D’s Knees Knee Caps started with my own struggle with sore knees. I had just started a new job, and a few months later my left knee started feeling sore. Quitting my job was not an option for me, so I needed to find a way to manage and solve this problem.
This new job was always going to be hard on my knees. I was doing environmental testing at gas stations, and everything I worked on was at or below ground level. I was constantly walking back and forth, kneeling down, and climbing in and out of underground piping sumps.
When my knee started to be sore, I did what anyone would have done and bought knee pads. I bought cheap knee pads. I was on the road at the time, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. I thought I would find a better solution when I had time to do some research.
The cheap knee pads worked about as good as one would expect, which is to say not very well at all!
When I got home I pulled out my old flooring knee pads, Pro Knees. They are arguably the world’s most expensive knee pads, and are are big and bulky, covering your entire shin with a thick foam pad. I knew they were too big to be practical, but I thought they would solve the kneeling pain part of the problem. So I was surprised when my left knee was still sore when kneeling with these expensive knee pads! I tried to use them for a couple weeks, but they didn’t work like I had hoped.
By this time I had recognized the main problem with knee pads. There is only one design! Every design just uses a foam pad, and foam was not working. I tried thin foam, thick foam, and a few varieties inbetween. But my knee was still sore from kneeling, so I needed something more than just a foam pad on my knee.
I spent a lot of time searching the internet for a better knee pad. There were a lot of designs, but most of them are functionally identical. And then there were a few designs that are a bit strange, being more whimsical in their design without addressing the kneeling part of the problem!
There was one design in particular that was interesting to me. I can’t find it anymore, but I remember that it was available in Australia and it claimed to be designed by doctors. It was a square foam block with a hole carved out of the middle. I don’t remember seeing straps in the photos, so I think you placed it on the ground where you were going to kneel. It appeared to me that it was meant to transfer kneeling pressure away from the front of the knee. I thought that was interesting.
Another knee pad that stood out in my searching was the Arc’teryx Leaf Knee Cap. I was interested because it looked different, and because Arc’teryx has a reputation for high quality gear. They called it a “knee cap”, but they didn’t explain anything about how it worked or why it was better than conventional knee pads. I was tempted, but it was also hesitant because it was so expensive. I kept gravitating back to it over several weeks. I wasn’t convinced that it would be significantly different or better than other knee pad designs, but eventually curiosity got the better of me.
The Arc’teryx Knee Caps are no longer sold to the general public due to being “tactical” product, but at the time I could buy them for a cool $79 in pre-Covid money! Like I said, they were expensive, and I had no guarantee that they would be any better than the cheaper knee pads.
I bought a pair, and they proved to be pretty good. I don’t know how much of this was the designer’s intention, but if I wore them so the plastic cap was directly over the front of my knee when I kneeled, the radius of the cap was smaller than that of my knee. So when I kneeled on them, the shape of this cap held my knee off of the ground, with just the edges of the cap touching the perimeter of my knee.
This design proved to be very effective for managing my knee pain, but they aren’t perfect. The most obvious complaint is that they are tippy. It is inevitable with the design, but if they fix my sore knees, I can deal with tippyness.
I was happy with them for a couple months, but then my knee started getting sore again! These knee pad weren’t working anymore, but I couldn’t see anything wrong with them. My knee kept on getting more sore, and eventually I realized that the plastic cap in the knee pads had cracked! But this crack was difficult to see because of a rubber outer layer was glued to the plastic, holding it together. So it looked intact, but when I kneeled on them, the rubber stretched, the cracked opened up, and the plastic cap flattened out. And I was back to have pressure on the front of my knee.
When I figured it out I bought another pair. I wore the new pair for around 3 months, until the same thing happened! I bought another pair, and it happened again. It was like clockwork. The $79 knee pad would last 3 months and then fail!
By the time I had burned through the third pair, I was forced to accept that these knee caps simply are not designed for the way I was using them. They are a clever design, but they were not designed for heavy use!
But if the Arc’teryx knee caps wouldn’t work for me, what could I do instead?
That is when I decided to make my own knee pads!
I started my new design with the idea of composite materials like fiberglass and kevlar to make a more durable cap. If the main weakness of the Arc’teryx design was the thin plastic shell that splits and cracks, it made sense to me to make a fiber reinforced plastic cap that will not easily crack or split.
Since I was starting from scratch, I realized I could make a few other improvements too. Fiberglass and carbon fiber are much more rigid than thermoformed plastic, so they would allow me to make the knee caps any shape I want, without sacrificing strength!
My vision was to make a design that protected my knees while being strong, stable, durable, and light weight.
I started by making a mold of my knees, which gave me a different shape for the left and right knee. But I quickly learned that the molded shape only fits the knee in one position! The knee changes shapes as it bends, and a knee pad needs to fit over a range of positions! So I gradually modified the shape until I arrived at the shape you see today.
It has taken me years to develop this design and to make it a reality. I started out making molds with foam and Bondo. I would wear my current pair during the week, and on the weekend rush out to the garage to work on making an improved version. Once I knew my design was working, I upgraded to CAD and CNC machining to continue the development of the design.
It has been a journey, and now my hope is that my knee caps can help you the way they have helped me.
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