I noticed my new Arai instructions says it can be srapyed with anything as long as you don't have to apply heat to cure. So I decided to have a go with my old helmet first. It's very difficult. I've had a mixture of results. I'm just retrying it on the old crash helmet again now that I've got some idea of the design I want. Here are some things I discovered:
- Acrylic is the most popular paint for airbrushes. It is water based, but you need to use proper thinners to paint with. - The cheap set of paints from Halfords are no good. You need professional quality paints. These are about £8 a pot, so initially you'd probably want to limit the number of colours in your design. - The Badger hobby airbrush is not very good. You can sometimes get a good finish but it's a bit hit and miss. - Paint bleeding is a big problem. I've been trying different tapes and masking paper but this is also related to the quality of the thinners and paint. - One article I read, said that the danger in painting the helmet is in damaging the materials inside it. It has to be masked off very very well. - You can finish the paint with a clear coat. You can also get metalic paints or possibly metalic bits to add to paints or clearcoat.
Have fun.
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