Chipped Lid
 

Managed to take a big chip (1.5mm x 5mm)out of the paintwork on my lid the other day.
So I touched it in with some Humbrol Enamel paint (I just happened to have some that was a spot on colour match).

I told a mate later, who seemed quite shocked, as the paint might have damaged the helmet.

Should I be worried ? it was only the top layer of paint it chipped (one of the pattered bits) plus I thought its only polycarb lids that suffered in this way, mines Karbon-Kevlar (AGV TiTech) ?

ello there,

as far as i understand it (and that is limited) some paints can soften the shell of the lid. how much it softens and how that would affect its ability to save ya life i dont know.

personaly i would rather by a new lid than risk my spicy brains :)

I was trying to find some chemical info about the paints to get a truthfull answer to your question , but I cant find anything. I dont think you'll have anything to worry about, but do keep a close eye on it for a while, look out for signs of corrosion and stuff. If this occurs, then something isnt right. If I can find out some real info, I'll come up with a correct answer!

Matt

Personally, I would say that messing with a helmet is not a great idea. If my helmet gets damaged then I replace it, my head is too important to me to take risks.

Yea, its not a good idea to use a helmet that is damaged. From what I can find, kevlar/carbon fibre composites are genrally not so reactive so there shouldnt be too much wrong, but theres always the possibility, depending on the solvents used etc etc. If in doubt, ask a technician in a shop, or perhaps contact someone who paints helmets? They'll be able to tell you if the paint you used will affect the materials and threfore the strength of your helmet.

Matt

Bin it & get a new one :!:

I've been trying to kid myself that it was ok, I guess any impact strong enough to put that much of a chip in the paint will have probably knackered the helmet anyway.

Only bought it in August :cry:

unlucky :(

cant you get it checked out first? be a bit silly to buy a new one and potentially bin a perfectly good helmet if it was actually ok...

I took it in to Heine Gericke for them to look at, but they couldn't say either way whether it was ok or not. If you drop your Arai you can send it back and they X-ray it, sadly AGV do not offer a similar service.

Having inspected it closer there is also a hairline crack about an inch long, could just be the paint but TBH its not worth the risk.

as above "get a new one" your head is worth more than a £200 quid lid.

fair enough, didn't realise you had got it checked already. i think you can pay to get them x-rayed if you feel that way inclined, but obviously if it's broken you just lost that money...

I think all this drop your lid and it's replacement time is just liabilty insurance bumpf that suits the manufacturers. It's just so they can't be held accountable in the event you get your noggin smashed, after you'd dropped your helmet from the seat of your bike.
If a helmet was seriously that fragile, how would it protect your head in the first place?

I think I've said this before on a similar thread but unless I crash, I only replace my lid every 2 years. In that time it will collect a few nicks and grazes, such is life.

I am rather conflicted here.

The chip in the paint was caused by me dropping it from about 3ft onto concrete (off the seat :oops:).
The SNELL website says that a helmet should easily withstand such an impact, as the major reason you need to replace your lid after a crash is because the polystyrene bit deforms as it absorbs the energy of the crash, thus protecting your head. This should not happen with a minor impact on an empty lid.

However it has actually chipped / cracked the paint which worries me. I'm also a lttle disappointed in the AGV finish that has cracked/chipped so easily.

My arai's got 2 big chips out of it but it xrayed fine... But if it's cracked, I'd bin it myself. The problem is that you can't see what the foam's done. The hard outer doesn't do the impact protection, it's the expanded foam inside that does that, and once it's been squashed once it doesn't return to shape properly, which is why you need to replace it. But if you drop a lid, the outer has to dent quite a bit to damage the foam- remember that without your head inside it there's less momentum, and nothing to squash against, so it's less likely to be damaged.

Ultimately though, it's your head :)

I really don't know what to do, I think the chances are is that the helmet is fine, but is it worth the risk.

I don't want to bin a perfectly good (and fairly new helmet), but I dont want to ride round with a fecked one that potentially not might NOT save my life. :?

Is anybody a radiologist (or knows a amenable one) in the midlands :wink:

I decided to bite the the bullet and "bin" the helmet.

Just out of curiosity I decided to do a post mortem.

The foam insert was very very slightly distorted around the impact site (between the vents) and as you can see from the first picture that there is some discolouration in the composite material where the shell has flexed, however there was no sign of cracking.

http://upload4.postimage.org/1885938/Helmet005.jpg

Would this helmet still protected me in a high speed crash ? I think it would.
Because I then proceeded to smash the **** out of it.

Threw it against a wall 4 or 5 times as hard as I physically could, I then even took a sledge hammer to it. This is what it looked like afterwards.

http://upload4.postimage.org/1885991/Helmet007.jpg

So IMHO a 3ft drop onto concrete will not seriously damage a good quality helmet.
This is of course my own opinion and nothing more. It's your head make your own decisions

Sadly I've just destroyed what was probably a perfectly serviceable £200 helmet

:smt089 :smt089 :smt089

Good tune too, I was surprised (and pleased) how tough these things are and the level of (repeated) violence required to get them to fail.

Ahh well you live and learn.

Did you put a watermelon in there whilst doing that? The whole point of the helmet is to protect whats inside the helmet, not if it stands up to a bashing with a sledge-hammer.

If you hit a empty helmet then the helmet will flex all over disipating the energy of the impact. The shell will flex and the liner will move around. If you had had something head-shaped such as a watermelon in the helmet then the liner wouldn't move and the energy would get dampened rather than dissipated and the shock obsorbed into the liner.

It really does depend on the circumstances, but just think, if you had continued wearing that helmet and you had had an accident and the hairline crack had hit a curb stone, what do you think would have happened?

Its all just my opinion of course.

I actually deflated a football, stuffed it in and partially re inflated it to keep the liner and everything in place. (Not exactly a crash test dummy I know)

****EDIT****
Although not obvious from my previous post but my destruction testing was actually quite structured
Albeit one loony in his garage with a big hammer and a big magnifying glass can never be classed as a conclusive helmet test, it is possible to observe how a modern helmet reacts to repeated impacts.
*************

TBH I think it would have worked just as well as before I dropped it.
I am basing this on the analysis of my own helmet, hours and hours of research I have done on the internet and trailing through old magazines for helmet tests etc.
The "crack" was only actually in the paint (or as far I can tell, obviously I don't have an x-ray machine)

I truly believe the integrity of that helmet was not compromised by me dropping it.

In future I shall be a lot more careful with my lid to start with.

http://www.smf.org/faqs.html#dropped