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SHOEI Z – ONE……REDEEMER AND THE BIRTH MACHINE
(All pictures are thumbnails)
I’ve been itching to paint another helmet, my regular Arai Quantum F is now 2years old and although it’s as good as the day I got it, I figured it was time for a change. I’ve always liked Shoei’s, I think it’s the slightly deeper chin bar that I prefer, so just before Christmas I tried a few on, and seemed to favour the Z ONE.
I obviously only needed a plain one, so I settled on black, asked my mate in the trade to sort me one out and at a very good price became the proud owner of a new lid. Yes I did have to buy it, Admittedly not full price, but I didn’t get it free! When the weather was reasonable, I took it for a spin. It seemed to mist up easily – mind you it was only 2’C – but it was very comfortable, light and very quiet. O. K. that’s the first and last time it gets worn before the paint job! Christmas out of the way and its time to get back to doing some work. Unlike other helmets I’ve done in the past, this one is going to be done as I go along, I think?
I want it to be the same sort of thing as the “pencil helmet” but maybe using the airbrush as well as the pencil, or maybe just the airbrush on its own, we’ll see! All I do know is is that I want the detail to be crazy! Like nothing ever seen before. No bold graphics or cartoon characters for this baby.
Right then, where do we start? 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.
Then the fun bit, take out the inside.
I can only liken this to trying to take off a straight jacket when
you’re up to your neck in treacle!
So there we have it, after a couple of hours, a completely knackered
Shoei Z One! After
which, 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. 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 Crossbow 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.
I’ve
already got some ideas about bettering it though later in the year……….
WATCH THIS SPACE!
Steve Whyman
( The Pencil King)
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