Knee Pad Materials

[Mark620]

You wear your separate kneepads UNDER your suit? I figure wearing them on top helps protect the suit - kneepads being only a fraction of what a good suit costs to replace. Plus they're a little easier to adjust when they move around.

I got "corrected" by a caver for wearing knee pad over my cave suit...

[icave]

I love my Meander coveralls with the built-in knee pad pockets. I just cut up super cheep Walmart foam pads and uses two layers in each knee pocket. It's really cheep and works great.

[Spike]

Here in Pulaski County MO we wear the white "Storm Trooper" tile layer knee pads. Our cave streams tend to be full of angular chert which shreds Cordura and other fabrics. The Storm Troopers hold up great and don't move around. The biggest problem is with the straps. The gray rubber straps will pop off and sometimes will vanish in a crawl. We just tie a piece of string between the 2 straps. If you lose both you lose the whole pad which is more noticeable. Also another company makes a similar knee pad with black less stretchy rubber straps that don't fall off. However the knee pad slides off the knee when walking. I've swapped the straps on my knee pads have the best knee pads I've ever wore. Great for caving in MO or out in Flint Ridge.

Spike

[graveleye]

Here in Pulaski County MO we wear the white "Storm Trooper" tile layer knee pads. Our cave streams tend to be full of angular chert which shreds Cordura and other fabrics. The Storm Troopers hold up great and don't move around. The biggest problem is with the straps. The gray rubber straps will pop off and sometimes will vanish in a crawl. We just tie a piece of string between the 2 straps. If you lose both you lose the whole pad which is more noticeable. Also another company makes a similar knee pad with black less stretchy rubber straps that don't fall off. However the knee pad slides off the knee when walking. I've swapped the straps on my knee pads have the best knee pads I've ever wore. Great for caving in MO or out in Flint Ridge.

Spike

cool... those are the pads I bought for my tile-job... they sort of do look like something out of Star Wars lol. I found them to be much more comfortable than the elastic-strapped ones, but was wondering how the rubber straps would hold up.

[pcassidy]

I bought some cheap ones a few weeks ago. they are about 12" long, they have a hard plastic cap on the outside. I *thought* I would like them. I do not. They are very hard on the knees. And if you wear them under anything, it gets cut up due to the hard plastic.
I'll be looking for some different knee pads.

I went to Buckners here in Indiana, that first 6 or 800 foot crawl just about killed my knees in those pads.

Patrick

[JoeyS]

When Bomber Gear went out of business, my knees were very sad. They made some of the best pads for caving, IMO. Now, the only caving specific Knee pads I know of are GGG's, and although I'm sure they are better than most walmart varieties, everyone I see wearing them has some type of problem with them. This weekend it took three of us to help a fellow caver put on her new GGG's because of the annoying method of fastening them. They would be alot better if the straps had a fastex buckle system rather than the tedious threading of the straps thru the tiny buckles. One of these days, my bombers are going to be worn out so hopefully they will have addressed this problem by then.

[Hatch]

I'd say it's time for some Swaygo kneepads to be created...

[NZcaver]

I'd say it's time for some Swaygo kneepads to be created...

Yeah, maybe Scott can RF weld them to our knees!

[mabercrombie]

you can find Bomber gear knee pads on Ebay pretty often.

[Darklight]

LONG LIVE ROCKMASTER!!!

However, lately my foam passing in my beloved Rocksters has begun to wear. I wonder if one could replace it with a 1/2" think piece of Sorbothane? That stuff is supposed to have incredible shock absorption properties. Not sure how it would hold up.

[lather]

I got some cheap ones - ten bucks for a pair - from a local tool store. They have padding with a large plastic cover which work like mud scoops with crawling in mud.

[driggs]

B&C Wunderwear had an interesting kneepad prototype at OTR this year. They were thick neoprene sandwiched between a few layers of ballistic nylon (or whatever her suits are made of) and large enough to cover the knee and upper shin. The closure system looked really great - a wide velcro strap wrapped completely around the elastic straps to ensure it wouldn't come undone. I don't think she's producing them commercially yet, but I believe she said they'd cost around $50.

[Eve]

I used to use the cheap kind with the plastic shell covers. They were heaven when crawling, even on lava - never felt a thing. They were downright dangerous though when climbing. The plastic easily gets caught on things, which either traps you when you want to move, or moves when you are trying to use the knee as a point of contact.