May have been in the video but what was total cost per plate?

For those iffy on it; just remember. Like 3D printed firearms (at this time anyway) It only has to work long and well enough for you to pick up factory made gear. Having this improvised armor is FAR better than not having it at all given how it will stop any pistol cartridge, protect against stabs/blunt shots, etc.

You by far are the most thorough at making and properly testing homemade bulletproof body armor out of every other KZfaqr on KZfaq, I've watched all of them. I hope your channel reaches a million subscribers. Keep up the good work, I'll be building a bulletproof dark knight inspired batsuit in a little while using some of your concept and some inspiration from your videos on hdpe and composites. I'm going to film it for KZfaq. ❤

Try putting the grill in a vacuum chamber to evacuate the air. Use a low cost HVAC pump or a hand held much lower cost brake pump. Removing the air will likely give you better layer adhesion.

16:19 If you put a piece of card board behind the armor you're testing it should clearly show if the plate has been defeated with a passthrough round or fragment.

I love making serviceable gear from household products. This is awesome!

I actually used a cheap carbon fiber/kevlar blend wrapped around some of my steel plates as a spall jacket. I used a bedliner as an adhesive, wrapped it in shrink wrap, taped everything up and then used the front wheels of my truck over the lawn to apply pressure overnight. Used an ar500 steel target as a test run before applying it to my plates, and with wrapping every other layer completely around the plate, at 10 total layers, it took well over 120 rounds of m193 before I started to see delamination. Im not sure how much weight it added, as those steel plates are only used as backups for my 1155s, so weighing them hasnt been a concern of mine. But that may be a good way for you to look at a ceramic plate backer, assuming it isnt too heavy. Wrapping a few layers completely around the ceramic plate would also help prevent delamination, and would help hold the ceramic together longer.

You could also make model aircraft and RC boats out of this stuff

I love the "cheap and dirty" approach, however you would get more consistent lamination with fewer voids if you could figure out a way to do this under vacuum clamping so it was even across the whole surface of the plate as it laminates.

OMG !! I've been looking for you for months, I've collected a ton of cut-up milk jugs, ( boxes full ) and I also got a store to sell me complete boxes of shopping bags , and of really thick plastic compared to most types , I have 4 boxes with 500 bags per box all tightly stacked together, Im still want to make my own armor that works !1

Have you ever heard or experimented with ripstop nylon? I used to buy old cars with the CV boot out. Then I made a CV boot out of that ripstop nylon from the fabric store. They also make a polyester roofing underlayment that's pretty tough. I think it would melt and stick to the high-density polyethylene pretty well and alternating layers of that stuff might give you quite a bit of strength because the ripstop nylon really spreads energy well.

Always thought about synthetic roofing felt, heat, pressure and layers + ceramic(almost forgot) been a while since I've touch back on this research area .. good work sir 👍

I don't know if you have already done it, but if not, use individual hexagonal tiles so the damage is only localized to one or two tiles instead of the whole tile.

Great information, lots of room for improvement. Not that you did anything wrong, in fact, everything you did is awesome. Showing how to laminate and ease of access to all components. You rock! Keep up the amazing work. This is truly turning into a game changer!

Very impressive and hopeful Can’t wait to see your next adventure sir Truly impressed

This is what makes KZfaq great. Thank you sir for making great content

The plates are starting to look alot more valuable, I was just wondering about a double bandolier plate carrier brace from over the shoulder to under the opposite armpit, with getting shrapnel in the side sometimes too, and I was just watching a cool no hand shield strap to the body on skalligrim that gives me some ideas for my future shield.

you could use a granite sink cut out on the top. those are super smooth and cheap and heavy and will spread the pressure super even.

I haven't seen the video yet but I know your content will always dress to impress and is well received every time you make an upload. I was wondering if you're planning on revisiting the "stopping rifle rounds with recycled milk jug plates" and applying those test samples to full 10x12 sapi plates as part of your ongoing series as well. I'm also wondering if you're still planning to show us annealing of High Density Polyethylene as well. But anyways, thanks again for showing us how to manipulate simple readily available materials into working pieces of armor and thank you for finding cheaper alternatives that will save our lives and our wallets. We really appreciate that!!!! 👍

If you can get hold of a bunch of used up,chipped tungsten carbide cutting bits from a machine shop,you could fuse them into a HDPE plate. Carbide will chew up any bullet,and if you can hold them in their place, it will stop AP rounds as well.

Great to see more videos

I've thought of using hardening materials to make my own body armour too. Like steel mesh sheets and grinded steel with ceramic mix with the powder steel from the grinded steel for the mixture instead of ceramic, and hardening and tempering too see if it'll actually work, and asking a gun range to test different calibers on it.

I suggest you look into silk. Historically, silk shirts stopped arrows. They would not part as the arrow went into the flesh, allowing the shirt to extract the arrow, thus avoiding infection.

Keep it up! You're doing the Lord's work

Try using a vacuum pump to draw down an oven cooking bag with your form and layers inside. Not only will it remove air bubbles but will provide a much higher total pressure on the form.

I've got an idea. A little more costly maybe. Cordura nylon (non-urethane coated), fiberglass, steel flashing (thin layers, not thing layers) and aluminum flashing (again, thing material) and rubberized dip with a handful or 2 of plaster or caramoc dust mixed in. The aluminup was impressive, steel plates are also impressive. The ceramic plates seem to take the energy out well; but they basically turn to dust after a few rounds. More or less layer the nylon, fiberglass, steel flashing, fiberglass, nylon. Then make similar layers with aluminum flashing in between in place of the steel flashing. Then bond steel sandwich, aluminum sandwich alternating; so that you have 3 layers of steel flashing and 3 layers of aluminum flashing, 12 layers of cordura nylon and 12 layers of fiberglass, all soaked with a rubberized dip (it may have to be thinned a littls bit with some form of thinner which will eventually dry). More or less, the idea is instead of having a hard resing thats prone to cracking, or holding the fabrick layers stiff; you have a bonding medium that will allow fhe fibers to flex and stretch a little. And all the different layers all provide their own drag or resistence to the round. Eben better, cut half the layers on the bias (so that the threads run diagonally in an X pattern) and half the fabric layers on the verticle (so that the threads form a cross pattern) and put it so that no 2 layers are aligned back to back. So like... all the nylon layers .ake crosses and all the fiberglass layers make Xes. Or vice versa. It may need more than 3 layers of steel, 3 layers of aluminum, 12 layers of nylon and 12 layers of fiberglass. But it woukd be neat to see if something like that around 7 to 8 pounds would do. In all honesty... if it wont stop green tip, it wont stop much. Because everybody and their brother has green tip (M855) now days.

Very nice t-shirt! Somehow, I am not surprised at all that you are my christian brother! Cheers from France.

I’d love to see you try a quartzite tile instead of a ceramic Its basically the hardest tile you can get at the hardware store You might be able to get away with using only one layer of tile instead of two

Great results. Did you ever tried laminating glass fiber MESH into HDPE from jugs? I found your earlier videos where you shot to pure HDPE block, and most bullets that passed through look like they "melted" their way through plastic. Adding mesh to HDPE could prevent it from stretching too much, but still rely on the friction stopping of the bullet instead of delaminating layers.

I really appreciate you showing me a higher and better use for all the plastic bags my wife collects so I can make an extra trip to Walmart to get rid of them. Your work on improvised body armor is impressive. Usually, it turns out you can only have two of the three choices of effectiveness, cost, and lightweight for body armor. You are homing in on all three. I'm not sure how the sharp edges of sandblasting grit will affect the integrity of the Aluminum Oxide and UDP composite panels you gave us a peek at? However, #8 AlO3 sandblasting grit is from 1/16 to 1/8-inch in diameter. That size or smaller might be used to increase the density of Aluminum Oxide in the composite panel.

Thank you!!! Amazing video(so far only a few minutes in :)) I appreciate your content extremely.

Bro, i watched ur videos many times, really love what u are doing. I always wandered if spaced armor works as body protection. Thats a good idea for you i guess - try using porcelain plate then 20-30layers of laminated nylon then again porcelain and again 30 more layers of nylon. It works great on vehicles. I would really love to watch if you try this out. Wish you all the best from Israel!

You might try incorporating dispersive geometry, to utilize cancellations, and drastically increasing your weight to stopping power ratio. Perhaps some offset honeycomb pattern, could disperse the energies more efficiently, allowing for all around better performance?

I was totally not expecting to stop the riffle round

Just a lil comment for Al Gores Rhythm Thank you for continuing the lords work in providing cheap and effective means of defense. You’re a good man Charlie Brown.

Hi just wanted to throw out an idea for future builds. I saw a cool video of plexiglass being dissolved in acetone and think that this could be used in place of resin when building kevlar or fiberglass plates. In theory you would have a solid plate which could be thermoformed to shape it after the initial curing of the acetione. Keep up the great work on inovative videos

Add in a couple layers of fine steel mesh coated in ceramic along with fiberglass layers and sandwiched between two fine steel mesh plates it'll stop just bout anything you shoot at it. ^__^

I'd be interested to see what the results are like with silk.

Damn! I’m very impressed that it stop the rifle round

Here's some food for though: Every layer plays a vital roll in slowing and stopping the projectile. Try adding glass and arimid back into the mix? For example: try a plate combination that layers Nylon, Glass, Arimid, Nylon, glass, Arimid..etc. Also if you use a flexible adhesive to glue your ceramic strike plates onto the composite panel, when they are broken by impact, all the pieces will stay in place, providing an advantage for subsequent impacts.? Multiple coats of Contact adhesive is what I'm thinking...?

Looks like I know how many layers of this composite I will be using for my armor along with HDPE/fiberglass + PET/fiberglass matrix composite for my torso. I really hope that ceramic ball strike face holds up really well especially against sustained rifle fire. It would be nice to have a strike face with an insanely high multi hit capability so any composite armor you come up with could withstand hundreds/thousands of rifle bullets without failing instead of stopping only 5 or 6 consecutive hits if you're lucky. But I know that would be an impossible thing to achieve.

Hot damn this channel is underrated! I love your work bro. And will be sharing your material tomorrow.

Here is a interesting chalange for you (I'm going to copy paste this comment on afew videos so you notice it)... Fiberglass balistic helmet or just a full diy balistic helmet series including back face deformation testing. My idea is a fiberglass helmet with thin steel bars impeded on the inner layers of fiberglass forming a lattice shape to prevent serious back face deformation.

Teflon grilling mats will work in place of the parchment paper and is reusable

ceramics must be divided into segments so that when hit, only a certain area is destroyed, but not the entire surface. And yet, the rear catching layer should not be soldered, but preferably consist of movable layers, this way better catching occurs.

Just saw this on another channel, have you thought of doing a interlayer of epoxy-sawdust/carborundum? This should help with cracking/splitting that I am seeing in your current HDPE/nylon composite, and the carborundum should help resist/deform hard steel penetrators.

Try Carbon Fiber plates coated with Ceramic Graphene auto paint polish and or Truck bedliner, sandwiched with neoprene (wetsuit) material for energy absorbtion. Combinations of this could be ultra lightweight!

Here's a trick for visualising deformation and detecting faults which the Japanese use for monitoring concrete faults: glue on a sheet of paper to the fault surface (plate back), then paint the sheet of paper using egg white or glue with a coat of fine strontium aluminate glow powder. You will get a mechanoluminescent flash and glow where the deformation occurs so you can see what has happened that would otherwise be hidden under layers.

A tape measure with both imperial and metric would be helpful for a global audience

Dragon skin armor supposedly used silicone carbide ceramic disks. I believe they use something similar, and reinforced with fiberglass in metal cut-off wheels. Just something to test.

I’ve used a 3/4” hdpe front plate to dissipate most of the energy from 556

4:15 imagine if the loose weave of the fine nylon allowed for greater engagement of the other parts of the composite and therefore a stronger plate

Your metal sheet looks like aluminum. Aluminum act like a heat sink, may not help with your heating. maybe add a layer of neoprene rubber for a little insulation and should help with any deviations in the surface. Very interesting.

Even it gets through, *the loss of energy will make the projectile far less injurious.*

Look at how DIY skateboards are made with vacuum bag lamination. You could do the same thing here and stick the griddle+plate material inside of one. They're called TAP (Thin Air Press) bags and are fairly cheap and often come with hand pumps.. Though running the cord would be a problem and would require you to cut/mod the bag

we need a frequently asked questions video. That way everyone can get on the same page. It would also help show people whats still needed. Maybe you already did this? Sorry if so. Im gonna leave a like too.

Good stuff!!

A composite that I’ve come cross is when you thermal bond ceramic particle in between layers of uhwmpe

I will have to try make one of these as we are not allowed to have them in the UK. But if you can make your own why not.

If you can constrain the right ceramic plate within a steel matrix you'd be surprised at what it can do. A cheapo version. Pocket out/machine a 10mm aluminum plate, heat it, then insert a building tile that has been cooled down. The key is to have the tile constrained by the aluminium/steel on all surfaces bar the strike surface.

Wow so nice yay

get 2 cast iron frying pans, with a decent volume, fill them both with a soft resin, with alot of fiberglass embedded in it, then put them together in the same orientation but mirrored so the inside where the food would go is facing each other, then glue them together with a load of super glue, and wrap the seam with flex tape, and cover it in flex seal liquid for anti spall coat. and then put a paracord or something through the hole in the handle and wear it like a pendant. you could also instead of doing 2 together, do one on each side where the bottom of the pan is the strike face, so there is protection front and back. or do 2 on the front and 2 on the back. my thinking is the cast iron will stop everything like, 9mm/ .45 and below, and for higher power rounds it will break up the round and the resin with fiberglass will slow/catch the bullet, and if that fails, it will at least not have enough energy to get through the cast iron in the back of the 2 pan model.

HOW about putting the marbles in a pan so that touch each other , then melt a thin layer of plastic over them and down around them to hold them in the shape of a plate when you laminate them with other things , get rid of all that space I saw @ 22:00 .

Awesome shirt.

Ceramic is heavy and the goal is to have ultralight-fibers stop the projectile with roughly uniform deceleration from the moment of contact through the stopping-point (before penetration). So, a trampoline-effect. Failure mechanisms are spalling, non-uniform deformation, burning and sharp-edges of either the projectile or ballistic-materials. Starting from these (and other) first-principles, it might seem best the projectile deform as little as possible upon impact, but if deformation isn't avoidable, it occur early and smoothly, without sharp edges. So maybe a thin outer layer of copper that'll stretch (and conduct heat), containing initial impact-loading, without creating sharp-edges regardless hollow-point, etc.. Next bonded-layer, Dyneema-Composite-Fabric (DCF). Ultra-fabric. Few layers of Ultra-400 (cheaper) or more layers of Ultra-100 (lighter?) - to catch/trampoline the projectile. Kevlar seems less desirable, because it's more brittle and snaps at failure, where DCF stretches more. Looking for stretch, not brittle/snapping. On the macro-world of first-glances, DCF seems to have no stretch, but at 30k fps, DCF stretches just about as much would want for a 4-5cm plate. Third bonded-layer might be an ultralight foam rubber, perhaps an EVA-foam (Ethylene-vinyl acetate)? It merely needs to support the stretching DCF (which is doing most of the work) without tearing or yielding to the stretching DCF. Third-layer foam need only hold-back the DCF-fabric, not an ounce of force from the bullet itself. Ceramic-layer simply doesn't fit the purpose. It's heavy and yields with sharp-edges. Those edges wreak-havoc on the trampoline effect. Of course, virtually every plate ever made uses a ceramic-plate inside, but that shouldn't need to be the case with modern-materials. Consider bullet-launch: Bullets accelerate evenly, thus launch-shock is absorbed by a relatively small shoulder butt-pad. Deceleration should occur likewise. Evenly and spread over as large an area as possible. Solids, such as ceramic transmit impact and don't spread forces well. Any force they do spread, also spread fractures. This is no way to make a plate. Let DCF do the spreading. Prevent burning and spalling from cutting through the DCF upfront, and plates could (and should) be under one-pound. Bonding's purpose is to ensure spreading forces. Bonding each stretchable-layer to the other ensures the trampoline effect. Even the plate-edges should be well-bonded to each layer (to prevent delamination).

great stuff as always my man. c u in the next one. looking forward to the next car vid as well.

We need an update video asap!!

It occurs that body isnt the only use. What about armoring up a door or putting a bunch of this inside the walls of a "safer"room hard to shoot through equals longer to cut through so you could have a whole room be a low key, looks like a nice normal room that will buy you a good long time for help to come.

Luxury is having a place you can shoot anytime you want.

Considering you are testing the material at basically point blank range, your designs are AWESOME!!! How would they hold up at a further distance? Again, you are providing much info and opening thinking for others. If we all work together, at some point, we will be able to design some plate that will stop nearly everything. Thanks for doing so much research.

I think the idea of using ceramic balls is good but it needs to be multi layered otherwise its the same issue as dragonscales where it will pass between plates/balls, it would be interesting to suspend the ceramic balls in a thin sheet of metal too but thats probably expensive

Try some tungsten carbide bearings in your new strike faces. Theyre really heavy, obviously, but their hardness is off the charts.

I say balsa wood strike face with a styrofoam core. Light weight and floats too. The best idea right?

Try HDPE with Gaphine mixed in giving strenth to the absorption of impact

Great videos! Earned a sub from me. I’m curious if you’ve thought about coating these in bed-liner? might add some weight but would it also hold the product together in a multi strike scenario?

Genius

Nice work sir.

Just Love Your Videos! And Big Thanks for the Idea with that Griddle! Any Idea of baking Hardox500 Plates into HDPE? HDPE would Act as the Spall Liner and the Hardox500 that is similar then AR500 takes the Hits? Maybe some Nylon or Fiberglass mixed with Resin on top of the HDPE. Good Idea or Overkill? What can be Problematic? Thanks again for your Work!

Maybe get another griddle and sandwich the plates between the two or try using boards to help distribute the force of your clamps

Attach some drywall mesh behind the ceramic to see if it will hold it together better.

I love watching your progress on this. Ive been doing my own experiments, and i have several different designs for pistol/rifle. Is the discord still active? Id love to share some testing pics and data.

Nice work brother

Have you considered using actual uhwmpe fabric layers with nylon? Only about 100 dollars for enough material to have a 3a rating for the fabric, could be super light rifle rating with nylon and a ceramic strike face.

Impressive.

id like to see the same thing done with carbon fiber

Nice work

I attempted this with 100% polyester with 3 grocery bags between every layer of polyester. In total maybe 20 layers and no success. A simple 22 lr lead target round from a 4.5 inch barrel went right through

Awesome!

Great video!

Do you have a scaled template for cutting the nylon? You've got my wheels turning. Also, how do you get the bends in the layers??? Great info for the DIY "maker".

Has anybody ever tried landscape fabric used for weed control? The stuff is dirt cheap, woven and seems to have multiple versions of material available. Also, do you think using two of the griddles (one on top, one one bottom) sandwiched together would work as a better laminator?

Ceramic plate is one time only. Newtonian liquid is known to be able to absorb energy by impact. Currently I don't have any idea how to implement newtonian liquid into the armor thgough.

what about 15 layers of printed circuit boards laminated together? I wonder how that would do...

I wonder if u add like 1/8 thick titanium panels and got rid of some of the excess if itll be rifle rated and light weight

Amazing video! The discord link is dead. How can I get i touch with the community around this project.

Hey Tech!! You alive buddy? We may need another update video from you ASAP. It's been over 4 months. 😩

Tech going for them kek style fingernails...

Has anyone tried transportation ratchet strap material? Semi straps are 4-5” wide, woven very tight, could be used as plate straps (over shoulders straps)

What about the Dollarama bags layered using polyethylene?

can you make bulletproof aramid with vacuum resin infusion technique?