How to gold mirror tint my hang glider helmet visor?

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socalfusions

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I've searched through many posts on how to go about gold mirror tinting my hang glider helmet visor but haven't found a solution that I feel I'd be capable of doing yet.

The first attempt I did was using window tint from Nusolis but failed miserably when trying to apply the tint with the soapy water method due to the curvature of the visor which is on a Charly No Limit hang glider helmet.

Here was the result, Quite the frustration to say the least. Now I'm not sure how to go about tinting it, I considered just hot gluing the tint sheet directly to the lens without peeling the adhesive off but have no idea if that would work given the present curvature of the visor. I saw a post about using Alud chrome spray paint but I don't have a sprayer and no experience in that matter.

I see so many great halo helmets with the gold mirror tint and felt compelled how to go about successfully applying a gold mirror finish to my helmets visor. One thing that caught my attention was this Flexible Metallic visor material seen on Etsy and used in some of the builds here, unfortunately it appears too small to use for a full sized visor such as mine since it's only 34cm in width while my visor is over 40cm. I wonder what the difference is between that etsy material and the tint I got? It says you just hot glue it to the helmet but, for halo builds, that seems like a much more appropriate item for the helmets smaller visor profile.
 

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Cut out a sheet of tint larger than your visor. with a give of maybe ~5cm of each side, depending on how extreme the curvature is.

Slowly apply the tint using a credit card to remove air bubbles as you go.

Cut off excess tint when finished.
 
They don't make a gold tinted visor you can buy for your exact helmet? Youd be much better off. A lot of visors in halo builds can have a reduction in vision especially with the alclad. Yes it works for cosplay but I think it would be unwise to do anything that could potentially reduce vision be it a hang gliding helmet or motorcycle helmet.
 
They don't make a gold tinted visor you can buy for your exact helmet? Youd be much better off. A lot of visors in halo builds can have a reduction in vision especially with the alclad. Yes it works for cosplay but I think it would be unwise to do anything that could potentially reduce vision be it a hang gliding helmet or motorcycle helmet.

My apologies I forgot to mention that this is for a cosplay project, the helmet has taken previous damage and is no longer suitable for active flying. Unfortunately the company that makes this helmet only offers a chrome mirror tint and is unable to add a gold one after I inquired. I was curious to what the visibility was in those helmets and that is something of concern for me as I will require as high of visibility as possible though I would also like to hide my face behind the mirroring. That window tint I bought had very good visibility though you could see through it at the right lighting. Alclad is what I was thinking of and that does seem like it would be hard to see through. What if I took two of those etsy mirror sheets and just glued them to the visor while using the second one to make cut outs for the areas the first couldn't cover alone? I'm guessing those have decent visibility and I can't seem to see anyones face in any of the pictures in the reviews.
 
I feel like I've exhausted all my options at applying any sort of gold chrome window tint or spraying a gold chrome finish onto my helmets visor to obtain a gold mirrored visor. Since my visor is a curved hang gliding helmet visor applying a film tint is near impossible to achieve without bubbles/creases and spraying a chrome finish is upwards of $150 according to an etsy quote from a creator.

So I started thinking, the company that creates my helmet offers only a chrome mirrored visor and cannot make a gold mirrored one, so what if I applied a yellow tint to the chrome visor? Would that create a gold mirrored appearance? Could I simply cut out a sheet of yellow plastic and slap it on the visor and eureka? Any other methods to work with a professionally created chrome visor to make it gold? Below is a picture of the visor on the helmet.

CharlyNLMirrorVisor.jpg
 
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Sorry think your in uncharted territory. Without it being professionally chromed it's tough. You can try coating it but that method doesn't sound to promising. Maybe you can try making a vacuum forming box and vacuum form one from petg plastic that you can tint and chrome like others on here? Do you have a clear one? Have you tried dying it with poly dye to see if it will take the dye? I would say worth a try dye is cheap.
 
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Sorry think your in uncharted territory. Without it being professionally chromed it's tough. You can try coating it but that method doesn't sound to promising. Maybe you can try making a vacuum forming box and vacuum form one from petg plastic that you can tint and chrome like others on here? Do you have a clear one? Have you tried dying it with poly dye to see if it will take the dye? I would say worth a try dye is cheap.

The above pictured visor is an authentic chrome mirror visor that I plan on purchasing, do you think I could add a sheet of yellow plastic of some sort to create the illusion of a gold visor? Dye is a good idea but I don't think it would work on an already chrome mirrored visor since the dye would be covered in this case. I was considering vaccum forming something but have no experience in the matter.
 
The above pictured visor is an authentic chrome mirror visor that I plan on purchasing, do you think I could add a sheet of yellow plastic of some sort to create the illusion of a gold visor? Dye is a good idea but I don't think it would work on an already chrome mirrored visor since the dye would be covered in this case. I was considering vaccum forming something but have no experience in the matter.
I would hate to see you spend the money on something that doesn't work out. Personally I don't think the yellow film will work.thats why I was asking if you had a clear one you could possibly try dyeing?
 
You could dye the visor and then use an airbrush to paint silver on the inside, creating a gold-reflective finish. If you have an airbrush, that is.
 
Dying the already chromed visor? BIG no-go.
Only thing is either spray a transparent color or a sheet of flexible transparent film.
If you had a raw visor you can dye it and then spray on the inside, either with airbrush OR I've also seen Rustoleum does the job too, just get the can that can chrome and is transparent - don't remember the exact name. BUT if you chrome yourself it'll never look even close as chrome and reflective as that visor on the photo, that was done professionally, it took far more than a simple airbrush. So yeah. If you want that finish - better just get a color film on top.
 
Dying the already chromed visor? BIG no-go.
Only thing is either spray a transparent color or a sheet of flexible transparent film.
If you had a raw visor you can dye it and then spray on the inside, either with airbrush OR I've also seen Rustoleum does the job too, just get the can that can chrome and is transparent - don't remember the exact name. BUT if you chrome yourself it'll never look even close as chrome and reflective as that visor on the photo, that was done professionally, it took far more than a simple airbrush. So yeah. If you want that finish - better just get a color film on top.
Oh, I missed the "already chromed visor" part...:p
 
There was a spray at either Walmart or Target that that you could spray and the visor should have been semi translucent........Unfortunately that was not the case. I tried it on an old costume and I couldn't see a thing. Sprays are not the way to go. Even if you spray sparingly, viability will be terrible.
 
Personally I tried the alclad chrome people use to spray inside their vacuum formed and tinted helmets - visibility VERY bad and could still see my eyes under certain light if you'd look closer. But the visibility was very bad, as if there was a fog between.
That's why I thought one-side mirror films or foils are much better solution.

Also, you should put the film inside not outside - if it doesn't stick too good, use a credit card to get rid off of all bubbles and if it still doesn't work... don't glue this on and just leave it like that, the protective layer should be transparent so it doesn't hurt at all.
 
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