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Interesting Article About Football Helmet Decals


FiddySicks

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That can't be right about Michigan using a Packers helmet. Maybe it means thats what they used to do or maybe they get the same color helmet as the Packers. But that just doesn't make any sense.

And yes, the Bengals helmets are painted.

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Have the bengals helmets always been painted? I say that because I read an article about what a hard time the bengals equipment manager had with the throwback uniforms in 1994. The article said that for each helmet he had to strip the decal, clean the helmet and then apply the bengals wordmark decal to achieve the throwback look. I've been a bengals fan for a long time so I'm pretty puzzled by this.

PvO6ZWJ.png

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I don't know if that's actually correct that the bengals paint their stripes on. I swear I've seen a player wearing a helmet where each individual stripe is a decal.

Yeah I wondered that too. I've seen a Bengals helmet that uses stripe decals, but it was a replica so who knows.

And if this picture is any indication, Michigan's helmet IS a yellow shell painted navy

Winged_Helmet.jpg

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On 11/19/2012 at 7:23 PM, oldschoolvikings said:
She’s still half convinced “Chris Creamer” is a porn site.)
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Seems to me that the Packer's yellow/gold and the Michigan pale-sickly yellow aren't anything alike.

I dunno, I think it is just a play on your eyes. The Packers all yellow helmet doesn't seem as bright...but when you contrast it against the dark blue for Michigan it certainly could be. I just doubt this still goes on today...seems pointless- it could have used to be the process though, I'd believe that much.

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I don't know if that's actually correct that the bengals paint their stripes on. I swear I've seen a player wearing a helmet where each individual stripe is a decal.

Yeah I wondered that too. I've seen a Bengals helmet that uses stripe decals, but it was a replica so who knows.

And if this picture is any indication, Michigan's helmet IS a yellow shell painted navy

Winged_Helmet.jpg

As someone mentioned the Bengals have had painted stripes since the beginning of this decade; prior to that they were decals.

According to HelmetHut (it was in their Q&A section "Ask Dr. Del-Rye") the Michigan helmet does start life as a regular shell molded in the impregnated Green Bay Yellow color. Michigan then paints the shell twice - the first layer is that Michigan light yellow (maize). Then they mask off the pattern and stripes and paint the helmet navy. They have been doing it this way since the late 1970s/early 1980s when someone decided the helmet looked better to have a yellow shell under the paint than a white shell, particularly if the paint chipped.

Of course, even the Green Bay yellow helmets are painted these days with the "pearl" yellow finish.

EDIT: Okay, I did find the post on HelmetHut. Scroll down to the next to last item on this page:

http://www.helmethut.com/120102.html

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maybe that's why some helmets don't match anymore. It used to be that everybody's helmet had the same distance between each stripe

rudi.jpg

carsonpalmer.jpg

I know they wear two different types of helmets, but it shouldn't be this way. That is a noticeable difference.

PvO6ZWJ.png

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maybe that's why some helmets don't match anymore. It used to be that everybody's helmet had the same distance between each stripe

rudi.jpg

carsonpalmer.jpg

I know they wear two different types of helmets, but it shouldn't be this way. That is a noticeable difference.

For many years the Bengals players were 99% in Riddell helmets - while they used various models through the stripe era, all of these various models had the same Tru-Kurve (TK) shell. The Bengals were notoriously cheap; they got a deal through the NFL on Riddell helmets, and they even used all the various odd Riddell face masks unless someone really wanted a different model. There were occasional exceptions (like the Simmons Maxpro helmet on HelmetHut), but for the most part the Bengals just issued the Riddells.

These days there 2 types of Riddell shells (Revolution and the good old TK shell used for the VSR-4) and for 2008 there will be 4 types of Schutt shells (the standard Air shell as in the Carson Palmer photo, the DNA, the new ION-4D, and the new Air XP), plus the occasional Adams shell. All 7 possible helmet shells have a different profile; for most team designs it will be almost impossible for them to be exactly the same. It's really going to be an issue for teams like the Bengals where they have to fit the pattern in.

One interesting side note - while the Bengals have moved from decals to painted-on stripes, the Rams over the years moved from painted-on horns to decals. I'm pretty sure that happened before they changed uniform design for the 2000 season, but I'm not sure when the change occurred.

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