Uh. Dude? I feel really dumb right now. Those white plastic cutting boards you can buy everywhere including dollar stores? There are your plates. Double them up with a heat gun. Hell, you can even slip a layer of glass in there as well. I am going to the stores tomorrow.
Check with some plastic companies, they may know how to make a more dense recipe for plastic,that surpasses the milk carton plastic and make plates for you , if your tests show promising,you could sell the heck out of them and after the initial start up cost,the parts for you,would be relatively cheap.
Have u tried or thought about the compression characteristics of something that's in mom's cabinet??? CORN STARCH....the harder it's hit ...the harder it gets
@Larissa Powell What's the company name if I may ask? 🤔🤷 I'm all for being prepared, and since I now fully own my vehicle I'd like to invest in extra protection for it too. 😊👍
1. This is awesome! Really appreciate this. 2. I have a suggestion for your fabrication process with the composites. Instead of casting solid blocks of HDPE how about this. Separate the softened HDPE into 4-8 equal sized portions. Lay down the first portion and compress enough to form it to the mold. Then add a layer of fiberglass, then another layer of HDPE, layer of fiberglass, layer of HDPE, and so on. Put it back in the oven as necessary to maintain flexibility. After you've gotten however many layers you decide to make, put it back under compression (likely with weights that are heat resistant) and then heat the mold up to near melting point. Then go forward with the annealing process. With the composite sandwiched between HDPE the individual fibers motion is also constrained by the HDPE and the HDPE flow under impact forces is constrained by the composite fibers. Just an idea.
Yea I was thinking the same thing! I believe that the benefit from doing this is that when the bullet enters, there is that property that the HDPE has where it absorbs the energy really well, and is extremely durable. With that in mind, the layerings of fibreglass act as the part of the plate that will actually catch the bullet, allowing the energy to be spread out Better, and allow the HDPE to catch the bullet much better, creating more resistance for the bullet. Now if you added a steel plate (designed to fail, for reasons I am about to explain) placed in front that will slow down the bullet, allowing our HDPE/fibreglass composite plate to catch the now considerably slower bullet efficiently.
I really like this idea and I actually I think that at the very front, hexagonal ceramic /porcelain tiles should be the epoxied. The purpose of the tile is to break up the bullet into smaller process so it's easier to catch, then the fiberglass/plastic layers and finally if possible a 1/8” hardened steel that should stop there bullet after it's been fragmented and then slowed down
@@Techthisoutmeow i saw you respond to a comment about using steel bbs poured into with the milk jugs have you done that yet? Would love to see the results
This is truly ingenious, fantastic video, I started cutting up milk jugs, melting plastic grocery bags, chemical bottles, shampoo bottles etc into confetti. I ended up getting a cheap toaster oven to melt it down and made a 5×8 wood mold to press it in to make small individual plates for a batman armor suit and so far I've tried doing thin layers at a time of hdpe and putting fiberglass tape in between each layer of hdpe and change the direction of the fiberglass tape each time until the hdpe/fiberglass is a half an inch to 3/4 of an inch, I think that the fiberglass tape would work best in between the hdpe layers because the fiberglass strands are far apart so the hdpe can go through it and bond to itself better than fiberglass fabric since the hdpe can't melt into a liquid like epoxy resin does. Then I will try the annealing but not sure what temperature will work, I looked up a couple sites and one site said to anneal hdpe at 200 degrees for 2 to 4 hours and the other site said 250 degrees at 2 to 4 hours which I think might be to hot since hdpe melts right around that temperature and lower the temperature slowly after that between 10 to 50 degrees per hour, I'll try to figure it out as well, I won't be able to test it however where I live, I can't wait to see how your annealed hdpe plates stand up against hand gun rounds or rifle rounds etc. Ps I'd love to see you try what I'm doing with layers of fiberglass tape in between the hdpe. Again I really loved this video and it's inspiring!
Y'all should get together with Matt over at Demolition Ranch! This is right up his alley and he could help with production of more plates and hitting them with some high caliber weapons. Nice to see some good homegrown content still making it into my feed!
@@Techthisoutmeow Matt is a genuinely good guy, but he sees any collaboration as a opportunity to make money. If you have him run your merch you could negotiate for a collaboration and that bould bring you lots of new views and subscribers...and sell more merch.
19:39 You may encounter a similar problem if you make your 10x12 plate curved with the ceramic tiles. A counter is a mosiac, however, this leaves cracks between the tiles, and you've witnessed first hand what cracks between materials can result in. A simple solution is a double layer of ceramics offset in tessellation, but that forces you to use double the ceramic needed. I think a better solution is out there, and can likely be cooked up in the discord (when you give us the link, lol). Edit: 20:16 There is a commercially available level 3 plate (AMI something) that is non ceramic that uses dynemma backer with 3mm steel in FRONT. This might be the plate to try to imitate, its multi hit capability is ridiculous since ceramic is ditched entirely.
Using overlapping colums like roof tiles lets you use one layer with only a slight increase in mass, where you on average have like 1.1 or 1.2 layers of tile at any perticular point.
@@ravener96 on paper it seems like a good solution, but we have ruled that out on the Tech discord. Ceramics to properly perform need to be directly backed by a flat face, i.e. the backer, for best performance. After you factor in fillers to support the roof tile style onto a curved backface, you lose your weight gains.
@@floridianzach2277 i was thinking the entire thing would be embedded in UHMWPE. i dont see a stepped UHMWPE filler weighing the same as an extra tile layer. you could even use glass fiber to start catching the material already.
@@SaneAsylum That material isn't strong enough. Fencing though... And you also need to try and force the round to break apart like the Hollow Points, to further prevent penetration.
Can you get it liquid enough to knead in loose fiberglass? I think you can buy loose fiber that's normally used as an additive for concrete. Or maybe just impregnate fiberglass cloth with the plastic instead of resin.
Hi liked this video. I'm wondering if you have ever considered powderizing the hdpe and doing multiple layers with kevlar or fiberglass in between. In my mind there would be added benifits by combining the materials within a sheet. Would be cool to see you test the idea out
I did my own test after seeing your first set of videos using several layers of fiberglass and milk jugs. I was able to keep my plate around 1 inch thick. I was able to stop 45 acp, 45 colt, and 357 mag at point blank. The more layers I used the better it stopped the bigger rounds but had delamination problems, also my plates were about the size of a cellphone. The less layers I used would stop more small rounds before if delaminationed.
Try putting a metal mesh screen out front to get the bullet expanding/deforming right away. Lead bullet shooters make hard cast because any deformation limits penetration.
@@Techthisoutmeow had access to polycarb drops from work years ago and point blank, non-compressed, 1/8" (to equal a chunk of see-thru flooring we installed in a renovated barn silo; one inch) stopped 9mm while the single piece of thicker poly was fully passed thru.
@@katiebea9258 I did a similar to that! ua-cam.com/video/hLkoDZKa1uc/v-deo.html heres the video for polycarbonate testing. and yeah, polycarbonate is one of the best solid block plastics for this type of stuff.
@@Techthisoutmeow watched video and mine was give or take 18", shooting downward into the maybe 45° angled sheets, no wrap ... Very unprofessional comparatively ... More of a MT rural, "I wonder?" and a Firefly Mal, "huh??" at the experiment's end. I am curious if one went with 1/8" PC, then thin layer milk jug melt, then 1/8" with a hardware cloth facing then IDK ... Hardware cloth interspersed in "jug melt" would add virtually no weight, but might aid in "forming" while cooling??? PC "springs back" after heating (but not melted) as I tried that trying to make my own windscreen for tour cycle shield that broke.
Very impressive. I hope you keep working at this to make it even better. Keep notes on everything you do. Your processes could end up being the key to what works the best in the end.
Thank you! Yeah I've done a few different experiments similar to this, here's the video for making it as a laminate! ua-cam.com/video/uAUh3DspOgs/v-deo.html
I see lots of potential. Try making several thinner layers and sandwich several of them with wire mesh between each layer; then heat it up and compress the whole thing so the mesh layers are embedded in the plastic. You could also add some steel wool between each mesh layer; I think this will considerably add to the stopping power because as a bullet pushes through the mesh, the mesh (and steel wool) will pull the plastic tighter around the bullet as well as help hold the plastic together.
Couple of thoughts- Cut some of that glass into strips and incorporate it into the HDPE when molding it. That way the glass will basically create small pockets of restrained plastic that can't move out of the bullets' way as easily. In other words put the added strength of the glass inside the HDPE instead of outside. With sufficient pressure the HDPE should penetrate the glass cloth and bond it all together. HDPE (like most thermoplastics doesn't "melt" the way say ice does. It has a "fusion temperature" (look it up) slightly above 400F depending on its exact composition. Commercial processing is done at about 420- 430F to get best homogeneity and crosslinking which increases strength. Yes, it's harder to handle at that temperature but you can also pour it into molds like syrup instead of kneading it like dough. That means you can make fiberglass "lasagna" out of it- a layer of glass cloth, a layer of HDPE, repeat until the mold is full. Mild steel plates would be better on the front than on the back IMO. Bullets lose more energy penetrating that than they do HDPE so it would be better to decelerate them rapidly with the steel, then let the plastic do the relatively easy part of catching them.
Used to work in a lab testing ppe for use by auto oems. You’re doing a good job figuring this out so far, the only thing i might suggest is to produce standardized test specimens for analysis before a material is destined for the range. Why? Firstly, and most importantly in this line of inquiry, is to ensure a sample’s homogeneity. Secondly, os the ease of testing will be improved, and the quality of data, will be improved by am order of magnitude. Thirdly, the cost of doing testing (in money and time) per data point can be brought down as your data gets better. A simple charpy/izod set up, density check, vacuum annealing oven, hot oil bath, etc could be had onn the cheap depending on your handiness amd luck in finding deals. That with some ingenuity with excel could give you repeatable results that will give insights into how the material responds to stresses and why, while also permitting the testing of additives (such as talc nylon fiberglass rubber etc) and novel manufacturing methods. Most of the astm/iso procedures, requirements, specifications, methods, etc are available online. These will give you a start on the how amd why of various tests you could perform.
I plan on it! Been working hard at some new plates, should have an update really soon. Make sure to subscribe, and if your interested in armor and learning more you can check out my discord
I've already done a comprehensive battery of ballistics tests using solid 3/8 inch thick and 1/32 laminated sheets to make 3/8 thick using Delrin (Polyoxymethylene POM), and it handles nearly every cartridge available to the public.
Woah, I would love to see some photos or even a video of that! do you have a write up on weight, grade, cost? Come over to my discord discord.gg/kPTcdbJ I would love to have a chat with you!
@@Techthisoutmeow Could you try the resin formula of Tech Ingredients channel? It is just Resin + aluminum oxide polishing stones of different sizes + silicone carbide (also a common polishing medium) of different particle sizes + fumed silica (finest possible dust) would be pleased to see its performance
@@MagicGumable So about 2 years ago I started testing stuff like that, if you go back to my 1000 subscribers update video I show and go over some of those plates I've made! I've been sitting on that test footage til I could fabricate new ones for more data. I built multiples of tungsten carbide, silica carbide and boron carbide. They preformed pretty good when I got the ratios dialed in, however there were inconsistencies in some plates. HOWEVER, since I've had a discord I've learned a lot from different people what might have been at fault. So to answer your question quite long windily lol, yes, I plan on using them in a video soon!
Stunning Research & Development work, I love it. You guys got one new subscriber. Plus the results are awesome. Those plates didn't receive any favor treatment and still handle the bullet storm. Beyond impressive ! I hope you success in your work, be sure I'll catch up my late on your enjoyable videos.
Shit I didn’t know this account was still making videos. I was just about to watch the q & a. I was watching all the different videos then I saw this. So I guess I’ll subscribe:)
Thanks man, Yeah I took some time off, but I'm more motivated to finish what I started than ever before now! Imma make some full suits soon, stay tuned!
Wonder if it could be impregnated into vehicle tires? Or plastic tubes, plastic rims? Boats canoes and hundred other things, watched for another purpose,, stop signs any sign and poles reduce reuse recycling ,decking, we have a plastic problem getting the ocean clean , floor tiles, Portuguese block curbing, maybe even pour a slab, pallets ? Just a thought
Try encasing the ceramic and steel within the hdpe to help hold the ceramic together. It would also be interesting to see how layering the materials within each other in various thickness effects the ability of the plates to stop projectiles.
Fun fact the first modern Kevlar vest where made buy a pizza guy named Richard Davis, a former US Marine. After he finished his service with the US armed forces he decided to open up a pizzeria on 7 Mile, Detroit in 1969. This location wasn’t renown for its safety and as such Davis would encounter some problems while running his business. One night Davis got an order for two large pepperoni and ham pizzas. The address given to him by the caller led him down a dark alleyway where he was robbed at gunpoint by three men. With his last $70 Davis bought Kevlar from DuPont and fashioned the pieces of fabric into vests which he went on to advertise to different police departments around his area.
That's awesome man. Good stuff. I like the idea of re-annealing the hdpe. Would you just leave it in the mold, let it cool and pop it back in the oven at 250 or 300 for 10 or so minutes?
Thanks! Yeah you get the idea, I would remove it from the mold and let it be brought to room temp. The process seems real easy, but time consuming because it'll have to be brought up to the 250 range and held there for about a hour or so, the allowed to cool slowly for another half hour. But if it makes them 2-3 times as impact resistant then it'll be worth it!
I hope this will be giving ideas to office furniture makers who make things like cubical panels and room dividers. Materials and constructions like these could give people in offices a *major* survival uptick vs. shooters and possibly even shrapnel if used in the office environment at relatively very little increase in cost.
So, I'm pretty sure that plastic cutting boards are the same type of plastic (or similar enough to give the same results). They are thinner of course, but I wonder if you alternated a few layers of fiberglass and tiles with them what sort of results you'd have. Tile to break up the bullet, plastic to slow it down, fiberglass to catch fragments, repeated a couple times. Would be interesting.
Ah for sure, I plan on testing out a few different combos once I get this annealing HDPE process finalized. I want to push this stuff to the highest limit possible. Also, I just watched some of your vids, great stuff brother!
If you pour the plastic into the fiberglass final form instead of building the fiberglass shell around the plastic, it might reduce the area the plastic can use in deformation and provide more stopping friction.
If you are not doing this already, your best bet at stopping any bullet is to put the ceramic or metal plate as the first layer in this ballistic protection system you are creating. The reason for this is you want to break up the bullet or make it fragment upon impact with a hard surface. The plastic will deform (plastic deformation vs elastic deformation) and absorb some of the kinetic energy of the projectile. The problem you will face in using low thermal plastics is the kinetic energy of high velocity rounds tend to 'melt' there way thru plastic barriers that have a low melting point, kind of like a hot knife thru butter. The problem with using ceramics, for bullet fragmenting, is they tend to shatter like glass after the first round hits them and therefore drastically reduce their effectiveness at shattering successive rounds. The fiberglass wrap you are using is really good idea for spall containment. Lastly, the best material I know of for fragmenting high velocity bullets is high carbon steel, but this ways a ton so to speak. Love the video and project you have going on, godspeed in your endeavors.
Duuuude, what if, you could incorporate some wire fence INTO the HDPE block in order to avoid excesive expansion? could that help? Like, 2 or 3 layers of chicken wire fence or something thicker, just pressed between 1/4 inch layers of hdpe? Would that help? I think it'd be way cheaper at least, it would be awesome even if it could only reliably stop pistol calibers
Have you thought about laminating layers of the hdpe rather than melting it into a solid block? I know that some commercial level 4 plates are ceramic front with multiple layers of a ultra high density PE.
I was thinking the same thing. My research on commercially produced UHDPE plates revealed that they laminate about ten sheets together that then de-laminate on impact. The delamination absorbs even more energy from the bullet.
I've used UHMWPE fabric before, that stuff is wonderful. The bullet resistant Guy Fawkes mask that could stop shots from a magnum was made out of it. I don't know if they make a HDPE fabric, I know you can find thin films of it. So as far as laminating HDPE layers together I dont know if I could with just recycled plastic, but I'll look into it.
Yeah, UHMWPE is some crazy stuff. This was more of a test to see how well recycled HDPE could hold up, because it's one of the most produced plastics in the world. But there will be future builds with UHMWPE fabric and sheets!
@@Techthisoutmeow I'm thinking you could weld thin layers of hdpe together with a heat gun with fiberglass tape in between and the fiberglass tape has holes in it which should be enough to allow the hdpe to go through the fiberglass tape and bond to the layer of hdpe underneath the fiberglass tape. I'd love to see that tried.
You could probably make very cheap vehicle protection with plates like these, since they're light weight and relatively easy to mold and form. I think you just became a millionaire, or I sure hope so! Keep up the good work!
Hey James, thanks again for another interesting video! The performance difference between the HDPE and wrapped HDPE plates was indeed pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to the performance of the HDPE after annealing though. Do you have any video footage of how the plate performed that you tested for me? (2 porcellain tiles and 1/2" polycarbonate plate) I would be interested in seeing how much the ceramics shattered and how it stood up overall.
Yeah plastic annealing kinda blew my mind! That raises more questions for me, because plenty of company's don't anneal there plastic after they form it because of the extra run time it takes. Some do, and it shows great results when it's properly applied. The fact that most of the plastics I use in these builds could be annealed to bring up impact resistance Is worth trying! Yeah your plate was going to be on my new bullet resistant glass video because I use a lot of polycarbonate in that video, however now that I have a focus in improving ceramics for ballistic tests (another test video coming up soon!) I'll be apart of that video. It handled real good brother.
@@fadedjate7230 high density polyethylene. Common everyday plastic. Milk jugs, laundry detergent jugs ect tend to be made of it.think grocery bags too. U can Google the hdpe code and look for it on items and ull be surprised how many.
Very interesting work your doing! Thank you for making, sharing and teaching! God willing, most of us will never truly NEED to know how to make body armor at home...But we DO live in uncomfortably interesting times. Two suggestions that may aid your efforts: First, If your not already familiar with his work, I'd highly recommend a maker by the name of Robert Murry-Smith. The majority of his work in the past centered around Graphine and Graphitized carbons for the use in batteries, however, in his efforts to develop better battery materials, he discovered that certain simple types of home make-able, bio-plastics enhanced with small amounts of graphine become insanely tough. Very, VERY tough! Though he flew to the US to test the plates with real .223 & 7.62 (neither penetrated the 3/8 in. plates as I recall) he never did much follow up on the discovery, primarily I believe, because he's based in the UK and ballistic testing there is licence restricted & expensive. Some of his videos on easily making graphine at home & mixing it into plastics may aid your results. The second suggestion is one of assembly methodology. There is a construction method for stabilizing loose & sandy soils that uses layers of mesh materials sandwiched between very thin layers of sand. The resultant 4"x4"x4" "tower" combination of thin alternating layers was strong enough to support the weight of 1/4 of a car without collapsing and NO side supporting or encasement wrapping. You can easily do a simple test of this phenomena with a soup can (or any smooth sided cylinder), an old porch or window screen, and enough sand to fill the cylinder. First moisten the sand enough to make a sand castle style "tower" with the cylinder. You'll find that without the forming sleeve, the sand "tower" collapses under very little weight. If you cut the window screen into circles just small enough to fit inside the cylinder and simply add a screen disks flat between every 1/8 th in. of sand as you fill the cylinder, you'll find that you have a tremendously stronger "Tower" even without the cylinder form in place. If you did the same layering process with thin layers of HDPE sandwiched alternating with the mesh, I think you may enhance your results WITHOUT having to use any additional materials and MAYBE even using less of them, as embedding the fiberglass or kevlar (which are insanely strong in tensile strength, but weak in shear) into the HDPE (which is extremely flexible and tough, but not brittle) There is a good possibility that the strength of each material,if combined properly, will reinforce the weakest properties of the other and you'll end up with what your looking for. You can find an analogue for this in nature. Tucan's beaks are primarily made up of two weak compounds, but when combined, form an extremely tough, flexible and hard material. I hope you have a chance to see this comment and that perhaps it helps you. :) May God bless You, your Family, and your Work K
What if you did the plates with thinner laminated layers of plastic, with the fiberglass layers between each, rather than a solid piece ??? Perhaps some sort of grit (such as sand) substance infused into the epoxy or resin as well. Maybe a thinner (stainless) plate behind? Isn’t stainless harder than the kind of metal you used even in a thinner form? Perhaps stainless screen wire midways through? I’d go with some sort of dense rubberized backing to help disperse the impact on the body, maybe? Just wondering. Excellent experiments. 👍🏻 Enjoyed it. Thanks guys. 🙂
@@Techthisoutmeow I have noticed... After each failure I cut the HDPE plate into pieces and re-heat it...each time the plate gets stronger. I found used HDPE...milk jugs, shampoo bottles,Ect..to be stronger than the NEW HDPE I purchased online. The NEW sucked until about the third use ?? Will be glad to send ya a pound to test yourself.
@@ucdan5 Yes, multiple reheats. I would melt it down, put in press for 24 hours, take it out and shoot it. With each Reheat I found the same product got "harder"...or tougher you mite say. I have noticed no change after reusing it 4 times. WITH THAT SAID...Did I unconsciously heat it longer...Hotter...cool it slower...press it tighter ?? ...I wasnt very Scientific in my process...as far as repeating exact steps. That;s one reason I posted what I found. I hoped others would chime in with their findings. Wish I had a warming/cooling box like his...I think cooling too fast hurts it.
@@bubbaonpc how long would you heat it and how would you cool it slower? Reduce the oven temp I assume? And how many gallons of milk would you use at a time?
Awesome thank you. I have to say perhaps a sandwich of the plastic and kevlar say 5 layers with a thin hard steel plate at the back to catch the round after it has mushroomed and lost some energy. Appreciat the effort. Cheers.
Yeah I bought a tile cutter so I could cut them down into different shapes and stuff. I've also been developing my own ceramics out of boron carbide powder and resin, and those have been real impressive!
@@jasonmacdocman1716 Yeah, roving is different than blanket weaves. Really good stuff though, if your looking into fiberglass reinforcement I would go for some S-glass over E-glass or any other grades. It's much stronger, as far as grams and other information I couldn't tell you best off hand, but I do have someone testing out different weave patterns and grades for ballistics on my discord! You should join and ask some questions there.
@@jasonmacdocman1716 yeah one of them was that combo, but another was nylon and another was kevlar. The basic one was just plastic wrapped in fiberglass
Once while using jb weld on a plastic radiator manifold, i added just plain aluminium oxide powder to help it stick to itself. That might be a bad description, but the point is that it worked, extremely well. Maybe, if you pulverized your milk jug plastic beforebaking it, you could add a measured amount of aluminum oxide powder or even metal filings/chips from drilling and grinding wirk to help make a mire cohesive mixture, as well as layering it with fiberglas.
listen, make layers, make a solid steeel core, thin metal plate, something really tempered and reinforced, add the plastic, then add the fibre then add more plastic and fiber
@@Techthisoutmeow ps, two thoughts, yes solid plate for the metal, arrayed tiles with the cracks filled with silicone for the porcelain or granite/quartz tiles...
planning to manufacture this kind of armor, but making it a full suit, with a continuous steel structure, HDPE middle, and you could put the ceramics inside a gel to prevent it from cracking or if it does, keep it in one piece
@@Techthisoutmeow how deep in water would rifle shot go? how much would the length be if you have the non-compressable (or just little compressable) water in pressurised container? would the shot make a vortex inside the container?
I retired from school district maintenance. We used and discarded 5/8" slabs of recycled milk jugs and oil bottles. Stopped most .22lr rounds and .38 special. Man, I miss being able to pull them out of the dumpster.
Soda bottle plastic (pete) is stronger than the milk jug plastic but you can't melt it down so my idea is to let's say cut and straighten out 100 soda bottles (the middle parts not the tops or bottoms) and place those together, sanding both sides of the soda plastic on each one and resin them together then resin them to the hdpe to be like a strike face. I used to shoot my 10 pump bb gun at bottles back in the day and still remember how the plastics differ in strength, I've been thinking about making plates since 2016 and done tons of research on it, now if only I had the money to waste lol!!!! I've been looking up units of weight (giggapascals and psi) for materials that could make the perfect armor and found a lot of information I mean the brainstorming was off the charts lol!!!!! Look for the strongest adhesives and materials with tensile strengths over 8000 psi, materials with the hardness measured in gigapascals like diamonds but harder & yes there are things out there on the market just as strong/harder then diamond then think shear thickening fluid as a wrap around cover for the plate (polyethylene glycol and reptile calcium or silica ... Nano tech ) & wow!!! I'm in the zone lol!!! I've been looking into graphene and metal foams and carbon fiber nanotubes and a shit load of stuff that would help me out in my quest. I think you should look up the bear suit guy here on UA-cam, his name was troy hurtubise, a Canadian inventor who created not just a invincible bear suit but a ballistics armor even stronger than the bear suit, the man was a composite genius before he died back in 2018.
I quit wearing BA. There are so many obese folks out in public the advantage I gain in less weight is worth it. Keep eating those Krispy Kremes and I'll always have an abundance of cover. Thanks y'all!🤠🇺🇸⚔🇮🇱🍺
Came here back after some time when I saw the testvideo of your plate-collection from Taofledermaus. It is amazing how tough this material is. I experimented myself with armors for some time (not in that dimentions you do, but working with paper can have remarkable results) and read a lot about it. I have some suggestion, that may should work in my mind, but I have not yet seen realized in home made body armors: The hard material of the projectile has to break up to increase it's surface of spread it's energy. Ceramic is very hard and breaks and absorbs the incoming energy that way. Metall acts brittle or ductile depending on various situations. In tanks they use sandwich-armor, where a ceramic medium is placed thight between two metall plates. The ceramic tile breaks up, but stays more or less together by the metall front and backing. That prevents the brittle ceramic from exploding. (As you said, compression helps to keep the material together so it doesn't move out of the way too much. my idea would be: a ceramic tile, which is reinforced by some kind of resin and a surounding layer of fibre is glued between two sheets of metall. This can be backed with polyethylen to absorb energy and this is wrapped by fibre/resin, so it holds together. Some interesting additional notes: In early days of ceramic armor-developement, someone explored, that ceramic coated steel (emael coating) was more durable than the same steel without. Making emael was a quite common technic to make household metall corrosion resistant, so it should not be too complicated to use this technic for own purposes. Maybe a stag of thin steel sheets (easier to bend), which get coated and glued together could make an interesting core for polyethylen-armor. Observations of my own work with paper/glue/fabric-sandwiches gave me the conclusion, that changing layers of hard and elastic materials create objects, that can absorb much impact and penetration energy. I hope you can take some inspirations for your work. Greetings from Germany🙋
I have! The next few videos will have in depth analysis on the subject of backface deformation! First up will be a new ceramic strike face comparison video, then back to HDPE! So stay stuned.
Right, it's just nice to see the range of firepower it can withstand. Everybody likes the .223 or 556 in the states, if only we could find ammo for it right lol.
You need to build special molds, 2 long ones or 4 small ones and using a truck with the bed full, put tons of weight on the molten hdpe.... More weight more strength??? Yup!!! I would use that method not only on the melted hdpe but the resined fiberglass on the finished plastic plates then coat then with a resin / silicone carbide paste then follow up with a final layer of fiberglass and again to the truck pressurized mold box to get the silicone carbide particles as meshed together as close as possible .... The carbide like sand but as hard as diamond will eat the bullet you shot at it and the other components will catch the fragments easier leaving the armor stronger , harder and more durable . Looking into research on things harder than diamond I learned about gigapascales and other measurements that no ones has spoken of in armor vids yet ... I watched a Russian couple stop bullets by compressing toilet paper!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol!!!!!!!!!! Enough weight on the fresh materials equals more strength!!!!!!
Great video. Can I offer this: lamination is the key. For example; perforated (1/16th) holes stainless steel 1/8th sheet. Then your milk jug material 1/2 inch followed by thin aluminium sheet, Then 3 layers of 1/8th thick fibreglass, Kevlar and carbon fibre backed thin sheet of titanium. Bulletproof!
how many layers of fiber glass did you wrap around bare hdpe? and to be more cost efficient for a bigger plate, if i only put fglass on the front of hdpe, would it offer the same protection? in other words, does the fglass further from your shot matter? thank you for reading
Awesome vid brother ! Some great info for newbies or like most of the country now people with smaller normal budgets, not SPONSORED budgets. Like utube is filled of.
Speed kills. You want harder materials (ceramics,steels,glass) on the face to deform the bullet and wipe off initial velocity then the hdpe can catch what is left. Thin sheet of AR 500 style materials. Or maybe a sand mix or ceramic mix in a face plate then combine and wrap as your doing. There is also a calculation similar to shear strength to calculate how much energy will penetrate. You are correct about the joins in materials. Homogenous materials will resist failure better than joins. You can apply this rule to all materials used. Awesome video. Thank You for your efforts.
I love what you doing. this is awesome. I can't remember if I mentioned yesterday but I read up on kneading bread dough. It aligns the glutin like into fibers of sorts. I watched you kneeding that and thought that could have a huge effect. couple more thoughts. 1. Have you tested the fiberglass itself? I say this because you are not doing anything to compress the plates to speak of unless the plastic swells as it cools, which is possible but most things do shrink. Certainly wrapping even very snugg and carefully is not going to compress that tough plastic appreciably. It is possible that as the bullet strikes the plastic it sends like a shock wave as the bullet forces through. Like a rapid wave of expansion that is forced back to catch the bullet. Cuz again, the amount of size increase or better volume increase is just so tiny that it doesn't sound logical it could be that. Like if the fiberglass was just helping the plastic to resist volume increase, well that just does not seem possible. If it is a shock wave, the size of the plate might be critical. I watched a video of blowing up a concrete wall at super high speed. that gave me the idea. When the concrete broke through there was a big dimple that you would't expect from concrete on the back side from the explowion. A fancy high speed picture of the bullet hitting would help especially if the fiberglass wa transparent. a good test of my shock wave would be maybe have the plastic packed in an open metal pan like 1" deep. But just made out of 14 gauge SS. bullet going into the open side of a pan or with a similar 12 or 14 gauge metal piece. Your fiberglass wrap didn't cover two of the ends really did it? I worked as a contractor doing piping and installation at a big blow molding company in L.A. Making millions of clear plastic jugs. PET is the plastic they use for that. I don't know if the opaque jugs is the same, it doesn't look of feel the same.
Dude this is it!!! If you can make plates out of the Milk Jugs not only lighter but you can install it in Windows , Doors and vehicles without the added weight!!!! Dude
Have you tried putting the hdpe in metal rings to constrict the materials expansion? You could make discs out of 1.5 or 2 inch pipe. Or if you could use sqaure tubing to make scales for a panel? Just some thoughts that popped out of a NOS fueled nap.
For those interested in seeing recycled HDPE used as a laminate check out my newest version of these plates! ua-cam.com/video/uAUh3DspOgs/v-deo.html
Uh. Dude? I feel really dumb right now. Those white plastic cutting boards you can buy everywhere including dollar stores? There are your plates. Double them up with a heat gun. Hell, you can even slip a layer of glass in there as well. I am going to the stores tomorrow.
Check with some plastic companies, they may know how to make a more dense recipe for plastic,that surpasses the milk carton plastic and make plates for you , if your tests show promising,you could sell the heck out of them and after the initial start up cost,the parts for you,would be relatively cheap.
@@bashkillszombies They could use nitrogen to inject the plastic.
Have u tried or thought about the compression characteristics of something that's in mom's cabinet??? CORN STARCH....the harder it's hit ...the harder it gets
What a fascinating experiment. I think you should keep going until you stop an AK47.
I swear to God, if you figure out how to make a level IV plate, you should be awarded a freedom medal
Add ceramic tiles in front.
I'm working on it, check back soon!
Lol.
You need to get a hydraulic press
Granite is actually harder however it is more expensive and heavier than ceramic..
Alternate directions of your fabric by 45° every wrap. It's how they increase strength in regular kevlar vests
Then add a layer of kevlar
Yes. When high tech boats are built, the weave directions of the cloth are varied to provide strength in every direction.
That’s how aircraft composites are manufactured and repaired while using vacuum pressure.
İ have 2 opinions. +60,-60 than +15,-15 and a 90° Kevlar could be better. And second, it will increase the cost of armor.
İ have 2 opinions. +60,-60 than +15,-15 and a 90° Kevlar could be better. And second, it will increase the cost of armor.
Excited for that .308 test's results, love the idea of re-using old milk jugs, very eco and utilitarian.
Yeah 308 is my favorite.
@@richardbellsr2345 I never liked that round or the 223.
@@jackjones4043 commie
I'd be interested in seeing similar "armor" panels installed into the doors, and seat backs, and roof, of a vehicle,....
I'm with you on the actual use. This application seems a bit thick and the awkward to use as a wearable.
@Larissa Powell What's the company name if I may ask? 🤔🤷
I'm all for being prepared, and since I now fully own my vehicle I'd like to invest in extra protection for it too. 😊👍
If you need roof plates, I want to know what city you're in so I can avoid it.
@@CtrlAltRetreat Aleppo
@@jhtsurvival
Lol, yeah fair enough. And yeah I'll avoid any city where getting sniped at from balconies is an honest consideration
1. This is awesome! Really appreciate this. 2. I have a suggestion for your fabrication process with the composites. Instead of casting solid blocks of HDPE how about this. Separate the softened HDPE into 4-8 equal sized portions. Lay down the first portion and compress enough to form it to the mold. Then add a layer of fiberglass, then another layer of HDPE, layer of fiberglass, layer of HDPE, and so on. Put it back in the oven as necessary to maintain flexibility. After you've gotten however many layers you decide to make, put it back under compression (likely with weights that are heat resistant) and then heat the mold up to near melting point. Then go forward with the annealing process. With the composite sandwiched between HDPE the individual fibers motion is also constrained by the HDPE and the HDPE flow under impact forces is constrained by the composite fibers. Just an idea.
I would also like to see this tried. I was thinking the same thing watching this video
Yea I was thinking the same thing! I believe that the benefit from doing this is that when the bullet enters, there is that property that the HDPE has where it absorbs the energy really well, and is extremely durable. With that in mind, the layerings of fibreglass act as the part of the plate that will actually catch the bullet, allowing the energy to be spread out Better, and allow the HDPE to catch the bullet much better, creating more resistance for the bullet. Now if you added a steel plate (designed to fail, for reasons I am about to explain) placed in front that will slow down the bullet, allowing our HDPE/fibreglass composite plate to catch the now considerably slower bullet efficiently.
I like your idea!
@@biohazard0482 the one issue with the plate on front is spalling though
I really like this idea and I actually I think that at the very front, hexagonal ceramic /porcelain tiles should be the epoxied. The purpose of the tile is to break up the bullet into smaller process so it's easier to catch, then the fiberglass/plastic layers and finally if possible a 1/8” hardened steel that should stop there bullet after it's been fragmented and then slowed down
Great work! Taofladermaus put your work on display. More than impressive.
Mother in law's going to ask me why I have 350 milk jugs I refuse to throw away lol
The plie of plastic sheets and bottles in my garage would make those horders tv crew cry!
@@Techthisoutmeow i saw you respond to a comment about using steel bbs poured into with the milk jugs have you done that yet? Would love to see the results
just cut them up and compact them into a box
@@Techthisoutmeow Right haha, I always re-use and re-cycle everything, love making my own shit, I'm not a hoarder though, I promise!
This is truly ingenious, fantastic video, I started cutting up milk jugs, melting plastic grocery bags, chemical bottles, shampoo bottles etc into confetti. I ended up getting a cheap toaster oven to melt it down and made a 5×8 wood mold to press it in to make small individual plates for a batman armor suit and so far I've tried doing thin layers at a time of hdpe and putting fiberglass tape in between each layer of hdpe and change the direction of the fiberglass tape each time until the hdpe/fiberglass is a half an inch to 3/4 of an inch, I think that the fiberglass tape would work best in between the hdpe layers because the fiberglass strands are far apart so the hdpe can go through it and bond to itself better than fiberglass fabric since the hdpe can't melt into a liquid like epoxy resin does. Then I will try the annealing but not sure what temperature will work, I looked up a couple sites and one site said to anneal hdpe at 200 degrees for 2 to 4 hours and the other site said 250 degrees at 2 to 4 hours which I think might be to hot since hdpe melts right around that temperature and lower the temperature slowly after that between 10 to 50 degrees per hour, I'll try to figure it out as well, I won't be able to test it however where I live, I can't wait to see how your annealed hdpe plates stand up against hand gun rounds or rifle rounds etc. Ps I'd love to see you try what I'm doing with layers of fiberglass tape in between the hdpe. Again I really loved this video and it's inspiring!
Dude show us!
@@normanthehobbiest i second that!
Y'all should get together with Matt over at Demolition Ranch! This is right up his alley and he could help with production of more plates and hitting them with some high caliber weapons.
Nice to see some good homegrown content still making it into my feed!
Thanks man, and I've reached out to Matt a few times. I don't think he's interested honestly. Who knows though, maybe in the future
@@Techthisoutmeow Matt is a genuinely good guy, but he sees any collaboration as a opportunity to make money. If you have him run your merch you could negotiate for a collaboration and that bould bring you lots of new views and subscribers...and sell more merch.
19:39 You may encounter a similar problem if you make your 10x12 plate curved with the ceramic tiles. A counter is a mosiac, however, this leaves cracks between the tiles, and you've witnessed first hand what cracks between materials can result in. A simple solution is a double layer of ceramics offset in tessellation, but that forces you to use double the ceramic needed. I think a better solution is out there, and can likely be cooked up in the discord (when you give us the link, lol).
Edit: 20:16 There is a commercially available level 3 plate (AMI something) that is non ceramic that uses dynemma backer with 3mm steel in FRONT. This might be the plate to try to imitate, its multi hit capability is ridiculous since ceramic is ditched entirely.
Using overlapping colums like roof tiles lets you use one layer with only a slight increase in mass, where you on average have like 1.1 or 1.2 layers of tile at any perticular point.
@@ravener96 on paper it seems like a good solution, but we have ruled that out on the Tech discord. Ceramics to properly perform need to be directly backed by a flat face, i.e. the backer, for best performance. After you factor in fillers to support the roof tile style onto a curved backface, you lose your weight gains.
@@floridianzach2277 i was thinking the entire thing would be embedded in UHMWPE. i dont see a stepped UHMWPE filler weighing the same as an extra tile layer. you could even use glass fiber to start catching the material already.
@@ravener96 if you have a manufacturing process, take it into Techs discord!
Carbon fiber is pretty strong stuff. Maybe that could be incorporated in somehow…?
The plates need to be made of very thin multiple layers. So it can flex and absorb the energy of the bullet.
for Sure and all compressed so it’s like a thick wall not a bunch of thin layers tho
Put layers of metal hardware cloth screen between them to disrupt the bullet and re-direct it.
@@SaneAsylum That material isn't strong enough. Fencing though...
And you also need to try and force the round to break apart like the Hollow Points, to further prevent penetration.
What about this:
Ballistic kevlar (5 layers)
.25" HDPE
Ballistic kevlar (10 layers)
.25" HDPE
Ballistic kevlar (10 layers)
?
Awesome video! Love these armor projects! Some of my favorite videos on UA-cam!
No crap ! This channel has become like a DRUG,,,gotta get it more, more ! I have made 7 of these...still experimenting..Awesome Channel !
The friction energy reduction is incredible
Can you get it liquid enough to knead in loose fiberglass? I think you can buy loose fiber that's normally used as an additive for concrete. Or maybe just impregnate fiberglass cloth with the plastic instead of resin.
First time ive seen this channel.... Wow awesome is all i can say!
*_The man is back_*
Saddled up and back on the bull! Lets see how long we can ride this thing.
Hi liked this video. I'm wondering if you have ever considered powderizing the hdpe and doing multiple layers with kevlar or fiberglass in between. In my mind there would be added benifits by combining the materials within a sheet. Would be cool to see you test the idea out
I did my own test after seeing your first set of videos using several layers of fiberglass and milk jugs. I was able to keep my plate around 1 inch thick. I was able to stop 45 acp, 45 colt, and 357 mag at point blank. The more layers I used the better it stopped the bigger rounds but had delamination problems, also my plates were about the size of a cellphone. The less layers I used would stop more small rounds before if delaminationed.
Nice! Man, I'm glad you got good results from your tests! If you have some videos on your tests drop a link!
Try putting a metal mesh screen out front to get the bullet expanding/deforming right away. Lead bullet shooters make hard cast because any deformation limits penetration.
@@Techthisoutmeow had access to polycarb drops from work years ago and point blank, non-compressed, 1/8" (to equal a chunk of see-thru flooring we installed in a renovated barn silo; one inch) stopped 9mm while the single piece of thicker poly was fully passed thru.
@@katiebea9258 I did a similar to that! ua-cam.com/video/hLkoDZKa1uc/v-deo.html heres the video for polycarbonate testing. and yeah, polycarbonate is one of the best solid block plastics for this type of stuff.
@@Techthisoutmeow watched video and mine was give or take 18", shooting downward into the maybe 45° angled sheets, no wrap ... Very unprofessional comparatively ... More of a MT rural, "I wonder?" and a Firefly Mal, "huh??" at the experiment's end. I am curious if one went with 1/8" PC, then thin layer milk jug melt, then 1/8" with a hardware cloth facing then
IDK ... Hardware cloth interspersed in "jug melt" would add virtually no weight, but might aid in "forming" while cooling??? PC "springs back" after heating (but not melted) as I tried that trying to make my own windscreen for tour cycle shield that broke.
Very impressive. I hope you keep working at this to make it even better. Keep notes on everything you do. Your processes could end up being the key to what works the best in the end.
Thank you! Yeah I've done a few different experiments similar to this, here's the video for making it as a laminate! ua-cam.com/video/uAUh3DspOgs/v-deo.html
@@Techthisoutmeow
Seriously great R&D, Sir. Legit performance in your materials. Thanks!
Yoooouuu make it, weeeee shoot it
I cant be the only one
Hi 😁😋
TFM
I see lots of potential. Try making several thinner layers and sandwich several of them with wire mesh between each layer; then heat it up and compress the whole thing so the mesh layers are embedded in the plastic. You could also add some steel wool between each mesh layer; I think this will considerably add to the stopping power because as a bullet pushes through the mesh, the mesh (and steel wool) will pull the plastic tighter around the bullet as well as help hold the plastic together.
Couple of thoughts-
Cut some of that glass into strips and incorporate it into the HDPE when molding it. That way the glass will basically create small pockets of restrained plastic that can't move out of the bullets' way as easily. In other words put the added strength of the glass inside the HDPE instead of outside. With sufficient pressure the HDPE should penetrate the glass cloth and bond it all together.
HDPE (like most thermoplastics doesn't "melt" the way say ice does. It has a "fusion temperature" (look it up) slightly above 400F depending on its exact composition. Commercial processing is done at about 420- 430F to get best homogeneity and crosslinking which increases strength. Yes, it's harder to handle at that temperature but you can also pour it into molds like syrup instead of kneading it like dough. That means you can make fiberglass "lasagna" out of it- a layer of glass cloth, a layer of HDPE, repeat until the mold is full.
Mild steel plates would be better on the front than on the back IMO. Bullets lose more energy penetrating that than they do HDPE so it would be better to decelerate them rapidly with the steel, then let the plastic do the relatively easy part of catching them.
Used to work in a lab testing ppe for use by auto oems. You’re doing a good job figuring this out so far, the only thing i might suggest is to produce standardized test specimens for analysis before a material is destined for the range. Why? Firstly, and most importantly in this line of inquiry, is to ensure a sample’s homogeneity. Secondly, os the ease of testing will be improved, and the quality of data, will be improved by am order of magnitude. Thirdly, the cost of doing testing (in money and time) per data point can be brought down as your data gets better. A simple charpy/izod set up, density check, vacuum annealing oven, hot oil bath, etc could be had onn the cheap depending on your handiness amd luck in finding deals. That with some ingenuity with excel could give you repeatable results that will give insights into how the material responds to stresses and why, while also permitting the testing of additives (such as talc nylon fiberglass rubber etc) and novel manufacturing methods. Most of the astm/iso procedures, requirements, specifications, methods, etc are available online. These will give you a start on the how amd why of various tests you could perform.
Please keep this project live! Very good!
I plan on it! Been working hard at some new plates, should have an update really soon. Make sure to subscribe, and if your interested in armor and learning more you can check out my discord
This would be fantastic for the military.
Absolute dedication absolute loyalty
I hope with more refinement we'll have something awesome, only time and testing will tell!
I've already done a comprehensive battery of ballistics tests using solid 3/8 inch thick and 1/32 laminated sheets to make 3/8 thick using Delrin (Polyoxymethylene POM), and it handles nearly every cartridge available to the public.
Woah, I would love to see some photos or even a video of that! do you have a write up on weight, grade, cost? Come over to my discord discord.gg/kPTcdbJ I would love to have a chat with you!
@@Techthisoutmeow Could you try the resin formula of Tech Ingredients channel? It is just Resin + aluminum oxide polishing stones of different sizes + silicone carbide (also a common polishing medium) of different particle sizes + fumed silica (finest possible dust) would be pleased to see its performance
@@MagicGumable So about 2 years ago I started testing stuff like that, if you go back to my 1000 subscribers update video I show and go over some of those plates I've made! I've been sitting on that test footage til I could fabricate new ones for more data. I built multiples of tungsten carbide, silica carbide and boron carbide. They preformed pretty good when I got the ratios dialed in, however there were inconsistencies in some plates. HOWEVER, since I've had a discord I've learned a lot from different people what might have been at fault. So to answer your question quite long windily lol, yes, I plan on using them in a video soon!
@@Techthisoutmeow do you still use that discord and does one need a PW
@@katiebea9258 I do still use it, discord.gg/76u69eztVD feel free to drop by and chat!
Stunning Research & Development work, I love it. You guys got one new subscriber.
Plus the results are awesome. Those plates didn't receive any favor treatment and still handle the bullet storm. Beyond impressive ! I hope you success in your work, be sure I'll catch up my late on your enjoyable videos.
Shit I didn’t know this account was still making videos. I was just about to watch the q & a. I was watching all the different videos then I saw this. So I guess I’ll subscribe:)
Thanks man, Yeah I took some time off, but I'm more motivated to finish what I started than ever before now! Imma make some full suits soon, stay tuned!
Dude you are a true scientist this is the first time I've seen your video and I'm greatly amazed thank you
Thank you for your kind words, I will have a new video up this coming week! So make sure to subscribe, I'll be revisting this project again soon!
I'm putting up a sign on my yard that says ...." No Trespassing" Due to the ammo shortage I will not be giving a warning shot.
Right, one of the problems I've had this year with testing new stuff is the lack of ammo.
Yeah your lawyer is going to have fun with that Court if you shoot somebody
: )
My favorite, "No Trespassing. Owner not responsible for the death of stupid people."
If I could I wouldn't even use a gun. Split their wig with an axe! Its quiet and saves ammo.
Wonder if it could be impregnated into vehicle tires? Or plastic tubes, plastic rims? Boats canoes and hundred other things, watched for another purpose,, stop signs any sign and poles reduce reuse recycling ,decking, we have a plastic problem getting the ocean clean , floor tiles, Portuguese block curbing, maybe even pour a slab, pallets ? Just a thought
Try encasing the ceramic and steel within the hdpe to help hold the ceramic together. It would also be interesting to see how layering the materials within each other in various thickness effects the ability of the plates to stop projectiles.
Fun fact the first modern Kevlar vest where made buy a pizza guy named Richard Davis, a former US Marine. After he finished his service with the US armed forces he decided to open up a pizzeria on 7 Mile, Detroit in 1969. This location wasn’t renown for its safety and as such Davis would encounter some problems while running his business. One night Davis got an order for two large pepperoni and ham pizzas. The address given to him by the caller led him down a dark alleyway where he was robbed at gunpoint by three men. With his last $70 Davis bought Kevlar from DuPont and fashioned the pieces of fabric into vests which he went on to advertise to different police departments around his area.
That's awesome man. Good stuff. I like the idea of re-annealing the hdpe. Would you just leave it in the mold, let it cool and pop it back in the oven at 250 or 300 for 10 or so minutes?
Thanks! Yeah you get the idea, I would remove it from the mold and let it be brought to room temp. The process seems real easy, but time consuming because it'll have to be brought up to the 250 range and held there for about a hour or so, the allowed to cool slowly for another half hour. But if it makes them 2-3 times as impact resistant then it'll be worth it!
So am I understanding this right?
Heat the hdpe, form it, let it cool, then reheat and reform, and cool again?
I hope this will be giving ideas to office furniture makers who make things like cubical panels and room dividers.
Materials and constructions like these could give people in offices a *major* survival uptick vs. shooters and possibly even shrapnel if used in the office environment at relatively very little increase in cost.
That is true, armoring walls with this method would be very cheap.
So, I'm pretty sure that plastic cutting boards are the same type of plastic (or similar enough to give the same results). They are thinner of course, but I wonder if you alternated a few layers of fiberglass and tiles with them what sort of results you'd have. Tile to break up the bullet, plastic to slow it down, fiberglass to catch fragments, repeated a couple times. Would be interesting.
Ah for sure, I plan on testing out a few different combos once I get this annealing HDPE process finalized. I want to push this stuff to the highest limit possible. Also, I just watched some of your vids, great stuff brother!
@@Techthisoutmeow Thanks man!
Very Interesting. Thanks for sharing.
If you pour the plastic into the fiberglass final form instead of building the fiberglass shell around the plastic, it might reduce the area the plastic can use in deformation and provide more stopping friction.
Looks like I need some fiberglass and resin. BTW Taofledermaus sent me.
If you are not doing this already, your best bet at stopping any bullet is to put the ceramic or metal plate as the first layer in this ballistic protection system you are creating. The reason for this is you want to break up the bullet or make it fragment upon impact with a hard surface. The plastic will deform (plastic deformation vs elastic deformation) and absorb some of the kinetic energy of the projectile. The problem you will face in using low thermal plastics is the kinetic energy of high velocity rounds tend to 'melt' there way thru plastic barriers that have a low melting point, kind of like a hot knife thru butter.
The problem with using ceramics, for bullet fragmenting, is they tend to shatter like glass after the first round hits them and therefore drastically reduce their effectiveness at shattering successive rounds. The fiberglass wrap you are using is really good idea for spall containment.
Lastly, the best material I know of for fragmenting high velocity bullets is high carbon steel, but this ways a ton so to speak.
Love the video and project you have going on, godspeed in your endeavors.
Duuuude, what if, you could incorporate some wire fence INTO the HDPE block in order to avoid excesive expansion? could that help? Like, 2 or 3 layers of chicken wire fence or something thicker, just pressed between 1/4 inch layers of hdpe? Would that help? I think it'd be way cheaper at least, it would be awesome even if it could only reliably stop pistol calibers
This is amazing. Really cutting edge, it seems like the future of plates may be something like this!
Have you thought about laminating layers of the hdpe rather than melting it into a solid block? I know that some commercial level 4 plates are ceramic front with multiple layers of a ultra high density PE.
I was thinking the same thing. My research on commercially produced UHDPE plates revealed that they laminate about ten sheets together that then de-laminate on impact. The delamination absorbs even more energy from the bullet.
I've used UHMWPE fabric before, that stuff is wonderful. The bullet resistant Guy Fawkes mask that could stop shots from a magnum was made out of it. I don't know if they make a HDPE fabric, I know you can find thin films of it. So as far as laminating HDPE layers together I dont know if I could with just recycled plastic, but I'll look into it.
Yeah, UHMWPE is some crazy stuff. This was more of a test to see how well recycled HDPE could hold up, because it's one of the most produced plastics in the world. But there will be future builds with UHMWPE fabric and sheets!
@@Techthisoutmeow I'm thinking you could weld thin layers of hdpe together with a heat gun with fiberglass tape in between and the fiberglass tape has holes in it which should be enough to allow the hdpe to go through the fiberglass tape and bond to the layer of hdpe underneath the fiberglass tape. I'd love to see that tried.
Can you mix the plastic with fiberglass?
ua-cam.com/video/uAUh3DspOgs/v-deo.html you sure can! Here's my experiments with using HDPE as a laminate in fiberglass!
You could probably make very cheap vehicle protection with plates like these, since they're light weight and relatively easy to mold and form. I think you just became a millionaire, or I sure hope so! Keep up the good work!
Incredible. Im already processing several ways to make these better. Fantastic tutorial fellas. Thank you.
Great video, I love the body armor stuff!
thanks man, plenty more to come.
7:45 oh no, he's a teacupper! Lol . Awesome video
Hey James, thanks again for another interesting video!
The performance difference between the HDPE and wrapped HDPE plates was indeed pretty interesting.
I'm looking forward to the performance of the HDPE after annealing though.
Do you have any video footage of how the plate performed that you tested for me? (2 porcellain tiles and 1/2" polycarbonate plate)
I would be interested in seeing how much the ceramics shattered and how it stood up overall.
Yeah plastic annealing kinda blew my mind! That raises more questions for me, because plenty of company's don't anneal there plastic after they form it because of the extra run time it takes. Some do, and it shows great results when it's properly applied. The fact that most of the plastics I use in these builds could be annealed to bring up impact resistance Is worth trying! Yeah your plate was going to be on my new bullet resistant glass video because I use a lot of polycarbonate in that video, however now that I have a focus in improving ceramics for ballistic tests (another test video coming up soon!) I'll be apart of that video. It handled real good brother.
What is HDPE?
@@fadedjate7230 high density polyethylene. Common everyday plastic. Milk jugs, laundry detergent jugs ect tend to be made of it.think grocery bags too. U can Google the hdpe code and look for it on items and ull be surprised how many.
@@fadedjate7230 HighDensityPolyEthylene a.k.a milk jugs
I bet if you put thin layer of porcelain in between the plastic and wrapped in fiber glass these would be unstoppable
Honey pass me the milk plates
Lols, That's a good one.
2 minutes of this and I subscribed, keep up the good work this is useful info for all sir.
Have you tried layering instead of wrapping?
Very interesting work your doing! Thank you for making, sharing and teaching! God willing, most of us will never truly NEED to know how to make body armor at home...But we DO live in uncomfortably interesting times. Two suggestions that may aid your efforts:
First, If your not already familiar with his work, I'd highly recommend a maker by the name of Robert Murry-Smith. The majority of his work in the past centered around Graphine and Graphitized carbons for the use in batteries, however, in his efforts to develop better battery materials, he discovered that certain simple types of home make-able, bio-plastics enhanced with small amounts of graphine become insanely tough. Very, VERY tough! Though he flew to the US to test the plates with real .223 & 7.62 (neither penetrated the 3/8 in. plates as I recall) he never did much follow up on the discovery, primarily I believe, because he's based in the UK and ballistic testing there is licence restricted & expensive. Some of his videos on easily making graphine at home & mixing it into plastics may aid your results.
The second suggestion is one of assembly methodology. There is a construction method for stabilizing loose & sandy soils that uses layers of mesh materials sandwiched between very thin layers of sand. The resultant 4"x4"x4" "tower" combination of thin alternating layers was strong enough to support the weight of 1/4 of a car without collapsing and NO side supporting or encasement wrapping. You can easily do a simple test of this phenomena with a soup can (or any smooth sided cylinder), an old porch or window screen, and enough sand to fill the cylinder. First moisten the sand enough to make a sand castle style "tower" with the cylinder. You'll find that without the forming sleeve, the sand "tower" collapses under very little weight. If you cut the window screen into circles just small enough to fit inside the cylinder and simply add a screen disks flat between every 1/8 th in. of sand as you fill the cylinder, you'll find that you have a tremendously stronger "Tower" even without the cylinder form in place. If you did the same layering process with thin layers of HDPE sandwiched alternating with the mesh, I think you may enhance your results WITHOUT having to use any additional materials and MAYBE even using less of them, as embedding the fiberglass or kevlar (which are insanely strong in tensile strength, but weak in shear) into the HDPE (which is extremely flexible and tough, but not brittle) There is a good possibility that the strength of each material,if combined properly, will reinforce the weakest properties of the other and you'll end up with what your looking for. You can find an analogue for this in nature. Tucan's beaks are primarily made up of two weak compounds, but when combined, form an extremely tough, flexible and hard material.
I hope you have a chance to see this comment and that perhaps it helps you. :)
May God bless You, your Family, and your Work
K
Where the hell did you find FMJ .22lr
What if you did the plates with thinner laminated layers of plastic, with the fiberglass layers between each, rather than a solid piece ??? Perhaps some sort of grit (such as sand) substance infused into the epoxy or resin as well. Maybe a thinner (stainless) plate behind? Isn’t stainless harder than the kind of metal you used even in a thinner form? Perhaps stainless screen wire midways through? I’d go with some sort of dense rubberized backing to help disperse the impact on the body, maybe? Just wondering. Excellent experiments. 👍🏻 Enjoyed it. Thanks guys. 🙂
Ah-Haa ! Wrap in Fiber....Back to the shop.... 5 Stars Thumbs Up !!
Sweet! let me know how it does!
@@Techthisoutmeow I have noticed... After each failure I cut the HDPE plate into pieces and re-heat it...each time the plate gets stronger. I found used HDPE...milk jugs, shampoo bottles,Ect..to be stronger than the NEW HDPE I purchased online. The NEW sucked until about the third use ?? Will be glad to send ya a pound to test yourself.
@@bubbaonpc so you kept heating and cooling it over and over to make it stronger?
@@ucdan5 Yes, multiple reheats. I would melt it down, put in press for 24 hours, take it out and shoot it. With each Reheat I found the same product got "harder"...or tougher you mite say. I have noticed no change after reusing it 4 times. WITH THAT SAID...Did I unconsciously heat it longer...Hotter...cool it slower...press it tighter ?? ...I wasnt very Scientific in my process...as far as repeating exact steps. That;s one reason I posted what I found. I hoped others would chime in with their findings. Wish I had a warming/cooling box like his...I think cooling too fast hurts it.
@@bubbaonpc how long would you heat it and how would you cool it slower? Reduce the oven temp I assume?
And how many gallons of milk would you use at a time?
Can you impregnate the fiberglass into the plastic?
Awesome video, you should send a sample to Demolition Ranch, Matt would love this
funny enough, I might be sending him something soon!
Awesome! I hope we get to see it on his channel. Keep up the good work brother, I can't wait to watch more of your videos
You should try incorporating something fibrous into the plastic itself.
Hell yah man thanks this was awesome
Glad you liked it, we're gonna have sweet chest inserts soon!
Your dad looks exactly like my friends dad from high school who taught us all how to shoot!!! He was a good man, I pray your dad is the same way
Good job!! That was awesome
Awesome thank you. I have to say perhaps a sandwich of the plastic and kevlar say 5 layers with a thin hard steel plate at the back to catch the round after it has mushroomed and lost some energy. Appreciat the effort. Cheers.
Also I don’t know if you’re doing this but if you’re using ceramic dont use one full piece. Use the little tiles that come in like a sheet.
Yeah I bought a tile cutter so I could cut them down into different shapes and stuff. I've also been developing my own ceramics out of boron carbide powder and resin, and those have been real impressive!
Yes yes yes will take multiple strikes but after 4 or 5 hits the ceramic fails
@@Techthisoutmeow woah, that's a new development. Next vid material? Looking forward the next livestream / discord, I love seeing this come together
@@jasonmacdocman1716 Yeah, roving is different than blanket weaves. Really good stuff though, if your looking into fiberglass reinforcement I would go for some S-glass over E-glass or any other grades. It's much stronger, as far as grams and other information I couldn't tell you best off hand, but I do have someone testing out different weave patterns and grades for ballistics on my discord! You should join and ask some questions there.
@@jasonmacdocman1716 yeah one of them was that combo, but another was nylon and another was kevlar. The basic one was just plastic wrapped in fiberglass
Once while using jb weld on a plastic radiator manifold, i added just plain aluminium oxide powder to help it stick to itself. That might be a bad description, but the point is that it worked, extremely well. Maybe, if you pulverized your milk jug plastic beforebaking it, you could add a measured amount of aluminum oxide powder or even metal filings/chips from drilling and grinding wirk to help make a mire cohesive mixture, as well as layering it with fiberglas.
Holy shit I need to try this.
listen, make layers, make a solid steeel core, thin metal plate, something really tempered and reinforced, add the plastic, then add the fibre then add more plastic and fiber
Your dad was having a lot of fun.
Ah yeah, That was a good two days at the range. And how could you not smile when shooting a 44 mag lol.
@@Techthisoutmeow ps, two thoughts, yes solid plate for the metal, arrayed tiles with the cracks filled with silicone for the porcelain or granite/quartz tiles...
planning to manufacture this kind of armor, but making it a full suit, with a continuous steel structure, HDPE middle, and you could put the ceramics inside a gel to prevent it from cracking or if it does, keep it in one piece
I feel you on using gel on the ceramic, I'm trying that out right now!
@@Techthisoutmeow how deep in water would rifle shot go? how much would the length be if you have the non-compressable (or just little compressable) water in pressurised container? would the shot make a vortex inside the container?
@@Techthisoutmeow in cold places, water armor would not even melt
@@Jkauppa IIRC, two to three feet.
"how about squeezing hdpe in a hydraulic or screw press into very dense format"
Thank you
No problem brother! More to come soon
I retired from school district maintenance. We used and discarded 5/8" slabs of recycled milk jugs and oil bottles. Stopped most .22lr rounds and .38 special. Man, I miss being able to pull them out of the dumpster.
Mold a medium SAPI plate size
Soda bottle plastic (pete) is stronger than the milk jug plastic but you can't melt it down so my idea is to let's say cut and straighten out 100 soda bottles (the middle parts not the tops or bottoms) and place those together, sanding both sides of the soda plastic on each one and resin them together then resin them to the hdpe to be like a strike face. I used to shoot my 10 pump bb gun at bottles back in the day and still remember how the plastics differ in strength, I've been thinking about making plates since 2016 and done tons of research on it, now if only I had the money to waste lol!!!! I've been looking up units of weight (giggapascals and psi) for materials that could make the perfect armor and found a lot of information I mean the brainstorming was off the charts lol!!!!! Look for the strongest adhesives and materials with tensile strengths over 8000 psi, materials with the hardness measured in gigapascals like diamonds but harder & yes there are things out there on the market just as strong/harder then diamond then think shear thickening fluid as a wrap around cover for the plate (polyethylene glycol and reptile calcium or silica ... Nano tech ) & wow!!! I'm in the zone lol!!! I've been looking into graphene and metal foams and carbon fiber nanotubes and a shit load of stuff that would help me out in my quest. I think you should look up the bear suit guy here on UA-cam, his name was troy hurtubise, a Canadian inventor who created not just a invincible bear suit but a ballistics armor even stronger than the bear suit, the man was a composite genius before he died back in 2018.
I quit wearing BA. There are so many obese folks out in public the advantage I gain in less weight is worth it. Keep eating those Krispy Kremes and I'll always have an abundance of cover. Thanks y'all!🤠🇺🇸⚔🇮🇱🍺
human shield tek, brilliant! lol
Who would have thought!! old milk jugs...great idea...good work...good for you...
Metal on the front should work better for mangling and slowing the bullet, and HDPE to catch that.
I want to try a few different types of steels and other metals to see what might work best for it, that'll be coming up soon soon on this cannel!
I think ceramic or porcelain is much harder and if 1 layer of fiberglass was assured to it with resin, most of the tile would probably stay in place
@@Techthisoutmeow many sheets of thin steel, like an automotive gasket MLS, multi-layer steel gasket.
Came here back after some time when I saw the testvideo of your plate-collection from Taofledermaus. It is amazing how tough this material is. I experimented myself with armors for some time (not in that dimentions you do, but working with paper can have remarkable results) and read a lot about it. I have some suggestion, that may should work in my mind, but I have not yet seen realized in home made body armors:
The hard material of the projectile has to break up to increase it's surface of spread it's energy. Ceramic is very hard and breaks and absorbs the incoming energy that way. Metall acts brittle or ductile depending on various situations. In tanks they use sandwich-armor, where a ceramic medium is placed thight between two metall plates. The ceramic tile breaks up, but stays more or less together by the metall front and backing. That prevents the brittle ceramic from exploding. (As you said, compression helps to keep the material together so it doesn't move out of the way too much.
my idea would be: a ceramic tile, which is reinforced by some kind of resin and a surounding layer of fibre is glued between two sheets of metall. This can be backed with polyethylen to absorb energy and this is wrapped by fibre/resin, so it holds together.
Some interesting additional notes: In early days of ceramic armor-developement, someone explored, that ceramic coated steel (emael coating) was more durable than the same steel without. Making emael was a quite common technic to make household metall corrosion resistant, so it should not be too complicated to use this technic for own purposes. Maybe a stag of thin steel sheets (easier to bend), which get coated and glued together could make an interesting core for polyethylen-armor.
Observations of my own work with paper/glue/fabric-sandwiches gave me the conclusion, that changing layers of hard and elastic materials create objects, that can absorb much impact and penetration energy.
I hope you can take some inspirations for your work.
Greetings from Germany🙋
YEEEA BOI!!
This is a great channel ALOT of ppl can't afford body armor....this is awsome for defense
Came from taofladermous
yeah those guys are the best!
Have you measured proper bfd though and force if the impact
I have! The next few videos will have in depth analysis on the subject of backface deformation! First up will be a new ceramic strike face comparison video, then back to HDPE! So stay stuned.
Active shooter situation, you are most likely to face .223 then 7.62x39 in the US if the bad guy has a rifle.
Right, it's just nice to see the range of firepower it can withstand. Everybody likes the .223 or 556 in the states, if only we could find ammo for it right lol.
You are on your way man, this is great, I used to slump glass, annealing plastic? Amazing.
I think HDPE would make a GREAT anti spall coating.
Just don't buy steel plates. Steel is good for targets, not armor.
You need to build special molds, 2 long ones or 4 small ones and using a truck with the bed full, put tons of weight on the molten hdpe.... More weight more strength??? Yup!!! I would use that method not only on the melted hdpe but the resined fiberglass on the finished plastic plates then coat then with a resin / silicone carbide paste then follow up with a final layer of fiberglass and again to the truck pressurized mold box to get the silicone carbide particles as meshed together as close as possible .... The carbide like sand but as hard as diamond will eat the bullet you shot at it and the other components will catch the fragments easier leaving the armor stronger , harder and more durable . Looking into research on things harder than diamond I learned about gigapascales and other measurements that no ones has spoken of in armor vids yet ... I watched a Russian couple stop bullets by compressing toilet paper!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol!!!!!!!!!! Enough weight on the fresh materials equals more strength!!!!!!
Remarkable. This man has discovered a material for armor that will probably replace steel
Great video. Can I offer this: lamination is the key. For example; perforated (1/16th) holes stainless steel 1/8th sheet. Then your milk jug material 1/2 inch followed by thin aluminium sheet, Then 3 layers of 1/8th thick fibreglass, Kevlar and carbon fibre backed thin sheet of titanium. Bulletproof!
Have you tried doing alternating layers of plastic and fiberglass? For example 16 layers of 1/16" HDPE instead of a 1" block?
Yes sir, my next HDPE video will be about multiple different alterations to the basic HDPE design!
When “breaking bad” meet “shooter”; jokes aside, that was most interesting, thanks for sharing it
how many layers of fiber glass did you wrap around bare hdpe? and to be more cost efficient for a bigger plate, if i only put fglass on the front of hdpe, would it offer the same protection? in other words, does the fglass further from your shot matter? thank you for reading
also your list of parts in description is blank btw
last question, what is the thickness of the hdpe from your mold?
Awesome vid brother ! Some great info for newbies or like most of the country now people with smaller normal budgets, not SPONSORED budgets. Like utube is filled of.
Speed kills. You want harder materials (ceramics,steels,glass) on the face to deform the bullet and wipe off initial velocity then the hdpe can catch what is left. Thin sheet of AR 500 style materials. Or maybe a sand mix or ceramic mix in a face plate then combine and wrap as your doing. There is also a calculation similar to shear strength to calculate how much energy will penetrate.
You are correct about the joins in materials. Homogenous materials will resist failure better than joins. You can apply this rule to all materials used. Awesome video. Thank You for your efforts.
I love what you doing. this is awesome. I can't remember if I mentioned yesterday but I read up on kneading bread dough. It aligns the glutin like into fibers of sorts. I watched you kneeding that and thought that could have a huge effect. couple more thoughts. 1. Have you tested the fiberglass itself? I say this because you are not doing anything to compress the plates to speak of unless the plastic swells as it cools, which is possible but most things do shrink. Certainly wrapping even very snugg and carefully is not going to compress that tough plastic appreciably. It is possible that as the bullet strikes the plastic it sends like a shock wave as the bullet forces through. Like a rapid wave of expansion that is forced back to catch the bullet. Cuz again, the amount of size increase or better volume increase is just so tiny that it doesn't sound logical it could be that. Like if the fiberglass was just helping the plastic to resist volume increase, well that just does not seem possible. If it is a shock wave, the size of the plate might be critical. I watched a video of blowing up a concrete wall at super high speed. that gave me the idea. When the concrete broke through there was a big dimple that you would't expect from concrete on the back side from the explowion. A fancy high speed picture of the bullet hitting would help especially if the fiberglass wa transparent. a good test of my shock wave would be maybe have the plastic packed in an open metal pan like 1" deep. But just made out of 14 gauge SS. bullet going into the open side of a pan or with a similar 12 or 14 gauge metal piece. Your fiberglass wrap didn't cover two of the ends really did it? I worked as a contractor doing piping and installation at a big blow molding company in L.A. Making millions of clear plastic jugs. PET is the plastic they use for that. I don't know if the opaque jugs is the same, it doesn't look of feel the same.
What size and thickness of mild steel do you need for further testing?
preferable a series of thinner stronger sheets!
Dude this is it!!! If you can make plates out of the Milk Jugs not only lighter but you can install it in Windows , Doors and vehicles without the added weight!!!! Dude
Good job! Keep up the awesome work and great videos.
Thanks, more to come!
Have you considered using a mix of the plastic and chopped glass fibers, instead of a wrap? Having it as a monolithic mold block might be useful.
Curious about the efficacy of embedding fiberglass layers into the structure of the plate itself
Have you tried putting the hdpe in metal rings to constrict the materials expansion? You could make discs out of 1.5 or 2 inch pipe. Or if you could use sqaure tubing to make scales for a panel? Just some thoughts that popped out of a NOS fueled nap.