Posts
1027
Joined
1/3/2009
Location
San Diego, CA
US
Edited Date/Time
10/13/2018 10:50am
i got a good deal on this new Arai, but the graphic scheme was boring and ugly. Always thought having a unique painted helmet would be cool. I own a body and restoration shop where we work on cars as well as painting on motorcycles, but I never do helmets! So I decided to give it a go and I'm sharing the finished product. I'm no Troy Lee, but I'm pretty happy with it. I wanted a somewhat basic graphic layout with a little old school flavor, but using modern hi-tec colors. 
The Shop
I like your number too!
Nod your head ta this!!
EDIT: Whoops I just noticed it's 371, not 311...
Looks good. Never done it but I think it's a difficult and time consuming job.
Post up some more pics of your resto projects! I wish I could find a couple good guys who like to do resto work. I'm turning down old stuff that I could name my price on all the time. Awful hard to juggle that with collision repair especially with a small crew like we have.
Still have the Pantera?
Pit Row
Nice.
I've had many helmets painted for my son 10 years or so ago. I even had Troy do a couple, when he was sponsoring him. I've had two done for myself back in the early 90's. I've spent as little as $250 for a pretty damn nice job and have also spent $800 on one from Troy, and that was half price.... I've seen $1600 paint jobs, which is just crazy, but it's really a lot of work. Every helmet I ever had done, I had an extra visor painted. Only used a couple of them, before he wrecked the helmet in a crash, but I also had to go with a chrome Troy Lee visor after we used up the spare.
The amount of time it takes to custom paint a helmet is mind bogling. There is so much work involved and when you're doing them right, you pull the rubber off to paint and then replace it when you're done with the 3M adhesive. Such a pain in the ass to get it just right and not have any edges of the rubber lifting up. There's an art to that stuff.
I still dig them and wouldn't mind having another one painted soon, but one of the ones I had done was ruined the 1st day I ever wore it. I was so bummed. With the cost of helmets these days and adding another $500+ on a paint job, it is a tough one to pull the trigger on.
With the helmet companies coming out with so many good color combos and those same companies wanting to sell those designs, the Pros seem to have gotten away from custom helmet paint jobs. I've seen a few of the kids coming up in the amateur ranks wearing them, but even they are being asked to wear the ones that they sell. Makes sense.
I like having a custom helmet because it doesn't quickly turn into "last year's helmet design," like any of the pre-painted ones will.
Your welcome. Your helmet is now finished.
Post a reply to: So I always wanted a custom painted helmet....