The Daily Helmet: Righting a Wrong,
Bad Decals.
Last fall I made myself a San Diego Los Angeles Chargers helmet. I ordered the decals from eBay. They were reasonably priced, so I figured I had lucked out. When they arrived, they just did not look right. The bolts were too short and too curved. Nowhere near the actual helmet logos that adorn the Chargers helmets. When it comes to buying decals on eBay, you will always have risks. Many use bad quality vinyl and are almost impossible to apply without pinching, bubbling or just not applying the way a quality decal will. It is just hard to know what you are getting until you get it. Sellers come and go, so there’s really no good way to find consistency and quality when you buy on ebay, but overall I have not had too many issues where the decals were unusable.
It Just Doesn’t Look Right And It Is Starting To Bother Me
Even though the decals didn’t look right, I just wasn’t up to finding and buying a more accurate set, so I put them on my helmet anyway. Then day in and day out I would stare at the helmet and it just did not sit right with me. Seeing a Chargers game on TV, it was embarrassing how inaccurate my helmet was. It needed to be changed.
Finally I had acquired some more accurate Chargers decals and decided to waste no time.
Decal Transplant
Removing decals is pretty easy. I just took a hair dryer and heated them off. The one issue that I was worried about, was the glue taking some of the clear coat I applied or worst case scenario the paint when I removed them. Unlike a professionally painted helmet, my coatings would not necessarily hold up to repeated decal swapping. Fortunately the decals came off without issue and I was able to apply the new ones, polish it up and put it back in its home. It just goes to show you, a project is never done and can always be improved.
Are We Really Going Ahead With This?
I caught a bit of the NFL combine this weekend and the one thing that stuck out to me was the enormous 100th anniversary logo on the field. I was really hoping that they would hear some of the feedback and go back to the drawing board, but realistically I know that wouldn’t going to happen.
It is that I just loved the two previous league milestone logos so much. The incredibly simple, yet effective NFL 50th logo from 1969 and the great 75th diamond logo from 1994. I would have just replicated the 50th and just changed it to say 100, but that’s just me.
Working on my seacont USFL 3D Wood Helmet
I was finishing up my latest 3D wood helmet. The USFL Oakland Invaders. One of my other favorite helmets after the Gamblers and Michigan Panthers. This logo was pretty easy to cut, it just had some small pieces. I’m in the middle of the paint process right now. Pictures to come of finished helmet. In the meantime you can check out my 3D Wood Helmet Gallery. More on this project later in the week.
What I watched:
Last night I watched a matchup between the 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs from the strike shortened 1982 season. Neither team was doing well going into this game, with both having only two wins and would only end up with one more to end the season. Not a great follow-up for a young Montana and the 1981 champs. Future Bills coach, Marv Levy was in his final season as the Chiefs Head Coach and would be fired following the season finale the next week. Levy would go on to Coach the USFL Chicago Blitz for the 1984 season before finally landing in Buffalo midway through the 1986 season. The other notable thing about this game was the empty seats in Arrowhead. These days every empty seat is counted on Twitter and other places as a measurement of fandom, but back then fans in many cities would regularly stop attending if their team was not ws not performing well. There was under twenty-four thousand on hand for this one. The other amazing this was that Dick Stockon was doing the play-by-play. Hard to believe that a guy who announced a game nearly forty years ago is still doing it to this day.
Helmet Of The Day: 1966-1969 Falcons
On August 29th 1965, the new Atlanta NFL team adopted the nickname, Falcons. Their colors would be red, white and black. As an ode to the state of Georgia’s two rival college football teams, the Falcons would have the colors of Georgia, but for their first few season also add two gold stripes for hometown Georgia Tech. I made myself a replica out of this Rawlings Youth Helmet. Love how the Red Pops.
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