Thursday, April 23, 2009

10+ years of white helmets

Through replacements due to accidents and helmet age, I've worn more than my share of white streetbike helmets...'til now. Rather than buying a new one or paying someone to paint what I've got, I decided to this was a DIY job. After sketching out some ideas and asking for input, I settled on a design.

But first, I had some work to do: remove everything I could, sand down the paint and sand out the gouges/scratches.Whats left is the white base coat and the pinkish outer shell.

The design I chose is a stripe of Italian flags, to go with the DIY paint scheme on my Ducati. It is positioned off-center right and runs from front to back. Add a few phrases to help communicate a some heart-felt sentiments and I'm done.

The painting started with a white base coat. I taped off both sides along with the white sections of the flag. Next, a coat of red for the flag, tape off that area, a coat of green and tape off that area. Last was the thin black strips that seperate the flags. Obviously I waited for the paint to dry before each taping.

Text time. After covering the flag stripe, I hand placed letters to spell out my messages. Once in place, the bulk of the helmet was sprayed black. When dry, the letters were removed leaving a nicely contrasting white text with black background.

A few coats of clear, reassemble, and reattach my mini-mp3 (connected to communicator speakers in the helmet) and I'm ready to ride again. Not bad for rattle-can spray paint.

It's not fancy or perfect, but it's not white either.