make the templates opposite of one another so that the smooth side ends up on the outside of each leg pad. Note how I have my templates marked “L” and “R.”
Before you cut the plastic, though, mark on the posterboard where you think you’ll need holes to lace through the plates. Drill all of the holes that you’ll need to lace the nylon cord through in the front, and that you’ll need as starter holes for your leg strap lacing. I used a 3/16” drill bit for this.
Cutting the plastic proved to be the most difficult part. It can be done with a pair of tin snips, though not very easily (it would have been easier had I ordered 1/16” thick plastic). Some kind of rotary tool would work. But make sure that it’s powerful enough (i.e. stronger than a cordless 7.2 volt) and make sure that you have the correct cutting attachment. (Dremel sells a blade specifically meant to cut plexiglass, I believe). I ended up picking up a jigsaw for $20 at Lowe’s. I made all of my cuts with this. I shaved down the rough edges made from the jigsaw with a utility knife
The back ends of the plates usually attach by making holes that your boot straps and knee straps can go through. The calf area is where I differed. Most people seem to make holes into the calf wing itself and use lacing there, I decided that I was going to put the extra slack from the nylon webbing in my calf straps to use and loop them through the plates themselves then back to the buckles.
Lastly, I don’t know if you can tell from the pictures but the inside gusset of my Heatons are pretty rounded. So, I stuck each plate in the oven (200 degrees Fahrenheit, for about 3 minutes) and bended them, making each plate rounded and molding them around the inside gussets of my pads. You could also use a heat gun if you have access to one. You probably don’t have to do this if your pads are more flattened in shape on the inside, but I found it useful because when I butterfly, neither the nylon cord on the front attachment nor any of my straps on the back attachments touch the ground. So, this should minimize wear.
I’ve used the plates once so far on sportcourt. I did get some extra slide, as opposed to that almost adhesive sticking of the weave on the sportcourt. My movements felt quicker and more fluid overall.
On the cons side, I think that the plates made my pads a little stiffer, but it wasn’t something that I minded. If you notice, I didn’t thread the nylon cord through the top of the knee wing plate or the bottom of the boot plate, because I realized that it was unnecessary and I think that it would’ve impeded my pads from flexing even more.
Thanks to:
-Scott Battram for the idea
-soulpatch for sending me pics of his Battram pads with slide plates
-Marauder31 for the inspiration, posting the awesome pics of his own DIY slide plates and answering my questions
-NJDev803 for posting pics of the medial rolls on his pads
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