Aluminum masks

[yannick]

Hi everyone, i am looking to upgrade my mask. I currently own the champro drigear hollow wire mask(18 ounces) as a initiation mask but i'm calling higher leagues so i might want to upgrade to a stronger mask. I am concerned about weight though, i would like to get a strong but light mask. I've been looking at the allstar black magnesium mask(17.3 ounces). To be honest i'm not really sure what material is strongest. Magnesium, titanium, steel. Money is not really the issue. Just need some advice from you guys when it comes to material and fitting. 

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Yannick

[wolfe_man]

4 hours ago, yannick said:

Hi everyone, i am looking to upgrade my mask. I currently own the champro drigear hollow wire mask(18 ounces) as a initiation mask but i'm calling higher leagues so i might want to upgrade to a stronger mask. I am concerned about weight though, i would like to get a strong but light mask. I've been looking at the allstar black magnesium mask(17.3 ounces). To be honest i'm not really sure what material is strongest. Magnesium, titanium, steel. Money is not really the issue. Just need some advice from you guys when it comes to material and fitting. 

Magnesium won’t bend. Titanium can bend, but takes longer or enormous force. Steel is easiest to bend.

I have had all three.  You feel the hits a lot more in a super light mask. The trick is to make sure you have good pads!

[boyinr]

3 hours ago, wolfe_man said:

Magnesium won’t bend. Titanium can bend, but takes longer or enormous force. Steel is easiest to bend.

I have had all three.  You feel the hits a lot more in a super light mask. The trick is to make sure you have good pads!

The purpose of the frame is to stop the ball from physically hitting your face and to hold the pads.  Almost any frame will do that. Materials vary but the actual performance of the two design requirements is minimal based on what the frame is made of.  It is more about the design/shape and how it suits you and the pads you put the frame that you prefer. A pair of Team Wendy's in your present frame would be better for upper level ball than a exotic frame with some sorry pads. 

[BobUmp]

Each year, I take some fees money and experiment with a different or new mask planform. So over the past few years i have gotten games in with AL (Diamond and Wilson), Magnesium (Champro Rampage), and a bunch of steels (Wilson Low Profile, +POS ZERO-G, Honigs K4, Wilson Dyna-lite, All-Star FM-25 are the ones I had positive experiences with). I have a couple more i plan to test drive in the next few years..

My experiences so far are that you can get really light planforms in AL, Magnesium and Steel that at least rival, if not beat, the weight of a TI mask. TI looks great, and should have great sightlines because it is so thin. But it is expensive, and if it does bend, say goodbye to a couple hundred dollars. Also, as many said, the pads will be your most important protection item for the mask. Don't forget to have a good and properly adjusted harness as well.. So, really then, it comes down to personal preference on look, as well as sight lines and some extraneous protection items that may help you if your plate stance is a little different.

For example, the K-4 is surprisingly not that heavy even though it has big throat, upper head, and ear protection areas. It was a decent planform to pair with TWs when i was less experienced, because if i was "inadvertently" moving my head with the pitch a little, I was still protected somewhat from re-directed pitches or foul-offs. The same with the Diamond AL planform. Not as pronounced as the K-4, but still quite protective with TWs in it. And noticeably lighter than the K-4, even though the K-4 is not what i would consider heavy.

As I became more consistent with being perfectly still through a pitch, the planforms above felt "too big" to me, and I preferred something more demure, like the Wilson Dynalite, Wilson AL, and, my current favorite, the +POS ZERO-G. The Dynalite steel was too heavy for me, so I took that out of the lineup and sold that only a few weeks in. The Wilson AL is super-light, the sight lines are good, BUT I definitely feel shots more than with a steel planform. So TWs, or at least relatively new Wilson Leathers, for that Al mask. The ZERO-G is steel, yet super light-weight. i cannot tell the difference in weight when comparing it to the Wilson or Diamond AL and using TW pads in them. But since they are steel, they seem to "soak in" some of the shot, and a similar pitch that raises my attention in an Al planform with TWs is barely anything at all with the ZERO-G and TWs. And the sightlines are great. The only bad thing for you is it would be very difficult for you to obtain a ZERO-G because of the inconsistency with ordering from +POS..

As for the Wilson Low Profile, I have the CROMALY version and it was still quite noticably heavy, so i got rid of the plastic coating on the planform and painted it to thin it out and take weight off. The sight lines are fantastic, but while TWs kind of fit, that planform shape is really set up to use Wilson wraparounds. The other annoying thing is that I prefer 6-8 stitch caps for the plate, and this planform really demands a 4 stitcher, which makes me rarely use it.. Same with the RAMPAGE Magnesium. I can squish a 6 stitch cap, but it is a tight fit. It is super light, like the AL, same stiffness as AL i think (so have good pads), and looks totally cool. But I am not crazy about the sight lines, so i rarely pull it out of my storage box for a game...

Finally, To add a little bit to earlier comments, i had actually found an old +POS AL planform on EBAY that had black plastic on it, which i burned off and painted and used for awhile. I think it was sold by +POS in the early 2000s.. Under Mask Porn thread there are pics and comments on it. Well, it met its demise with a high 70s low 80s FB back a bit.. I have it just for show next to my baseball collection...