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Custom Style
I have always been one for putting my own mark on my riding gear.In the early years I used to detail my helmets, and those of some of my friends, using enamel modeller's paints. It was difficult work, transferring the designs onto the curved surface of the helmet and then laboriously painting the design with an assortment of fine paint brushes.
We were not 100% sure if the paints would harm the helmets or not but we didn't think they would. Considering a couple of the helmets had a spray-can repaint to cover signs that they had been dropped and were already damaged, it probably didn't matter if the enamel harmed the helmet.
These days, the only things that have changed are: I'm more cautious about what I stick on my helmet and I get others to do my detailing for me.
I still like to put my own mark on my gear.
For our current helmets, we got our friend MSTRS from the Kiwi Biker forum (instant.stripes@xtra.co.nz) to make up some helmet-safe computer-cut vinyl decals which I applied to the helmets. He lives in Napier but we got him to do the work as I'd rather pass the business to a friend than just get it done at one of the local computer-cut places here in Hamilton.
For each of the helmets we got a pair of side decals - mirror images for left and right sides. For the peak of my helmet, I got another decal made.
We picked up the decals when we caught up with MSTRS and his family on December 28 2006 and, on December 29, I cleaned the greasy finger marks and bug-splatters off the helmets with methylated spirits and affixed the decals.
My decals, naturally, were wolves and. as my preferred colour scheme is black-and-gold, I opted for metallic gold decals.
The decal on the peak - I had to remove the "GREX" sticker to make it fit properly.
Left side decal: howling wolf-head. I liked it because it suggests a werewolf.
Both decals.
For my wife, whose on-line "handle" is "strayjuliet" or "stray", we opted for a cat and MSTRS supplied us with a selection of images from his library from which we chose the one that looked the most like a stray cat to us.
strayjuliet's Nolan helmet. For hers we went with white to get the black-and-white "stray" look.
The next decals to get for the helmets will be the words "Wolf" and "Stray" to go across the back of the helmets - probably retroreflective stickers to increase our visibility at night.
MSTRS also made a larger wolf head sticker for the front cowl of the bike:
