Force 3 V1 as target practice?

[The Short Umpire]

So some of you may have seen my latest Frankenstein that @MadMaxwould consider more of a nightmare. I have it listed for sale but it might be more fun to take it out and use it for target practice to see what happens... thoughts anyone?  

[MadMax]

Personally, I wouldn't want to shoot it. I'd rather cast my own perforated HDPE or ABS plates, and then attach them onto that Force3 UnEqual V1 vest.

[Kevin_K]

12 hours ago, MadMax said:

Personally, I wouldn't want to shoot it. I'd rather cast my own perforated HDPE or ABS plates, and then attach them onto that Force3 UnEqual V1 vest.

I think we all know which CP @MadMaxwould derive the most pleasure from shooting.

[Razzer]

I did an autopsy on the F3 V1 last year...nothing special in it

Neoprene cover for the housing a rubber membrane or hard black foam with loose fitting Kevlar backing

The dead weight of this cp is the rubber membrane or black hard foam...feels like a rubber product

Fire away if you want to kill it

[BT_Blue]

2 hours ago, Razzer said:

I did an autopsy on the F3 V1 last year...nothing special in it

Neoprene cover for the housing a rubber membrane or hard black foam with loose fitting Kevlar backing

The dead weight of this cp is the rubber membrane or black hard foam...feels like a rubber product

Fire away if you want to kill it

I remember that. It was actually kind of disappointing how plain and uneventful that CP was. Basically a glorified and very expensive soft shell cp.

[MadMax]

57 minutes ago, BT_Blue said:

Basically a glorified and very expensive soft shell cp.

To be fair, if you’ve actually held a Carlucci in your hands, you’ll readily agree that it isn’t a typical, expected hard shell CP. Skinned in vinyl leatherette, a Carlucci’s protectiveness laid in its density. There isn’t a hard-cast plate in it. Anywhere! 

And generations of catcher’s washboard CPs lacked plates, too. 

So here we had an umpire (J.K.) who coordinated with an inventive group in UnEqual Technologies to infuse Kevlar into an atypical design that eliminated everything lumpy, bumpy, and brutish about… “big league” CPs (Wilsons!!!) with the estimation that the Kevlar would absorb and dissipate that energy that a Carlucci’s mass would otherwise deaden. 

So, they didn’t get it quite right.

[Mister B]

So I'm thinking some thin plates sandwiched between 2 layers of D3O. Possible holes or grooves for ventilation. Looks like a soft shell, acts like a hard shell. 

[MadMax]

8 hours ago, Mister B said:

So I'm thinking some thin plates sandwiched between 2 layers of D3O.

I like where your head is at, but that’s what a Schutt/Adams is. 

Instead, let’s try to keep our pondering to what Force3 should have / could have done with the problem in front of them, with the materials they had available at the time. The gravest error they did was not including hard plastic blast plates on V1, and then having Jim Evans wince during the demo. 

It makes physical sense to use Kevlar for its energy dissipation properties, but it has a significant flaw for us umpires – it decays in UV light. So that means you have to encase it in a non-UV-permeable skin (thus the neoprene), and the best place to adhere it to is the back of the blast plates… which becomes problematic because of UV exposure… 

[Mister B]

22 hours ago, MadMax said:

I like where your head is at, but that’s what a Schutt/Adams is. 

I wear the Adams and the plastic isn't sandwiched between the D3O.   There would be a layer of padding on the outside to keep it from being so loud. Although it looks impressive when one takes a shot to the chest, that sounds like a gunshot, but causes nary a flinch. 

[MadMax]

20 hours ago, Mister B said:

There would be a layer of padding on the outside to keep it from being so loud.

That’d be a waste of D3O. D3O’s best advantages are that it increases resistance when under sudden loads, while also being hydrophobic – it sheds water near-instantly. If we’ve got a solid plate between them, then the outer layer never needs to shed water… thus, it doesn’t have to be D3O, and could be something else, something less complex or expensive… 

… such as neoprene. Which is on the outside of the Force3 UnEqual, used exactly where it needs to be. Force3 just entirely misjudged the need for solid plates, putting those plates in so that users (umpires, who are by nature “seeing is believing” types) could see them or feel them, and an effective marketing campaign… 

… that didn’t involve Jim Evans wincing because he took a fastball towards the edge of the CP while it wasn’t worn fit-to-body. 

On 3/14/2022 at 2:59 PM, Kevin_K said:

I think we all know which CP @MadMaxwould derive the most pleasure from shooting.

The big "W" stands for "windage".