The Armour Archive

I was wondering...has anyone tried to use Silly Putty in armour ?

It seems like a great idea - it's soft, flexible..and if someone hits it, it stiffens up, even breaks, to absorb the shock.

Seems like the perfect aketon padding, if you could find someway to stop it pooling...yes, I know it's a silly idea...but...intriguing.

john

Nope, never thought about it - but I'd love to get my hands on some of this:

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,1 ... 04.00.html

Corn starch and water does the same thing.

I think that the silly putty would make it a very heavy aketon. The best part about silly putty armour is that if you fell down... you should bounce right back up.

Bjorn

For anyone that's never seen silly putty, or heard of its properties, this is hysterical..

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/12/ ... silly.html

John

valen wrote:I was wondering...has anyone tried to use Silly Putty in armour ?

It seems like a great idea - it's soft, flexible..and if someone hits it, it stiffens up, even breaks, to absorb the shock.

Seems like the perfect aketon padding, if you could find someway to stop it pooling...yes, I know it's a silly idea...but...intriguing.

john

Well, I think you've got it a bit confused as to how it would work on shock absorption. Stiffen up, yes - but in so doing I think you would find it *transmitted* rather than absorbed the impact.

I can speak from some evil experience as to the nature of silly putty in a mace head. Don't do it - it's like hitting/being hit with a brick. Feels all nice and soft and mushy when you squeeze it. Doesn't feel that way when it hits you moving at speed.

Gavin

I've only got small bits to work with, but it seems like it'll absorb impact much like thick boiled leather armour; it's not quite as hard as steel, but stiffer than leather.

Hmm. Crayola are doing $75 for a five pound bag of it. Tempting.

John

Kilkenny wrote:I can speak from some evil experience as to the nature of silly putty in a mace head. Don't do it - it's like hitting/being hit with a brick. Feels all nice and soft and mushy when you squeeze it. Doesn't feel that way when it hits you moving at speed.

Gavin

I used to have a foam mace that did that...

valen wrote:I've only got small bits to work with, but it seems like it'll absorb impact much like thick boiled leather armour; it's not quite as hard as steel, but stiffer than leather.

Hmm. Crayola are doing $75 for a five pound bag of it. Tempting.

John

You're free to experiment, of course. I suppose there's a chance that it will absorb instead of transmit. Personally I'll stick to more conventional varieties of padding with known performance traits. While I have more intellectual curiosity than is sometimes good for me, on the subject of Silly Putty in an armoured combat context, I had it knocked right out of me many years ago.

That damn mace hit way too hard. Can't imagine why it got banned. Oh, right, I was KEM.

Gavin

There are some high tech materials that people are experimenting with, reactive armors that harden under impact but a otherwise flexible, I think bullet proof vests are the current application.

Imagine a fairly thin fabric that when struck, say with a sword, momentarily becomes rigid. I think they are having trouble with heat dispersion.

Now I just need to remember where I read about this, probably Scientific American.

-J