A Shoulder to Cry On - Fixing A Depressing CP's Weakest Part

[MadMax]

While a CP's main purpose is to protect one's chest and collarbones, the weakest joint on nearly every CP is the one connecting the shoulder arch plate to the pauldron. The pauldron is the outermost, dome-shaped plate that is colloquially referred to as "the shoulder"; yes, it does protect the shoulder, but it is only one part of a comprehensive shoulder protection group. The shoulder arch plate is the piece that is astride one's neck, and arcs up and over one's shoulder in line with the trapezius (muscle group). Typically, there is a connecting piece between this shoulder arch plate and the pauldron. Often, this connecting piece (or called a "spline") also joins to or includes a gap protector, called an ailette. The presence of this connecting spline is to allow articulation. 

More often than not, this spline is elastic, since a generically-sized CP has to fit a potentially varied size and shape of shoulders. Unfortunately, with age, that elasticity diminishes, and gaps start to appear between the arch plate and the pauldron that even the ailette can't cover.
Or, worse still, Wilson Golds will hard-stitch the pauldron pad to the entire chest pad, all 1"-thick-upholstery-foam of it, simply to forgo having to install a spline! Because the pauldron pad, too is 1" thick (much, much too thick), this causes a very crammed fit inside shirts, limits articulation, and makes one look like a bulky linebacker. 

How to fix this? The easy option would be to remove the pad. And, you can do that on a Wilson Platinum, or Charcoal, or even the classic Tri-Panel but you can't do it on the pesky, bloated Gold, because that would mean losing the pauldron plate too. It would be disconnected from the rest of the plates. 

Never fear, there is a solution! 

You remove the entire shoulder pauldron, plate & pad, by rendering the seam (the tool looks like a miniature pitchfork, used to pick out and kill the stitching; you can usually render the seam without damaging the edging). Once separated, drill 4 holes – 2 on the shoulder arch plate, 2 on the pauldron – within a rectangle created by a 1.5" - 2" piece of nylon webbing. In most cases, I use 2" heavy-duty nylon webbing. To make holes in the webbing, I use a torch-and-awl method to heat up the awl, and then lance through the nylon to create cauterized holes. Then, pass and secure Chicago screws through both pieces to fasten the two plates and webbing together. 

In order to put a pad beneath the pauldron, I typically favor shoulder pieces from old, old catcher and umpire washboard CPs. 

I will hold the new pad under the existing pauldron, and with a thin knife, mark out where to lance through the pad with my superheated awl. Fire up the torch, heat up the awl, and lance thru the new pad to create slots that line up with the slots on the pauldron. To secure the pad to the pauldron, I have a roll of double-sided velcro (one side hook; the other side loop, it secures to itself), cuttable to length. I simply loop it thru each of the 4 slot pairs – 2 per shoulder. 

By using this much thinner pad, you cut down the bulk significantly! 

 

But what if the shoulder is otherwise fine, but the elastic spline is shot, making the CP a challenge to wear? 
A good example of this is a Champion P220...

Here, the elastic had completely wore out. The owner didn't want the alettes any more, but still wanted to have a degree of gap protection. So, I once again set about making a 2" nylon webbing to connect the shoulder arch plate and the pauldron. I needed to drill new holes, since the existing ones were spaced out to 3"-3.5". I rummaged through my old spare parts, and located two pec wing pads off a Schutt AiR Flex. Prior to the debut of the Schutt XV in 2015, Schutt used this spongy material called Brock Beads to line their CPs. It was far surpassed by D3O, but here, it would do the trick. I lanced out holes in these pec wings, and secured them with longer Chicago screws than usual. 

The resulting arrangement was much welcomed by the owner of the CP...

Good to go! 

Don't settle for a CP gettin' old or out of shape on ya. There's always a way to fix and improve it. 

 

 

[834k3r]

Using a gold W as an example? @MadMax, are you in danger? Blink twice if you need help.

[MadMax]

51 minutes ago, 834k3r said:

Using a gold W as an example?

Twas not my Gold. 

This is a colleague’s CP. I’m not slighting him by saying he has a slighter build than me, but with that Gold, he was looking like a 90s NFL/NCAA linebacker, and was routinely struggling to get shirts on over it. 

 Nothing on the Gold qualifies as “intelligent design”. Everything on it is cheap & stupid. It’s greedily disgraceful they still get $225 off of us (umpires) for it. 

I dare say, the Platinum was a better CP… and that ain’t saying much. 

[umpstu]

22 hours ago, MadMax said:

Twas not my Gold. 

This is a colleague’s CP. I’m not slighting him by saying he has a slighter build than me, but with that Gold, he was looking like a 90s NFL/NCAA linebacker, and was routinely struggling to get shirts on over it. 

 Nothing on the Gold qualifies as “intelligent design”. Everything on it is cheap & stupid. It’s greedily disgraceful they still get $225 off of us (umpires) for it. 

I dare say, the Platinum was a better CP… and that ain’t saying much. 

I have to say I really like my West Vest. But, again, that eating paste and paint chips thing.

[Richvee]

I have to admit. The Gold was my first “real” CP when I graduated to big boy ball. Yeah, I looked like a linebacker. But it served me well for a long time. Do I like my Cobalt more? You bet.  But I really can’t complain with the protection and years of use I got out of the Gold. Maybe I was lucky. 

[SeeingEyeDog]

Douglas will also add gap protection to their CP's from factory...

~Dawg