Does anyone get their helmets painted? Just had my new Arai GP helmet done: what do you guys think? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
gnarly rockin hip Peterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!! i like it my stand 21 just has my Benefactor Member NRA and Life Member CRPA stickers on it, [and O+ in big letters for openroadracing.com], which i expect you not to approve of.....
nice looking lid! you seemed to resist to current trend of custom paint, you kept it very clean. well done. pcb
cool - the stripe on the visor is a good idea - I like the Arai helmets although mine has the vents that interfere with the roof
Love the smoked visor and simple paint job. Did you use stickers or are the horses and Ferrari painted. Mine are all hand painted The guy who did it is Rainbow Colors and he has done a few of the F1 guys!
they are stickers - I did get the helmet painted because I could not stand the white - seems to be the only color Arai come in - it took a month because they painted the wrong helmet first; a very oddly shaped Bell - can't even imagine how long it would take to hand paint the decals
What we do is have stencils computer-cut on vinyl mask material, similar to what a sign-shop might do, and use those with an airbrush. It still takes time, but speeds up the painting. However, some stuff still needs to be done by hand with a fine bristle brush, such as the highlighting (white details) on the prancing horse. For example, the ARAI logo on the helmet above is NOT a decal.
I'm going to be getting a new Arai GP-5, but I don't know where to take it to get it professionally painted... Any ideas? I was thinking about sending in my design to Lucky Design over the internet (they have a special form for this), and have them ship it to me. Any other options for someone in Australia?
Hey Chalstrad, McHarnas, you must have an idea. Any recommendations about who are the best helmet painters? (read my above post) Thanks.
There are a number of good helmet painters in the USA, including BK Designs, Jack Bich, Blowsion, Bullseye Visual, and of course me (www.helmet-painting.com), any of which you can send your helmet to and have it painted and shipped back to you. It's not rocket science, especially if you already have a design in mind. Mike Charness
looked at mine again in detail - I assumed that they used stickers and clear coated them because of the detail of the logos - however one can feel several layers of paint going over the red/black/yellow under the clear coat your process would explain why they are so detailed and regular shaped
Normally, though, enough clearcoat gets put on (i use at least 5 coats) so that it can then be hand-sanded and polished so you don't feel all those layers, and it's just a smooth finish. Of course, with less clearcoat and without hand-sanding, even if you can feel "paint lines" with your fingers, you don't see that at normal viewing distance.
I always liked this helmet, it's the late seventies Jacky Ickx helmet. The second one is an eighties model. Simple dark blue with a white stripe Bell helmet. I hope i can find one like this for myself one day. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The shield won't meet modern Snell SA standards, and of course you won't find the "dual eyeport" style in any new helmet. But maybe you'll find one someday to have painted as a shelf-display.
Not for events that also accept open-face style helmets, but by looking at the shield, the age becomes more obvious and the helmet itself will have to be rated at least Snell SA2000 if you want to use it at events past 2005, and that one clearly is not. And of course if you just take of the shield, the mount holes will still be there. You're stuck with a shelf-display if you're hooked on that old style design.
