Painting your own helmet..

I've always heard that you have to be careful what you use to paint helmets. Some paints can cause chemical breakdown of the shell. Don't know if that's true.

More so the foam liner . Have you ever spilled some solvent on bead board?

I just googled up pics of helmet painting and found this, I just thought it was cool



Can't help as far as painting though.

Automotive grade urethanes are awfully expensive. By the time you buy enough colors, reducers , activators, clear coat and all the masking and sanding prep materials you could pay someone $500.00 to paint it for you.

Now, budget minded? Go look at the duplicolor aerosols at your local Autozone. Might find everything you need right there. Not sure what you have in mind or whether or not you have access to good quality paints.

Get one of these. They are cheap and you can get killer skulls!

Check with the painter to make sure his clear is compatible over whatever kind of paint you are using. Lacquer spray cans and enamel striping paint will not work together. When the clear is applied, the stripe will wrinkle all to shit. If you have a collision repair shop next door, maybe they will let you dig through their old paint cabinet. I wish someone would come dig through mine! If they mix their own basecoat paint there at the shop, maybe you could just buy small quantities of some of the mixing bases. Do you own a spray gun or compressor? You could get a small gravity feed detail gun from Harbor Freight for chump change. It would be good enough for what you are doing. I hate to see you screw up a nice helmet. If you are going to outline any of your artwork or do any striping with the sign painters enamel, I would advise having one coat of urethane clear applied first to seal in the paint, apply the striping and re-clearcoat with two coats. That will allow you a protective layer to apply the striping to. If you screw up a stripe you can wipe it clean without affecting the base colors.

What Newman says. I would not recommend using anything out of a can. Especially enamels, as you can not cover them with a good catalyzed clear coat. It will just wrinkle or stay soft. Go to www.kustomshop.com. They sell ready to spray basecoat colors in as little as 4oz containers, and anything else you may need. You will still need a spray gun. However, unless you have experience in painting, I wouldnt advise painting your helmet. The vision in your mind will almost never translate to the final product, and expect to be disappointed. But if you want to learn, thats the best way to get started. Just dive in............ Good luck.

I think this was one of the baddest paint jobs ever for MX...

You should make that your Avatar for MXTRAX - it would match your content there.

Is that a self portrait of you waiting for Bubbles to come visit??

Don't start with me Benny Hill...

No that's Chad's helment from last season...

I'll pay that one mxgoon

Practice on a scrap piece of metal first, please.

...or some $10 helmets.

just dont do it!