This is for those of you that have looked at their helmet over and over and thought, " Man I sure would like to paint it different to match my bike or jacket", and wondered how.

First some disclaimers:
1. I am not a professional painter nor claim to be.
2. The recommendations are from my project and lessons learned while doing it.
3. I know my helmet did not come out perfect nor did I expect it to..(so post comments with that in mind)
4. My helmet is old..I know..that's why I attempted to paint it and took the chance of a disaster! (Fully expecting the worse)

OK, that out of the way where did I start? First, I looked at my helmet over and over..again and came up with some ideas in my head of what I wanted to do. Not being and artist at all I still drew rough sketches and tried out different designs.

*TIP* drawing it out and using the colors I was thinking of really helped me eliminate bad ideas and create good doable, realistic designs.


and with color..

so as you can see by the drawings you can conceptualize what it will look like.

where is the picture of the finished helmet?

Day 1: So first thing I had to do was take off all of the hardware I was willing to and start sanding.

*TIP* Most helmets are made out of fiberglass, plastic or some sort of composite material. Power tools on helmets for sanding is a bad idea. Everything that I did was with 150,200, and 400 grit sand paper by hand!

I used a glazing compound to fill all of the dings, chips, scratches, and defects. I did my best to start with the smoothest surface I could. Also I taped up all of the things I didn't feel like cleaning up before painting. Sanding and glazing makes a huge mess so take the time to protect what you can to save time later.



A valid question here is why did I keep the factory stickers? I wanted a custom helmet that still could pass as a factory helmet. Why? Just because. Yes it was a pain to trace them with a razor after masking but in the end I think it was worth it.



As you might notice there is a lot of glazing. I had huge chips, deep! from dropping my helmet on the blacktop the day I bought it. Don't ask!



*TIP* For every minute spent on prep, it will pay huge dividends in the end as you will see. In other words spend the time to get it right here! If you think you will see a blemish it means you will and you probably missed many more!

Also, you might notice my professional painting booth and the block of wood under the helmet. Point being, it doesn't take much space to do this. Keep it clean! Dust loves wet paint! The block of wood made life for me very simple. During the painting process I never had to touch the helmet and could turn it using the wood in any direction I wanted. I guess that should be a *TIP*

Cool project, but are you actually planning on riding in such an old helmet that you have dropped on the blacktop? I don't think I would trust that thing to perform properly in a crash.

Day 1 + 4: At this point I have sanded all parts that were going to be painted and repaired all defects. I lightly cleaned the helmet with mineral spirits. I wasn't sure if it would harm the helmet material but I tested an area and it seemed fine so that's what I used to clean it before painting.

*TIP* Before painting after sanding there is a lot of foreign material on the helmet. Just the oil from your hands will cause defects so clean the helmet and don't touch the painting area. (Know your helmet and be careful what cleaning material you decide to use)

Having a general idea of what colors I was going to use and the fact that the helmet was originally red I decided to use red as the base coat. Now generally I guess this would not matter but in my case I found out when everything was finished this turned out to be a lucky and good decision. Why? because it was the predominant color and actually hid some defects in the paint when I finished.



This is the first coat of "Sunrise Red" Krylon rattle can paint. YES, I said rattle can Home Depot off the shelf paint. I will talk about "Rattle Can" paint tips later there are some important things I learned that I will share.



As you can tell some parts came out very smooth others very rough. I have read the horror stories about painting helmets, paint not adhering, bubbling, orange peeling and things like that so I knew what I was in for and what to expect. Overall I was happy with the results of the first coat.



Immediately I noticed flaws I missed. Remember when I said every minute on prep saves time in the end? Why? Prior to painting adding glazing and sanding it down is rather quick over all. Once painted you have to wait for the paint to dry enough to begin sanding again and doing repairs. Also you run the risk of a material mismatch of the filler you are using and the paint. It's just harder and time consuming!



After that being said in my case....it actually turned out to be a blessing...minus the additional time it took. Why? it brought to my attention things I missed and I had the opportunity to correct them and the glazing was compatible with the paint. Important note here is that after correcting my mistakes I lightly cleaned the helmet again with mineral spirits and let it fully dry before painting it again. At this point the only thing left to do for the day was get some sleep and let the base coat dry over night.

Day 2: Ah! a new day and lot's of energy. Right! I guess I will start this with what not to do! I'll admit, I was getting excited at my progress and results so I just had to see.



I wanted to see what it woud look like so I put on the visor. DON'T DO THIS! Resist the temptation. First the paint was dry to the touch but it had not cured and was soft. It would have been fine for additional coats of paint but not for hardware. I severely scratched the paint where the lower part of the sheild meets the helmet.



Any way damage done, so here is what it looked like. I took off the visor and began sanding down the damage and repainted the area. My punishment for being stupid and doing this was lots of sanding and cleaning and adding another day of drying .

*TIP* Rattle can tip #1 Ok rattle can paint is relatively cheap right? Even if you turned the can upside down as recommended after painting, the tip will never paint correctly again. Throw the unused paint away or save the can for another less important project that doesn't require smooth even painting. After finishing my project some one told me soaking the tip in mineral spirits over night cleans the tip very well. I did'nt know this and didn't do this so I don't know if it works.

Day 3: So all damage was done, corrected and lesson learned I began masking the helmet. I masked everything and closed all openings to the inside of the helmet. I didn't want overspray or fumes to get in the fabric material inside the helmet.

*TIP* Tape..I learned this by accident. Buy new fresh tape and not too wide. Why new tape? It is more flexable which is crucial for masking something so curved as a helmet and...if you have ever masked and painted something before, paint loves to bleed under the tape. New tape adheres much better then tape that has been sitting around ageing. I used 2" wide tape which turned out to be the right choice. Too wide creates wrinkles for the tape to seep under and too thin creates more work and more importantly raises the level of the paint when adding designs on a base coat, ridges form from the paint puddling next to the tape. Try your best to only mask over one layer of tape.



After taping I used a pencil (lightly!), a fabric measuring tape and an exacto knife (sharp, sharp, sharp!) I recommend buying a new knife or blades for your knife, corners are a pain and having a sharp blade and cutting ONCE! creates a cleaner edge and corner. I used the fabric tape to trace arcs in my design and to measure and position the designs as exact as I could.



I don't know why but in this picture the tape edges look very rough, they weren't. As you can see some designs are cut out and you can see my pencil trace on the back. I guess at this point I should describe how I cut out the designs. I attempted to use the measuring tape to guide the razor but after cutting into the tape a couple of times I found that bracing your palm firmly on the helmet, never raising the blade once starting a cut, and taking your time gave me the results I wanted.



Was it perfect? NO, remember I am not a professional and this is my first attempt, so I was happy with the results. I might add here that if you're paying attention the design I cut out looks nothing like my drawings. Why? after it was all taped up I realized my original design was too complex for the first try at this so I settled on something simpler.



So I painted my design with..you guessed it...Home Depot rattle can gloss black. Here is where I learned rattle can tip #1. I had used the black paint on something before and diligently turned it upside down to clean the tip when finished. Wrong! I am not sure if it was just the black paint or what, even after test spraying before the helmet as soon as I sprayed the helmet disaster struck! The paint came out in large blobs and my heart sank. I just ruined my project. But wait, I had another new can... I quickly grabbed it and began to shake it for 5 minutes + (which I might add I did everytime before painting just to make sure) and started spraying over the disaster and as luck would have it the paint splatters flattened out and as you can see after 2 coats came out pretty good! Nothing left to do but get some sleep and let it dry. Before I fell asleep I thought, "Man that black sure looks good and mean I wonder what it would look like if I painted the whole thing bla..............."

keep the posts coming. this is interesting.

Quote from: Bluesmudge on June 06, 2009, 09:44:18 PM
Cool project, but are you actually planning on riding in such an old helmet that you have dropped on the blacktop? I don't think I would trust that thing to perform properly in a crash.

This has been discussed in the past (still differing opinions).  Unless you dropped it off a three-story building and it cracked the shell, this is a non-issue. 

A helmet that has been in a crash is a totally different story.  The crucial part of the helmet is the deformable styrofoam inside; once compressed in a crash, it should never be re-used. 

It is extremely likely that dropping the helmet on the pavement didn't hurt a thing.  There was nothing inside the helmet to compress the styrofoam, and the fall is not enough to damage the shell.  I'm Mister Safety (ATGATT) and I see absolutely NO problem in resusing a helmet that has fallen on the blacktop (unless it fell with my head in it).

Thanks for the clarification Trumpet guy. I guess I should define deep chips in reference to my project. When I say deep I mean from a painted surface being repainted perspective. They were not into the helmet fiber shell but definitely could not be corrected by paint alone. I wanted a glass surface on the entire helmet so I repaired them before painting. And no my head was not in the helmet when it was dropped, my head was in another place

Quote from: JB848 on June 07, 2009, 07:39:06 AM
when it was dropped, my head was in another place

And we don't want to know where. 

Very interesting idea and I can't wait to see how it turns out. 

Day 4 1/2: I painted the black design early in the morning so it had over 24 hours to dry so I decided to bite the bullet and pull off the masking and see what the damage was. Actually I was so excited and couldn't wait any longer..I should have to be safe. I fully expected there to be bleeding black paint everywhere into the red that I had masked off. To my surprise?



Overall it came out OK. It was the results I willing to accept being a garage rattle can first time paint job. I was very happy with the job I did on the factory stickers. I was prepared for them to peel off with the tape but they didn't 



To be honest...I was happy with my efforts and results but the stripes.....I didn't like it. Too plain, too like plain, and it was just...plain.

Wait! you said don't put on the hardware the paint is still soft! Yes, I did. I was very careful and did not close the sheild until.....

Day 5: I didn't mention this in the beginning but I foolishly expected to be done in 2 days tops.

*TIP* If you have 2 days to do a project like this...plan on 4 days plus just in case.



Considering I did all the cutting of the masking free hand with no experience under my belt I was VERY happy how the stripe came out around the vent.



Yes, I know the stripe on the right side of the picture is a little crooked. Did I mention this was my first try?



I thought the top looked cool and came out pretty straight but....something was missing..it was too plain! So to cheer myself up I decided to browse GSTwins and read stories and get ideas and ended up on EBAY!

i agree it looks simple... but it looks pretty good. nice job! 

I'll get back to the Ebay story later. I wondered how my, as dorris commented "simple" helmet would look with my bike while riding so I put them together.



Right away I noticed that the white from the bike, even though there is very little it was jumping out at me. Some how some way I needed white in the design on my helmet.

Painting plastic with spray paint is pretty difficult, it's best to use spray paint that's meant for plastic like kylon fusion. It will bond much better to plastic, or the best ones would be a urethane based spray paint like one for polycarbonate. These types of paint bond with the plastic much better. But if you're going for the type of look you have I think it's best to just buy a red helmet and add vinyl decals. You can buy whole sheets and cut out your own design or even have a sign shop make you a design for not too much money.

Put some white reflective take stripes on it 

Wow, in my opinion that turned out pretty sweet.  Definitely a great job for a first timer.  Hmm, maybe I should take a jab at that helmet I bummed off my friend a while ago...

Not too shabby!  No clear coat though?

Now for info for your next paint job...
I believe that they paint helmets with the same/very similar stuff and method you'd paint a car with esp the plastics like the bumper, so next time try autozone instead of homedespot.  That also means most info you can find for painting a car will apply.
Also, my understanding is usually you want to do a light coat, let dry, sand with 600-1k grit sandpaper, and repeat as many times as you can stand to get that perfectly smooth paint.  Obviously that takes way more time, but can pay off.

That said I'm impressed.

Cool project! Thanks for the writeup. I would like to stress to other people who might consider doing this: do not ever, under any circumstance, let spray paint come in contact with the styrofoam shell! When I used to do a lot of foundry work and styrofoam evacuation casting, one of the best ways to get styrofoam to have a really cool texture was to lightly spray paint it. The paint eats through the foam really fast and leaves really interesting peaks and valleys. Cool for art, but very very bad for head protection.

Well thank you all for the posts and comments. But who ever said the project was finished? I just revealed what it looked like after adding black stripes. More to come! And more tips.