Well I was trying to look for some other people’s attempts to modify the GBFans older custom made elbow pads, as I felt they were a bit too blue.
After some research and not finding much, seemed like most just sewed a black stretchy patch on them and called it a day, I decided to riff of another thread’s great instructions.
I would like to thank mr0072003 for his tutorial on how to spray/modify the current elbow pads that are in the shop and point me in the right direction in his thread here.
I ended up using the same paint he recommended for his modification and think it was a perfect choice.
Started off with my blue-ish gray pads (forgot to take the before picture, but I’m sure you’ve all seen them at some point).
Then hit them with a light coat of charcoal gray dupli-color vinyl-fabric spray paint.
Picked up at autozone/advanced auto parts for $7.50 a can (only need 1). (Also have lighter medium gray and gray if not happy with the way charcoal turns out)
Then picked up some 2" black stretch elastic fabric from Jo-Ann fabric (picked up a foot for less than $2, just in case I cut something wrong.)
Measured out the fabric to about 3" (so 2 2"x3" rectangles) I eyeballed it as my pads aren’t exactly the same thickness at the band portion, but I think it looks good.
By the time I was done cutting I hit the pads with another coat. Full pads mind you, not just the band.
I also got to thinking about the inside of the pad, as it was still a much lighter blueish color.
So after letting my second coat dry I flipped the pads inside out, placed them each around an empty 2 liter bottle of soda and sprayed the insides too.
Using the soda bottle was great, allowed me to hold to top portion of the bottle while turning and spraying the pads, both inside and out. The paint dries quite quickly and doesn’t come off the plastic bottle, so cleanup and removing the pads was a a breeze.
After doing the inside about 3 coats, I flipped the pads back around and hit one final coat on the exterior, so about 3-4 coats total, depending on how you like the color.
I let them dry for a few minutes then started stretching them out a bit, as the paint does seem to harden them a tad, nothing to worry about or anything, mine feel great now.
I sewed on both patches using black thread and here are my results. They may be a touch darker than I was going for, but overall I am very pleased with the color, and even the little crooked sewing I did looks decent, lol. Very happy with this modification and think it looks a lot better than the blue-ish hue I had going before. If anyone has any questions feel free to shoot me a PM.
Thanks for looking.
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