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PAINTING
THE MOST DETAILED HELMET………..EVER!
The first thing to do is strip it
down. Remove all the obvious “removable
bits” i.e. the visor and visor mechanisms, the cheek pads and the covers off
the chinstraps. The next bits to take
off are a bit more permanent; there ain’t no going back now! Remove the inner cheek section, it’s glued
in, but it comes out OK. Take off the
sliding vent section in the chin bar – this just unscrews. Take out the 2 little wire mesh vents in the
chin, this bit took ages, they were glued in place with a ton of resin glue (do
Shoei have shares in Araldite?). Remove
the visor rubber seal and the rubber edge around the bottom of the lid. This is always tedious and difficult. They took ages to get off even with the help
of my trusty scalpel but they came away without a mark, even though there were
chunks of paint still stuck to them!
According to the little instruction book that came with the helmet, the
vents on the top of the lid are not removable, guess what? With brute force, they are! And without any damage! But these may get replaced with clear ones
depending on the design anyway. Ideally,
the inner shell should be removed but this is not always possible. In this case it had to remain in place and
be masked with a large plastic bag, tucked tightly in to avoid any paint
contamination. So there we have it,
after an hour or so, a completely knackered Shoei Z One! Then, sand the whole lot down in
preparation for the basecoat. This was
done using 240 grit wet n dry paper, keep the whole thing wet with a little
added soap to make the job easier. It
doesn’t take long to get rid of the shine and leave a nice key. Incidentally, the “gold ACU sticker” was
left on the helmet and also slightly roughed up. After the sanding stage, the sticker will be
masked over until it’s time for the clear coat at the end of the job. If you intend using the lid for a “track
day” or whatever, the scrutineers will check the sticker. They are impossible to remove without
damage, and replacements are not easily obtainable.
Now it’s time for some paint! I always start with a white basecoat because
this means that any colours you apply in the design will be true and not
“clouded” by any dark colour shining through.
For my base I use Createx Auto Air, with Extender, Catalyst and Bonding
agent added, to aid adhesion. After
it’s all covered, heat set the paint with a hairdryer and leave overnight. The following day I sand this very lightly using
1200 grit just to get rid of any minor blemishes – any faults in the base coat
will haunt you throughout the rest of the job!
What we’ve got now is a perfectly flat eggshell like canvas to work on.
Now it’s time for the design. I took ideas from H.R.Giger (the guy who did all the monster and set
design for the film “Alien”) mixed with
my own creations in the same theme. It
was developed as I went along. There’s no way I can talk you through this,
apart from telling you what materials I used.
The design is drawn freehand straight onto the helmet using my trusty
0.5 mm HB staedtler propelling pencil as I go along. Masking is done with matt frisk airbrush
film carefully cut with a scalpel. The
only paint I used was Com Art transparent black airbrush acrylic applied using
my Iwata Custom Micron B airbrush.
So
how long did that all take? About 7
weeks! Yep, 7 weeks! Not working on it all the time obviously,
but still a couple of hundred hours I would think.
When I was satisfied with the painting, I carefully
cleaned the surface of any blemishes and grease. For this I only use a dry cloth and dry
clean hands – any liquids or chemicals would obviously instantly remove the
delicate water based design! Now it was
time to start applying the clear coat.
The lacquer I use is a 2 pack material, mixed 2 parts lacquer to 1 part
hardener with about 10 percent of the total made up of ordinary thinners. This stuff is extremely toxic, so it’s on
with the overalls, mask and goggles and out into the garage – which is brought
up to the right temperature – and then get the extractors working. For the first application I put on about 3
coats. This is then left overnight to
harden. The following day I rubbed down
the surface using 600 grit wet n dry and applied the lettering. Letraset on the sides and a “shoei” sticker
on the front (I was going to airbrush
this on, but I thought the sticker would be easier). I then applied about 4 more coats of clear
and again left it overnight to go off.
The following day I again rubbed down any imperfections using 600 grit
and applied another 4 coats of 2 pack clear and again left it overnight to
harden. The following day I gave it a gentle rub down
with 1200 grit with soapy water and then spent about 5 hours T cutting the
whole thing until it looked perfect.
Before applying any
polish it was time to reassemble the helmet.
This includes using “super glue” to stick the visor seal and the rubber
edging back on. The best way to do this
is to apply tiny “drops” (well, not even drops really) to the helmet surface in
about 3 or 4 inch sections and press on the relevant rubber strip. With super glue you only get one chance to
get it straight! so it’s important not
to rush this process, excess glue oozing out of edges of the rubber will
“attack” the lacquer so the smallest amount of glue possible is the best
way. Before fitting all the bits to the
helmet I then spent a couple of hours polishing with Autoglym Super Resin
polish to a very high sheen. The rest
of the helmet is assembly is quite straight forward – not quite as much
Araldite on the chin vents though! A
new mirror finish visor was added to complete the monochrome look.
That’s about it really, approximately 3
months from start to finish with maybe 200 hours work in total. The idea of doing it was to create the most
complex design ever seen on a crash helmet; I think I may have succeeded! The helmet is taken to some of the shows and
is put on the stand where it certainly generates a great deal of interest, so
as a “PR” exercise, it does the job.
Inevitably, people ask how much it’s worth, but that’s one of those
questions you can’t really answer. In
time and materials it’s probably somewhere near £2,000……. but would I sell it
for that?
NO WAY!
Do I wear it? Yeah, course I do – it’s a good talking
point and a great advert for my artwork.
Some day soon when I get the time I’ll do another one, the trouble is, somehow I’ll have to better
it.
Steve Whyman
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