help... leather helmet repaint

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Smith on November 2, 2009 at 12:06pm

hey thanks alot Lt that has been the most help and probably one of the easiest ways to repaint it. thanks for the tips.

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Permalink Reply by Larry Glover on November 2, 2009 at 8:10pm

I'll second the Citrus Strip. It worked like a champ on my Houston. I first tried a heat gun, at the advice of some, and it did not work to well.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Stacy on February 4, 2011 at 8:12am

citrus strip works great.  I've done a couple of helmets by using the strip until all the paint is removed.  then let the helmet air dry for a good amount of time.  I then used a "high heat" primer and "high heat" flat black spray paint that you can get at Home Depot.  Its marketed for repainting like grills and has held up pretty well on my helmet.  More coats the better

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Permalink Reply by frank cuoccio on February 4, 2011 at 8:16am

My wife had bought me a new a new N5a leather helmet a couple of years ago for christmas.  when i got it the helmets in my fh were yellow, 6 months later they changed all ther helmets to black.  i explored all options, brought to body shops, talked to other guys who painted there own.  finally i

got a hold of MSA who painted the helmet originally.  the helmet was purchased from the fire store.  MSA recommends

using sherwin williams paint.  you can obtain the numbers for the primer and paint color that you want, they only sell

it one gallon cans, the primer and paint was well over a hundred dollars.  i found that the best option was to send it back to MSA (1-800-672-2222) and have them repaint it for me.  i got my helmet repainted back in may of 2010.  it cost me about $8 to send it down to them.  the total cost for MSA to repaint and send back to me was $58.  MSA told me it would aprox. 6-8 weeks to get, i had it back in less than 4.  the halmet came out beautiful.  could not get over what a great job they did.  i strongly recommend sending it down to them and have it done.  the helmet as seen several fires and alot of training and still looks great.

BE SAFE

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Kurt Weddington on March 6, 2011 at 10:21pm

I have repainted 2 of my leather helmets now.  First took all the hardware off that I could.  Took my sandblaster and blasted away all the paint, this can take some time to do.  Cleaned up all the sand and looked for any hidden damages that was under the paint.  Found high temp ceramic engine paint, rated to 1500 degrees, at NAPA.  Next, put the helmet in a oven at 250 degrees for 15 minutes, take it out and start painting.  After the first coat it will soak into the leather put it back in the over again.  Warning it will stink up your house.  Take it out after 15 minutes again and put a second coat on it.  I continued this for 3 to 4 coats of paint, I actually used the entire can of paint on one helmet.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Riggan on March 15, 2011 at 4:16pm

I have mine before and it seems to chip off very easly. I have heard that you had to heat the helmet but this is the first time i have heard of someone doing it. Do you heat the helmet prier to painting and if so do you paint the helmet while it is still hot out of the oven?

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Permalink Reply by Kurt Weddington on March 15, 2011 at 9:42pm

If you heat the helmet up first it opens the pores of the leather up to let the paint soak into the leather more.  This way the paint is actually inside the leather and not just on top of it. So, the answer is start painting it as soon as you take it out of the oven, then heat and paint 2 to 3 more times.  

Mine was painted about 5 years ago.  It had paint flaking off of it after just a couple of fires.  But since the repaint the helmet has not flaked a bit of the paint off.

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Permalink Reply by Robert Riggan on March 17, 2011 at 7:06pm

Thank you! I will will put a picture up after i finish it, also do i need to take all the paint off the helmet before heating and painting or just take a piece of sandpaper and rough it up first?

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Permalink Reply by Kurt Weddington on March 17, 2011 at 8:35pm

Best bet will be to get the helmet down to the bare leather.  That way none of the old paint will try to flake off when you go into a fire.  If i remember it took me about 90 minutes of blasting to get it all the way clean.  But I had to wait for the air compressor to build pressure back up.

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