homemade body armor...

Originally posted by Jestowe
I'm very interested in this topic too, because I have a "flak vest" I wound up with from my years as an M1A2 Tanker in the Army, Hoohah (Yeah I hate that word more than you). lol. But it is just a flak vest, fully lined with kevlar fabric about 3/4 inch thick. Right now it could only catch light fragmentation. But I see the huge potential in it. I'm not rich but I am trying to find something I could line ontop of it that would "STOP" a bullet from at least a 45 or weak loaded shotgun (trying to be practical). Ceramic bathroom tiles glued to like 1/4 inch steel sounds theoretically sound.. But I don't know if bathroom tiles are remotely the same as actually "armor ceramics". And I don't have enough kevlar to test it with real bullets. lol. I guess I want someone very smart who knows thier stuff to tell me "This will work with your kevlar flak vest".

DEFINITELY DO NOT USE BATHROOM TILES GLUED TO STEEL!

I think your all going about it the wrong way!

what I would do (given the money of course LOL)


1. buy an exoskeleton suit (hybrid assisted limb suit):
www.youtube.com...
or
www.youtube.com...

2.with your new founded stength (and empty wallet), weld several inch thick steel/titanium armor to the suit.

enjoy your new walking tank (walker)


unfortunately this has probably already been done lol

reply to post by A-Dub


I love the idea of combining the exoskeleton with armor. But I couldn't help but notice that the name "walking tank" could have also been shortened to "wanker". No offense intended, just a funny observation.

Hello. I havent been here in months but noticed my old email was here. I kinda just skimmed through things but speaking of kevlar being in tires made me remember, that Brake Pads are made of ceramics. Prolly the strongest ceramics out there.. . Someone with lots of bullets, a junkyard and some kevlar go solve this. lol

[edit on 8-6-2010 by Jestowe357]

Originally posted by Wolf321
In the late 1800's a Chicago priest developed a bullet proof vest made of silk. If I recall, the vest worked against lower velocity handguns. Perhaps in conjunction with steel or kevlar you would get some decent protection.

en.wikipedia.org...

It was common among duelists to wear several layers a moistened silk, this was often enough to stop a musket ball from a pistol size muzzle loader. This gave an opportunity to take some time to aim and make it count.

I've heard several stories about women of color having stopped bullets with woven hair pieces. I think something about the woven structure of the hair piece catches the bullet in such a way that it manages to stop the bullet.

I guess it is similar to how Kevlar works.

I'm surprised no one mentioned dragon skin armor.

www.pinnaclearmor.com...

There's a video on their site where a dummy is laying on a hand grenade and the armor and dummy remain functional and intact.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
has anyone ever shot a phone book? I have shot several phone books testing ballistics of round and expansion cause they are easy to retrieve out of the books. Your average thick phone book will stop all handgun rounds I have tried. Just a point of interest

Well it depends on the bullet type (ie. hollow point, FMJ ect.), bullet weight and velocity. Hollow point bullets won't penetrate as much as an FMJ bullet they transfer their energy much faster and usually fragment whereas FMJ's usually stay intact and tumble end over end. My .357 with JSP (jacketed soft points) will punch through 2, 3" thick phone books and bullet lies almost halfway into the 3rd. book, I imagine a .44 mag will go through at least 4 or 5 with the same type of bullet. And trying to stop a rifle round is an incredibly hard task even for the best types of body armor, my .308 with 170gr. Lapua FMJ's will go through 10 of those 3" phone books and bullet lies 3/4 of the way into the 11th book.

The phone book theory isn't a good one Ceramic plates are probably the best bet or something more dense like Tungsten or Carbide but they weigh much more than Ceramics of the same size. Maybe you could try to develop Explosive Reactive Body Armor much like the ones used on Russian tanks lol, it might be more dangerous and cause more damage than the bullet itself though.

I HAVE HAD SCHEMATICS FOR HOME MADE BULLET RESISTANT PROOF ARMOR NOT SURE BUT HERES THE PARTS I THOUGHT OF USING

`THIRTY SMASHED ALUMINUM CANS
`TIN FOIL
`FOLDED NEWSPAPERS
`FREEZER BAGS FILLED WITH PETROLEUM JELLY
`2 COOKIE SHEETS
`THREE SHIRTS
`5 LEATHER BELTS
`A MIXTURE OF 5 TUBES OF SUPER GLUE 3 SCHOOL GLUE'S AND SMASHED GLASS PLATES
`PLYWOOD
`STYROFOAM
MOSTLY LIGHT WEIGHT GONNA BE HEAVY EASY TO OBTAIN ASK AND I COULD GIVE
YOU THE SCHEMATICS

Plate carrier + Ceramic plates (front and back) is the way to go (you can find used one for ~$650).
Steel plates have been tried back in the early '90's. Older soviet/russian vests had 2mm titanium plates with kevlar in between. Ceramic proved to be the better ones so far. Dragon skin is not in production anymore, as far as I know.

reply to post by A-Dub


Another poster on page two mentioned the man who built the Grizzly Suit, and the Trojan S full body exo armour suit. This armour can cold stop anything up to a 7.62 , repeated shots from shotguns, handguns, all over a small spot without being penetrated. Staggeringly , when the armour is placed over ballistic clay (a product which can be moulded to resemble a torso, and used to measure the shock of displacement from a bullet striking armour) the amount of displacement that was registered was insignificant. The sensation of being struck by a round while inside the armour, therefore would be something like recieving a friendly punch in the chest, wont even leave a bruise. We are talking about an armour type that outperforms all torso armour currently being used by the military of the world, and covers more of the body than any other armour type in the world.

If you had a HAL, and you got the inventor of the trojan S armour to apply his genius to it, you would be well placed to basicaly have power armour.

If you wanted to increase the ridiculous levels a little bit more, and make these suits capable of rapid air deployment, you could get one of these bolted on....

www.dailymotion.com...

If you are gonna do something mental, might as well do the job properly eh?

reply to post by A-Dub


Also, the american military suit is all very well, but it lacks certain features, including but not limited to , proper construction , or any form of elegance. Its power pack is also ridiculous.

When mentioning HAL you only need to think about this:

www.youtube.com...

This is a far more elegant design, and because it doesnt weigh in at such a hefty poundage, it lends itself to armour augmentation with a greatly reduced need for power pack size increases. Sure, the US military version looks badass, but it is quite limited by its size , and is no where near as manouverable as the Cyberdyne system. The HAL by Cyberdyne is in my opinion the superior example of this tech type.