More non-threatening (and explainable) than nonchalant. On powerbocks sports armor makes sense, with orbit wheels, stilts, etc. But it's slipping as a major priority for me when working with groups... because nobody else does it. Explaining your own appearance in sports terms makes no sense when you're hanging out with someone in obvious body armor.

Z had no issues at all with his armor when he got questioned by the cops while longboarding.

My first major project after the shop build is done will solve the problem of wearing armor in "superhero casual" mode.

Any finished products forseen in the near future?

so far I've only had one encounter with mr. xtreme and his bulletproof vest ($1000 level IIIa) where the cops were like, wtf? but they really didn't seem to care that much, just like, why are you wearing that?

When will the Nite-Owlesque armor suit be done? =)

Victim, in "superhero casual" I'd just go with concealment. What I'd personally consider ideal is a knife resistant shirt with a concealment vest (just two plates really) worn over it. But I've been hesitant to drop the $200 for the knife shirt with so many other things to spend it on.

Night Stryder, it will probably be "grown," rather than appearing all of a sudden. Like one month a guy will have some awesome gauntlets... the next a lightweight helmet with built in night vision (and other) capabilities... the next month etc etc until gradually it's just super awesome.

For me personally last month my crotch and shins became armored and just yesterday I added some stuff to my forearms.

Also I thought Z had no problems with his armor specifically because it looked sporty...?

But from my experience in SF it kinda doesn't matter. You can just wear a full on military vest with a facemask and basically it just raises the cops eyebrows a little.

No promises as I don't have a steady income at the moment, but I will see what I can come up with.

I'm still not accepting funding or build requests, just doing the research for others to use.

I accept sponsers. And build requests. all built items will be offered as free use to anyone who wants or needs it. Those are the terms of sponsership

So I am starting on my version of the bullet proofing armor today. The first thing I wanted to do was get a good yeaild from this very expensive plastic. I made a cool discovery.

If instead of a hex pattern you cut the lexan in triangles you can get a a no loss (other than blade width) yeild from the lexan. Plus the hex pattern can be easily duplicated. PLUS the layers can be stagered to keep the seams from aligning.

Heres the ratios:

Bottom layer 2" isocolese triangles
Middle and Top layers 1" isocolese triangles

The seams from the top layer align with the bottom but not the middle.

looky

I'm interested in seeing how force distributes across that. Maybe you should model that in an inexpensive material, lay it down on a layer of modeling clay, and smack it with a hammer.

That test would just show how the force distributes, it won't accurately depict what is going to happen in a ballistic impact. In a ballistic impact the force would travel through the solid it impacts at the speed of sound (whatever that speed may be for the material in question). Layering the materials changes this speed between the layers and the individual pieces, causing the initial plate that is struck to deform more due to the fact it is subjected to more kinetic energy. Look at those pics from the fused samples. The internal damage was pretty massive, almost resembling an exit wound from flesh. A lot of energy was being dissipated there. What force does travel through to the other layers will then spread out in an area larger than a solid piece of material could mitigate without bending or breaking. By the time it gets to the backplate the hope is that the impact results in little or no backplate deformation. Or at least that is my theory...

that sounds like a worthy experiment. I think your guess is hypothisis is probably pretty close. I have to go get some more supplies before I can assemble it though. I thought I had some expanded metal (for between the layers) here but cannot find it for the life of me.

Well, Steel Fist's hexplate samples should tell the story. My shop is also going to have some testing ability as well.

found it! My expanded metal.

Here is the plan:

Layer of metal plate 0.63 tin probably. Havn't bought it yet
layer of expanded metal with silicone to fill voids
layer of lexan
layer of expanded metal with silicone to fill voids
layer of lexan
layer of expanded metal with silicone to fill voids
layer of lexan

so that makes 1 layer metal and 3 layers each of lexan and expanded metal with silocone

The idea is the lexan slows the slug, the expanded metal/silocone absorbs the shock. Thoeretcally the full force of a normal calibur shot should be completely (or close to it) spent by the time it hits the metal. Probably wont hold up to a sniper rifle but we shouldn't run across that under normal conditions. If someone is going to shoot at a hero it will be a low cal hand gun at relitively close range. 50ft or less. So that is what I am hoping to use as a bench mark

Expanded metal and silicone have drastically different speeds, that should work very well in ablating force.

I agree with the sniper rifle bit. If someone takes a crack at one of us with a .50 cal, it's over...

my question is, if you make the hexagons out of multiple pieces, would that negate the idea behind the hexagon shape? would the force be distributed through each triangle instead of the hexagon as a whole?

again ive dont no work in this stuff. this is just what comes to mind when i see it.

actually it "should" expand the principal behind the hexes. Technally the triangles are hexes with 3 extended points. if you take the hex and extend the edges of every other side, it becomes a triangle. And each triangle becomes the edge of 3 different hexes. so the dissipation should be carried across 3 different hexes. In theory