Visor material idea

[candychic125]

Hey guys

As you might recall, I bought a Don Post helmet a few months ago. It still needs to be repainted. It also doesn't have a visor. I didn't want to try to cut my own out of a welding shield or anything, so I've been trying to watch ebay. For some reason, before I bought the helmet, there were plenty of visors for sale. Now that I have it, everyone who sells them is gone. So, I emailed this one ebay member and he said that he has extra visors left over from the helmets he makes. But they're $12, with $5 shipping. Ontop of that, they aren't the pretty red mirror like I want. They're just red or black.

So my thought was, maybe I can make my own. I have a vague idea. I want to get chrome window tint film and lay it on the back of some thick duralar (mylar/acetate alternative). Then on the other side, I would coat the plastic with red window tint. The visor would be flat, but easily curved to the profile of the helmet once its glued in place. I think it could work, and I'd end up with a lot of extra visors.

The downside to that would be that it would cost a lot more than just caving in and getting the visor off of ebay. I thought maybe I could sell the extra visors to compensate for building costs.


What do you guys think?

[JesterTDA]

It's all about timing...a few months ago you could find those visors because they were used for football...which is done for most people at this point. Give it time and they'll be back.

As for tinting...be VERY careful when it comes to doing something like that. There is nothing worse than dealing with bubbles on your visor. On top of that (and I speak from experience here) if you go with the tinting you need to bend the visor first and apply the tint last. It's harder to do but if you tint first and then bend the tint will bubble instantly. So if you go that route, you'll just end up removing it and putting it back in.

Personally...I'd either wait for a mirrored one you want, or go with the maker's version. I can't imagine you won't end up spending $17 buying plastic, window tinting, duralar and everything else.

[candychic125]

It's all about timing...a few months ago you could find those visors because they were used for football...which is done for most people at this point. Give it time and they'll be back.

As for tinting...be VERY careful when it comes to doing something like that. There is nothing worse than dealing with bubbles on your visor. On top of that (and I speak from experience here) if you go with the tinting you need to bend the visor first and apply the tint last. It's harder to do but if you tint first and then bend the tint will bubble instantly. So if you go that route, you'll just end up removing it and putting it back in.

Personally...I'd either wait for a mirrored one you want, or go with the maker's version. I can't imagine you won't end up spending $17 buying plastic, window tinting, duralar and everything else.

Oh thanks for the insight. I didn't think about bending it first, so that saved me some trouble, lol.

Yeah, I know buying all of the materials would get to be more expensive than buying one visor, but I like to make things If I ended up with a lot more visors than I needed, I was going to just sell the extra for like 10 bucks a piece, which would more than cover the costs.

[Marcus]

I had the same issues when doing mine.
I also wanted the red mirror look.

In the end I bought some red mirror tint of Ebay and tried it myself. (3 meters for $15)
I could not apply it to the clear plastic that I had. (not without heaps of bubbles)

So what I did was I cut out the size I wanted and then ran it through a paper laminator machine.
It came out perfect. I then just used stick tape and stuck it straight into my bucket.

[uoresu]

What about using #4 or #5 welding visor?

[JesterTDA]

What about using #4 or #5 welding visor?

All CRLs state that a dark visor is acceptable but a Red visor dark enough to cover the wearer's features are recommended. I know at least for ROTJ versions you can get away with a black visor and thus a welding visor is fine. You've got to be really careful though because you have such limited vison to begin with that anything too dark and you might as well be blind.

[stripes]

All CRLs state that a dark visor is acceptable but a Red visor dark enough to cover the wearer's features are recommended. I know at least for ROTJ versions you can get away with a black visor and thus a welding visor is fine. You've got to be really careful though because you have such limited vison to begin with that anything too dark and you might as well be blind.

Especially for events where the lighting is less than an extremely bright summer day or convention floor.... I've been at several events where the light was dimmer and it has made it difficult to manouver without the help of a handler because of it, and all I have is a dark red visor (no welding shield for me)

[JesterTDA]

I used a smoke colored motorcycle snap-in visor I found at a Honda store for about $7. I then added a sheet of red plastic I found at a craft store so it's darker but looks red. Also it I can see well in everything but really dim situations.

[candychic125]

I had the same issues when doing mine.
I also wanted the red mirror look.

In the end I bought some red mirror tint of Ebay and tried it myself. (3 meters for $15)
I could not apply it to the clear plastic that I had. (not without heaps of bubbles)

So what I did was I cut out the size I wanted and then ran it through a paper laminator machine.
It came out perfect. I then just used stick tape and stuck it straight into my bucket.

The laminator's a great idea

[Marcus]

All I did was cut the tint to the size I wanted it for the visor, then I stuck it in a 160 micron thickness laminate (A3 size). And then ran it throught the laminator.
Cut off the excess laminatearound the visor, job done.

I have a couple of meters of the stuff still.
I am happy to laminate some for you and mail it.