Hello everyone
This is a walkthrough on how to remove those annoying chinstraps from your flex7 bottoms. First and foremost, im gunna post some "legal" stuff:
1: I, joshlikespaintball (josh merritt) can not be held responsible if you mess up and ruin your bottoms. This walkthrough is for anyone to use at their own discretion.
2: I have done this many times before and found that it works best. Altering or changing certain steps in the walkthrough can result in damaged goods, which I will not be held liable for.
3: I will not replace people's flex parts if they damage them while using this walkthrough, you control your actions, not me.
4: If you like your way of removing the chinstrap, thats great, but keep it to yourself.
5: JT does not recommend removing the chinstrap. Some fields and tournement circuts will not let you use an alterd mask. Cut Flex8 bottoms are also applicible to that rule.
6: Safety Glasses are required because metal peices may become airborne.
now onto some rules for this thread:
1: No flamming, off topic posts, e-police, trolls, dbags. You know who you are.
2: Think twice about posting, do you really need to say what your about to say?
3: Dont PM me asking about stuff pertaining to this thread. Just post and ill respond.
and with all of that in mind, here we go
Step 1: Gather a *sharp* pair of scissors, needle nose plier and a plier.
Step 2: Using the scissors, cut away the chinstrap and excess fabric. Keep in mind, the more of the fabric that you leave on, the more that can get in your way.
It should now look something like this:
Step 2.5: The scissor is now not required, so put that away before you hurt yourself. Take a second and look at the following diagram:
This is a professionaly drawn
diagram of the metal rivet used to hold the chinstrap onto the bottom. The space between the "back" and the "disc" is where the plastic of the bottom is.
Step 3: Using the plier, make a cut in the disc, if you dont hear a click, you havent cut all the way through. The best cutting angle is the way I showed you in the pic below. It minimizes contact with the plier and the plastic.
It should now look like this:
Step 4: Sorry for the blurry/weird picture, my camera really wouldnt focus, but you can still kind of tell. In step 4, you need to take the plier, and cut notches in the "lip" (see diagram if you forgot already) This makes the "disc" looser so you have more room to move. Saftey glasses should be worn at all times mind you, metal shards can become airborne. I almost lost an eye a few times.
Step 5: Again, sorry for the pics, but you take what you can get now adays.
Now that the disc is free to move around on its own, take the needle nose plier, and bend the part of the disc you cut up. Just look hard at the pics, youll see what I mean.
Step 6: Useing the pliers, work the disc off of the lip. It really shouldnt be that hard, the disc should be practicly falling off the mask at this point.
Step 7: Now that the disc has been removed, and thrown into the trash so you dont step on it or your pet eats it, you can very simply remove the remainder of the chinstrap. Heres a before and after pic:
Step 8: Using those needle nose pliers, squeeze the rest of the "lip" flat, as flat as you can. Remember, it just needs to be flat enough to slip through the vents it goes through.
Step 9: The end result. As you can see, there is a ring left from the "back." This is usually from removing the chinstrap and turning the remains up near that ridge. If you avoide movement while doing the previous steps, there wont be any damage. Otherwise, this was a sucessful demonstration of how to remove your chinstrap.
So thats it, I hope you found this walkthrough helpful.
Like my dad always says, treat your equipment right, and it will treat you right. Always maintain your gear and keep it in the best shape possible, especially the things that protect you.
If you have any questions, concerns, comments, feel free to post. Just be mindful of the rules.
-Joshlikespaintball