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DIY: Sliding Gloves

DIY: Sliding Gloves
Don't feel like paying $50+ for a pair of pre-engineered sliding gloves? Want to gather up your own parts and personalize your own glove?

Good news!

I have an intructable that will show you how!

if you are unfamiliar with "sliding" as referred to in skateboarding here is a vid to help you out.

here is a link that shows how some real hardcore guys do it (sliding that is).

 
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Step 1Decide what to get.

Decide what to get.
Before we acquire all of our materials we have some important decisions to make, some easier than others. First off we need to consider what sliding matrix we want to choose, there are many different options and it all will come down to price and availability and how far you want to slide. One of the design considerations for a puck is how you will use it, if you will make a lot of really crazy long lasting slides then a really slick material is great, but you give up some stopping friction. On the other hand if you just want to do some casual slides and other stuff then an intermediate CoF material will work great giving a nice compromise between stopping power, wear, and how long you can slide.

**if you already know what material you are going to slide on you can skip the following as it contains a lot of material description.**

The Sliding Matrices:
UHMWPE- aka Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene; This slider is one of the cheaper and better materials to use IMO. It has a cost of about $10-$15 per square foot in 3/8" thicknesses(cheaper when its thiner), and it is has one of the best coefficient of friction out there. I won't wax on about the chemistry here but I will say that due to its cross-linked chemical structure it is one of the toughest materials for the job.

Corian- Acrylic with aluminum oxide filler. This material is used as a counter top material with great abraision resistance and great wear life. The great thing about corian is that it can be had for free at some home depots or Lowes. They give out little 1"x1" tiles as samples and whatnot they also have a lot of neat "rocky" colors. The downside is that if you can't find it for free you have to buy it, and because of its nature being a filled material it will be a bit more costly and harder to get in small quantities.

Acrylic- as the name says it is a base polymer for Corian but it withstands abrasions and heat fairly well, acrylic is also what plexiglass is made out of. Acrylic will be cheaper than corian and more readily available at smaller quantities, but its not as durable as its cousin, corian.

Delrin -This a a very commonly used polymer for sliding gloves it has a good CoF and decent abrasion resistance, and is competitively priced. It's downfall is that it does tend to wear much quicker than the materials mentions above. I have not personally used Delrin just because when it is processed (ie Extruded) a full face mask is required, because the material will off-gas producing nauseous gases similar in effect to formaldehyde. Personal hang up I know but decent material.

Polypropylene - You guessed it, another polymer! This plastic material is generally used in applications that require more durability and toughness than a standard polyethylene. its structure is very similar to polyethylene but it has a higher melting temperature and is tougher than STANDARD PE. This material does wear down faster similar to delrin, but its a great price point material, it can be had at your local mart in the form of cutting boards.

Nylon - more polymers I know I know. Nylon's CoF is great and only rivaled by UHMWPE, yet it is harder and tends to wear slightly faster than UHMWPE. Nylon can also be found in the form of a cutting board but it is sometimes rare. Nylon may not be a great choice just because of its chemistry, its a condensation reaction polymer. A condensation reaction polymer is one that when synthesized its waste product is water (where the condensation comes from). So what this means is that given enough heat and moisture the product will degrade and return to its base "mers". For a short lived sliding glove this probably isn't that big of a deal, yet it is wise to take note of.

Polycarbonate - you may recognize the name, its the formulation for bullet proof glass. Some may say Lexan instead, although lexan is a Dupont trade name and has many different formulations. It will probably be the most expensive of the plastics to get a hold of. Its redeeming properties are having a super high melting point (300 C) and really great abrasion and impact resistance. The downside to polycarbonate is that it can sometimes be brittle, and its much harder than other materials and wont be a soft impact compared to PE or PP. Since there are so many applications of PC it is hard to find the one that will work for sliding, some are hard and brittle and will shatter when used; others are softer and will actually chunk a little and stick to the road. Its a tricky polymer to play with but some people really prefer it.

That concludes the materials section, out of the whole list here UHMWPE has the best CoF and price point for me. at $15 square foot I was sold; a square foot of any material will be enough to make a backup set of sliding pucks. Another selling point for the material is that it is very chemical resistant and used as a low friction matrix in hip implants.

The next thing is where to buy these fancy plastics? I purchased mine from Piedmont Plastics located in Charlotte NC. They have a bunch of different branches throughout the US and are very friendly this is their site Here.

SO now that you have decided on sliding matrix you can move to the other parts, gloves, velcro, and way to consolidate the two. For me it was a quick trip to Walmart and Hobby lobby; I picked up a nice set of workmans gloves for $12. I then proceeded to Hobby lobby for the velcro, I purchases two packs of sew on velcro for $.99 each and then some self adhesive velcro $3.19. I wanted to sew my velcro on just because it seemed better and more reliable than using some contact cement. It also helped that I had a spool of Kevlar laying around. You can use whatever thread you want but I just thought kevlar was cooler because it has a tensile strength five times that of steel.

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88 comments
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May 6, 2012. 10:34 AMpkörffer says:
Ok, this was a nice one.

I decided to change one thing: I glued the velcros to both glove and poly. And I used a cutting board from IK..A instead of the complicated instruction about work pieces.

For german readers, a (slightliy modified) short translation:

Ich habe 2 Sachen geändert, ansonsten ein Tippitoppi Instructable. Die Näherei habe ich mir gespart und stattdessen mit Heißkleber die Klettverschlüsse aufgebracht. Und die fast schon wissenschaftliche Diskussion, was denn nun der beste Werkstoff unter den Polys sein könnte, habe ich mithilfe eines anderen DIY-Forums runterbrechen können... ich habe einfach ein Schneidebrett von I..A genommen. Das Ding kostet 4 Euro ;-) und den Bauhausbesuch konnte ich mir sparen (ist eh Sonntag heute).
Feb 25, 2012. 5:15 PMAlex-95__ says:
just wondering if anyone knows how to stick the spikey half of velcro to the pe pucks that i made out of a cutting board because apparently nothing sticks well to pe?? thanks guys
Jan 28, 2012. 12:26 AMAlex-95__ says:
just wondering how you sew through a thick glove and velcro without putting your hand inside....could you please tell me??? thanks man, professonal looking!
Feb 13, 2012. 11:05 AMAlex-95__ says:
haha yea sort of man.....thanks
Jan 17, 2012. 2:47 AMalex19 says:
this is sick, slide gloves are one of the best parts of longboarding
i can't wait to make more videos now


Frame Grabber
Sep 26, 2011. 9:10 PMhturba says:
i did pretty much the same thing here except i used the other side of velcro on the gloves and instead of sticking the velcro to the plastic i just melted the plastic onto the gloves with a blow torch. you get a very solid fit that way. cant take off the pucks once they are on but you just melt new ones onto the old ones when needed.
Sep 8, 2011. 8:32 PMzcbaker says:
I spend a ton of time on my computer or riding my bike and I am confused so I probably missed something somewhere. What are these gloves for???
Sep 14, 2011. 6:16 PMzcbaker says:
Oh. OK, thanks. I have never long boarded or skate boarded so your reply helped me a lot.
Sep 9, 2011. 12:27 AMtdawber-mandeno says:
what are these for
Jun 28, 2010. 4:12 PMGlueyMcGee says:
is uhmwpe available at walmart, home depot, etc places like that?
Feb 13, 2011. 2:23 AMmasterochicken says:
Another material that I have found to work extremely well is acrylic, though it can be a bit fragile.
Jan 16, 2010. 6:50 PMcowscankill says:
Do I see a new sport forming---?
Possibly sliding gloves and shoes... sliding around various places sounds fun.
Dec 12, 2010. 3:34 PMisaac! says:
the gloves arent slippery, they are more as armour for your hands on the road. they only slide when you are longboarding at speed.
Dec 12, 2010. 3:55 PMcowscankill says:
Oh, okay, thanks for clarification. My cutting board is kind of... greasy feeling from the plastic type so I assumed the slickness of the material would allow people to slide around.
Feb 13, 2011. 2:21 AMmasterochicken says:
You actually weren't far off at all. Technical longboard sliding has been going on for a while now. However newer puck materials are provding extremely slick and fast slides.
Feb 3, 2011. 11:23 PMzs says:
just a thought on cutting the plastic, i think a hole saw would give a move aesthetically pleasing look. and be more like the pucks you would buy online.
Aug 5, 2010. 8:50 PMstitches22 says:
my gloves made with some cheap $5 gloves i found in home depot, as well as the same velcro you used for $2, and some random cutting board i found in my local foodtown for $5 = $12 gloves! and when i used them i very soon learned the importance of the thumb puck, so i cut out pucks for the thumb, but i need to buy more velcro as i ran out. overall this whole project took about 10 minutes to put together, the velcro sticks perfectly well to the gloves, no need for sewing!
Jul 29, 2009. 8:36 AMstillfatbuthappy says:
Does the velcro have to be industrial strength ?
Jul 29, 2010. 5:47 PMdarthdarth4 says:
Yeah it kinda does. I tried the wimpy stuff and the pucks just came off when I was sliding. Not fun at all. I bailed and hit the curb pretty hard. So best go with the industrial strength :D
Oct 3, 2009. 5:26 PMZaphod Beeblebrox says:
could you make pucks out of wood or steel ?????
Apr 4, 2010. 10:52 PMcdawg14 says:
 Yes but wood will wear down extremely fast and have a very uneven slide. Steel will heat up and burn your hands. Also steel will be insanely heavy and loud.
Jul 1, 2009. 2:36 PMvanpaun says:
A few notes you should add: UMWHPE is readily available as Marine Lumber, in the form of plain flat sheets, in black and white, in various sizes and thicknesses. Instead of sewing the velcro, witch is challenging, I would recomend a product called jewlers glue. This stuff is 10X stronger, and actually bonds the materials (my gloves got very hot after I stuck the velcro on). All in all, great instructions.
Oct 27, 2009. 11:20 AMZaphod Beeblebrox says:
were cn u get that glu?
Aug 12, 2009. 6:28 PMClayton H. says:
is it like Mighty mend it?
Jul 1, 2009. 2:41 PMvanpaun says:
  • Marine lumber from West Marine
Jun 27, 2008. 1:42 PMethdem says:
Hey, thanks for the help! Here's what mine looks like:
Oct 3, 2009. 5:28 PMZaphod Beeblebrox says:
looks like cheese...
Jun 22, 2009. 9:01 AMquesoman says:
no offense but ur material looks like soap. :-)
Jul 16, 2009. 12:56 PMnomooremr.niceguy says:
I know I'm a complete poser, but would this work on a ripstick? Also, it's been mentioned that some people would like convex sliding pucks. You can buy solid acrylic domes from www.usplastic.com . They are sold under the name clear acrylic cabachone (Half-Balls). I just thought I'd trow that out there for anyone who is interested. I think they are pretty cheap, but look at them and let me know.
Sep 4, 2009. 5:57 PMZaphod Beeblebrox says:
probably it would work i ripstik
Aug 23, 2009. 9:32 AMCann0n says:
I made mine out of cutting board, work gloves, and epoxy. It was pretty much free. I had everything I needed. Just rough up the back side f the puck before you epoxy it down.
May 16, 2009. 2:42 PMTYL3RWOLF says:
extremely good job, but I recommend making the finger puck about half that width or maybe make 2 circular pucks and velcrow them on to the index/middle and then another on the ring/pinky...and then also try making the hand puck also a circle and another circular puck on the thumb(it would probably make it easier to pick your board up) but you still did a really nice job......I'm still just gunna buy one though=]
Jan 2, 2009. 8:28 PMstoopynoonoo says:
haha very nice 'ible! following your KISS idealogy, wouldn't it just be much more simpler and practical to just hot glue the pucks? my gloves have a square puck on the palm and individually sanded oblong finger pads(from cutting boards)
Mar 2, 2009. 7:29 AMstoopynoonoo says:
do you know if tape velcro will stick on to the gloves well? I tried the velcro(glue) and the pucks fell off; I really wanted to avoid sewing :)
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