Painting the snout

[Marauder]

Hi all,

 

I'm getting so frakking close to finishing my TB I can almost taste it!

 

Unfortunately, painting and decal-ing the helmet are two of my biggest hurdles left (obviously, decal *after* all the painting's done!)

 

Which leads me to a question... what's the best way to paint the snout area of the visor black? Tape it all off with painter's tape and spray-paint? Cut a pattern? Paint by hand and pray? (Note: I'd prefer NOT to do that last one... :-P)

 

My biggest area of concern is the top part, where the snout curves... I have no idea how to get that to be a clean, crisp line.

 

Any and all advice would be helpful.

 

Thanks,

~~Marauder

[lonewolf]

Hi Paul, buy good quality 3mm line/masking tape and line off the area you want blackened, carefully mask of the rest of the helmet and tape up., use panel wipe or white spirit to clean the nose area, use black matt or satin finish and use a very light spray to cover the snout, too thick may weap under the masking. This is how I do it anyway, seven helmets and no problems so far. Use the gallery to see how the originals were masked off under the chin area and distance out from the nose detail, it is pretty much the best way to finish it.

The different types of helmets have varying widths of flat nose area so this makes it more or less tricky, you are aiming to have a small section of white all around the sides and arch. Once the backplate and nose detail are fitted it will pop out and look great , good luck.

[lonewolf]

Here are some pics of my new helmet if this helps any,

 

 

 

[Marauder]

Hi John, thanks for the photos!

 

I guess the one real question I still have is... what method do you use for drawing the line? Do you use a compass (the architecture/mathematical tool, not the navigational aid) to aid in drawing the line on the curve of the snout? And how do you get the masking tape to line up along that curve? Is it just a lot of small pieces of tape, or did you make some form of a cutout mold?

 

I'm a bit worried about it because I don't have that good of an artist's eye.

 

Thanks,

~~Paul

[lonewolf]

Sorry Paul,I have always used my eyes for this, any wee flaws are unnoticable unless you are being very fussy. I suppose you could make a template to draw round first , then apply the tape to this line. I think other guys will need to explain this if they have tried this method. Use the actual nose shape to curve the tape round, good quality stuff doesn't stretch as badly and is still soft enough to do the curve, if it kinks as you do the curve you can use a hair dryer to soften it i bit so it sits down and flat . Sorry it isn't technical in any way

[Marauder]

Hi John,

 

Actually, you gave me exactly the clue I needed... bending a long piece of tape around the inside of the curve of the snout! I was envisioning tearing a very large number of very small pieces to do the trick, and getting a very jagged edge as a result.

 

Moving one piece of tape a little bit if it doesn't look right is infinitely better than attempting to do so for many little pieces.

 

Thanks,

~~Paul

[PanzerKraken]

I am also concerned a bit on doing it as I wait for my snout to arrive from MC first, but I figure doing it by hand would be safer than spray since one can correct paint mistakes easier, while spray paints are harder to remove if something goes wrong.

[Witness]

You could use automotive pin striping tape (like what you are using on the hump) to make the inside edge, then add masking tape on top of that so you don't have to be as accurate with the masking tape. The pin striping curves nice and smooth.

[Marauder]

Witness, that is brilliant. Thanks for the input!

[Marauder]

Witness, that is brilliant. Thanks for the input!

 

Wow, coming back to it later my responts looks kind of snarky when it was not supposed to be.

 

Rephrase: Witness, that is exactly what I was looking for. I will give it a go this weekend.

 

Thanks,

~~Marauder

[Chex]

Didn't look snarky at all to me. As for how I did mine...I wish I would have thought of the pin stripe thing, but meh. I just put some frog tape over it, and very, VERY carefully, with a sharp xacto blade, cut out my curve. Took a couple of tries to get it right, but it works.

[bdgr]

You could use automotive pin striping tape (like what you are using on the hump) to make the inside edge, then add masking tape on top of that so you don't have to be as accurate with the masking tape. The pin striping curves nice and smooth.

 

 

This is the same method I used on both of my Biker Scout helmets. It works awesome.

[tuskenfett]

Mask off the sides of the snout where it will be straight then take a small peice of card stock or thick paper and bend is so it lines up with the straight sides, it will naturally give a near perfect curve on the top of the snout then tape it on real good and spray away! This is the method I used and it came out perfect

[loosetoon]

I actually used the automotive pin striping as the edge, not just to mask with. Then I just filled in the inside with black staying within the pin stripe edge lines.