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[Zammap]

I know some of you may think Velcro is icky but I've used it since day one and I've had no major problem with it. It's easy to slap my armor on and it stays on ALL day. Doesn't sag or threaten to fall off. (I can imagine however that velcro may not work for heavy armor like metal were as mine is sintra)

While the velcro does work and do it's propose well I've come across one sticky draw back... it melts...

I bought basic sticky back velcro (not even the industrial kind!) and just slapped it right on to my armor. As is the velcro on the plastic is fine. It stuck on good. However the velcro that is attached to my vest I found has the sticky stuff oozing all over the place. Of course I knew from day one that just sticking it on my vest was not going to work so I went through the trouble of sewing on each and very little piece on through the sticky junk. It stays in place fine.

But over the years of walking around in hot weather has caused the sticky stuff to get all over the place. While it is not noticeable once the armor pieces are on top it's just so uncomfortable to touch it when putting my vest on and off. It gets on my fingers and my hair tends to just get stuck under it. Ew.

I've gotten myself a large bottle of goo gone and have to go through the process of cutting off all my old velcro, cleaning my vest, and sewing on new pieces.

I suppose this just goes as a warning of such to use both sew on and sticky back velrco.

[celine falco]

I've definitely had the sticky velcro melt like you're saying. I've used the industrial strength stuff and it works great, but it's gooped up the leather under the armor. I do think it's the heat. I have no clue how to clean it though. Won't goo gone make it too slick to reapply it and have it stick right later? Or does that wash off easily?

[Zammap]

Don't know about leather as my vest is fake leather. I am keeping the velcro on the armor pieces as that is fine, but the new velcro pieces that will go on my vest wont have sticky backs so I don't have to worry if the goo gone will prevent it from sticking, as it will be sewn on.

 The goo gone does work as it is very oily. It just takes a long time (one napkin with goo gone, another napkin with water)

[Cyrus Rang]

Do NOT sew the sticky backed velcro to your soft parts! Also do NOT use the "Fabric Fusion" velcro that you iron on... It last for about 2 min or till you pull your armor off, whichever comes first.

They make velcro strips that have no glue on the back to be sewn on fabric/leather and the such. Use this
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/productdetail.jsp?pageName=search&flag=true&PRODID=prd3164

[celine falco]

sewing is probably the better idea for the fabric parts, I think. Good luck!! I swear maintaining these things is almost as much work as making them.

[Zarah Koreen]

I do both. I use the sew on on the vest and velcro on the armour.

[Slade Kel]

I'm all for velcro . For the vest, I use 'sew-on' velcro that I attach with liquid stitch fabric glue, then I just sew down the corners so they don't peel off. Then I go with industrial strength adhesive velcro for the plates, which, for the most part, are usually metal. Even when I was going with unnecessarily heavy 16ga steel chest plates, the velcro held up pretty much forever.

To get the industrial velcro to fasten properly, you have to sort of wiggle it a little, moving the plate against the vest, but once you do that, it holds quite secure. It's kind of a chakaar to pull the plates off afterward, but I've never had a problem with the plates coming off randomly, not even when a corner of the armor plate has caught on something.

[Zevlar Rayco]

Trilan discovered that if you sew one side of the velcro (the non sticky kind)  to the vest & & add hot glue to the sticky side on the plates it works REALLY well. should the velcro on the plates start to come loose a little shot of hot glue & voila! fixed. hope this helps.

[Dar'manda]

I always sew sew-on velcro to softgoods.  Do not try to machine sew thru stick-on velcro- the adhesive will gunk up the needle and you'll end up breaking or bending needles.  It's also the same if you try to hand stitch it.  The industrial strength adhesive velcro should stick fine enough to armor, if it starts to come off you can always just superglue it back on, and then its not coming off anytime soon.  Unless the paint peels off the armor, that's happened to me, lol.  The industrial strength velcro adhesive is much better than the regular stick on velcro.