With the flag and kangaroo covered up, a white coat comes next. “It’s better to do the flag and kangaroo first because when you tape all the lines, if you do the artwork last, you’ll see all the lines through the paint.” “You can either do it that way or last,” Bronson says. Once the black base coat was done, Bronson and Tag drew out the Australian flag and the kangaroo, which was then masked up to allow the design to be created around it. This helmet started off black for the outlines on the chin bar logos and some of the pin lines.” “Then after that we’ll just clean it off and base coat the first color. If it was a matte helmet, we would need to use sand paper, usually 400 grit wet sandpaper. “As this helmet is a gloss finish, we use red Scotch-Brite pads. You just want to make sure everything’s snug and taped off, sealed. When you mask off all the vents and whatever you need to, you have to paper all the insides and secure everything with tape and make sure there’s no open holes or air because any place there’s air, you can get paint in. “We take out all the inners, all the pads, and then mask up everything that’s not getting painted. “When we first get the helmet, we take it apart as much as we can,” Bronson starts. In a lot of states, you can use the old school automotive paints, but we can’t use them in California.” So, what is exactly involved in painting a helmet like this? “We use House of Colors for the paint itself, which is a lacquer-base paint, but it’s certified for California to use. “Something this intricate takes around 20 hours of painting time,” Bronson says, indicating that number does not include the preparation time. Ahead of him was a lot (a lot!) of work, but I’m absolutely stunned at the result. My only stipulation was it needed “Renski”, “HJS 2017” and an Aussie flag with the Boxing Kangaroo on it. They put over 20 overs of paint time into that thing! Tagger painted that design, too, but when I told him he could have free reign on this year’s race lid-the beautiful AGV Pista GP R Carbon-and let his creative juices flow, his eyes lit up. Tag (left) and Bronson Gasperian with Rennie’s race lid. This year, I decided to go for a real Australian theme, rather than the Formula One-inspired design of late German driver Stefan Bellof I’ve been using for the previous two years. Tag and his son Bronson Gasperian from Lake Elsinore-based Tagger Designs custom helmets have just unveiled a stunning design for my fourth attempt at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
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