How To Paint A Football Helmet?

Football is an exciting game, and it gets more interesting when you get to wear a matching helmet with  your supporting team.

But as time goes by, your football helmet gets all old and boring. In some other cases, your team just changes their color.

So, what do you do when this happens? Buy a new one? Yeah? How about just going to get it painted? However, you can’t do it without having the right knowledge.

So, you have to learn how to paint a football helmet.

Fortunately, this is what we will be sharing in this article. And nothing will give us more pleasure than to share everything possible to ensure your football helmet painting is flawless and without stress.

But to do this, we will need your total attention. So are you ready? I suppose.

Can I Paint My Football Helmet?

Painting a football helmet is not something very regular since most football customization is carried out by a specialized team. But how about your supporters’ masks? There is always a joy with wearing a matching helmet color with your team.

You can just paint your helmet by running paint on it, but it gets better. You can get a customized helmet done all by yourself.

How to Paint a Football Helmet?

To paint a football helmet successfully, you need some tools. Below are the tools and materials required for painting your football helmet:

• Paint
• Masking tape
• Airbrush
• Sandpaper
• Clearcoat
• Tack cloth

Scrap and Clean the Helmet

Before you start painting your helmet, the first move is to ensure the surface is clean and ready for painting.

To prepare your football helmet, scrap out any stickers of the surface and remove the sticker residue gum if there is any. That being done, wash the helmet using a sponge and soapy water. This will help to remove stains and dirts that may have stuck on the surface.

Then allow the helmet to air dry or simply clean it out with a cloth before letting it air dry. Engaging the second method will help quicken the entire process.

Sanding the Helmet

When you are sanding your helmet, always try to adhere to the highest safety which is why we recommend you use fine-grain sandpaper. This is not like removing previous paint, so you don’t have to use hard material to avoid damaging the surface. It is just meant to smoothen the surface and make it free from other existing gashes and imperfection.

Also, to smooth the divets in the helmet, using a sanding block. And ensure to roughen the whole surface so that the paint can adhere firmly. Clean the leftover dust using a tack cloth.

Cover the Inside

This is an essential step to activate, especially if you don’t want any excess paint dripping into your helmet.

For the inside of the helmet, you can stick it with a newspaper. Meanwhile, you can use masking tape to cover up the surface you don’t want to paint. Ensure to tape these areas firmly.

Add a Guide coat

Adding a guide coat to your already sandpapered helmet will tell you if it is entirely smooth or not.

How this happens is that after applying a black coat, the areas of the helmet that still require more smoothening will stay black. While the black coating will disappear or reduce in smooth places.

If your football helmet requires further sanding, then smoothen it, and then clean the surface to remove more dust.

Placing the Helmet

Before painting the helmet, ensure to place it in a way you can see the coating thickness.

The best way to place it is on a stand to hang it. If you don’t have any of those, you can hang it on a tree, a candlestick holder, a wire hanger, or something of that sort.

When the helmet’s bottom is suspended from the ground, and none of the edges are in contact with anything, you are ready to paint.

Painting

When painting your helmet, ensure to do it in a place with optimum ventilation. It is imperative, especially if you are not doing the painting outside. Also, use cardboard paper to make a fence around the helmet area to avoid spraying paint on the wall. When painting, hold the spray about eight to twelve inches from the helmet. And while applying the paint, do it in a short controlled burst.

Apply a light coat all over the helmet and allow it to dry. Waiting for the first coating to dry could take about fifteen to twenty minutes depending on the product, then apply the second coating.

Inspect the helmet when dried. But if there are any places you do not like, you can apply a third coating and allow it to dry. After drying, you can then reapply the decals and inner paddings of the helmet.

Polishing

This stage is not relevant, but if you want your helmet to have a classy look, you should polish it.

We recommend using car polish; you can get them in the nearest auto body shop.

Apply some polish on a cloth and rub it over the helmet surface, and concentrate on one small area at a time. When the polish dries, you can then buff the surface to give it a deep shine like what you have with a custom car paint finish.

Better still, attach the buffer to a drill to make the buffering process easy and satisfactory.

Why Should I Paint My Football Helmet?

There are a lot of reasons to get your football helmet painted. Although there are countless of them, here are some of the best reasons for you to paint your football helmet:

Renew Its Beauty

If your football helmet painting is old, it starts looking funny. So, what is the next thing that cuts across your mind? To Paint It!

While the real soccer players can get their helmet changed or customized, you too can get the luxury of redesigning yours with paint to renew its beauty, and consequently increasing your joy.

A Change in Team Color

Another reason you need to paint your soccer helmet is when your team changes its color. You don’t want to look odd, besides it also saves you the cost of trying to buy a new one.

How to Remove Scratches From Your Football Helmet?

If you are a regular soccer player, then there’s no doubt your helmet will have scratches and even worse, tear.

So what causes your helmet to scratch? Helmet scratch and tear are caused by long term accumulation of grimes and scruffs on the surface. So, how can you remove it? It’s simple.

Prepare a soapy solution with water and a little dishwashing liquid. Then, dip a soft cloth in a bowl, squeeze the excess water, and wipe the entire helmet surface with it.

After that, rub the scratches using a scrub brush until they all even out. Then wipe the football helmet with a dry cloth, invert it and allow it to air dry for about twelve hours.

How To Paint Your Football Helmet ( Video Guide)

Conclusion

Whoops! We have come to the end of the journey. I hope you followed carefully. So, no more worries on how to paint a football helmet. If you follow these laid down steps, your football helmet painting journey will not just be comfortable but also satisfactory.

Also, don’t forget to apply your paint quickly to avoid uneven coating, and use the short burst style to prevent your helmet from accumulating too much and end up looking sloppy.

Lastly, we advise you always add some sparkling touch to it by using a polish. Happy painting!