helmet painting

[armandodiaz]

First a question and then a request:

question
My helmet is an SA00 (but it's only 2yrs old and almost new). Is it worth painting or should I wait to get an SA05?

request:
Can anyone recommend a good (cheap) painter. Most places I've seen are about $375. Seems like a large amount to pay just for looks.

Thanks

[cstreit]

Originally posted by armandodiaz
Seems like a large amount to pay just for looks. Thanks

Have you priced your wife's shoes lately?

[armandodiaz]

That is just way too funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jester911]

Chris no kiddin'.
You could buy some serious race tires for the price of some of those shoes.

I don't know Armando. I would ask around on the board.
Some of the painting skills I have seen on members cars,
a helmet would be short work.

[juanbenae]

you can buy helmet graphics from many places for cheap. in fact look at ioportracing.com i think they carry a bunch of the troy lee designs stuff. a cheaper option i am suspecting.

[jluetjen]

I agree on the price (and my wife hates to wear anything but sneakers!). I did my last helmet myself with spray cans. Some artful contact paper and tape stripes can also do a pretty reasonable job. It wasn't the coolest looking example from 6 inches, but from 60 feet (and 60 MPH) it looked great!

Here's an example of a very simple design done with contact paper and tape stripes.


Here's a couple of pictures of what I did with a spray can (and tape stripes to make the intersections of colors look really clean.)



Note that anything less then 3 or 4 inches across disappears from track-side. You can see in the second two pictures that the blue-tape design that I did over the yellow is completely invisible in the lower picture. So why bother getting something with lots of pen-stripes that no-one will ever see unless you pull the helmet out in a bar.

[armandodiaz]

John the red, yellow and blue helmet looks pretty good. Now, you got me thinking. Did you have to completely strip the helmet?

[jluetjen]

I followed the painting instructions from the manufacturer. Basically I had to lightly buff the glossy finish off of the helmet, and then paint. I finished with a glossy top coat, but I found that it did turn the white area yellow.