Mirroring custom visors

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Sean Bradley

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Just wondering if anyone out there has a clue about how to mirror a custom-made visor. I've seen so many different approaches on this, but I still haven't seen any that were picture perfect. Some people mist their visors with gold paint, Blue Realm's layered visor looks nice too. I guess I'm still hoping that someone can figure out how to make the ultimate dimensional Master Chief visor and setup to produce them for the armor community.

If you could mirror a clear plexi vacuum formed visor afterward the same way the gold motorcycle visors are done, I think thats really the ultimate solution to this challenge.

I've mirrored custom made glass before with silver nitrate but I think this is a completely different process than what the helmet companies use for the plastic replacement helmets. It wouldn't be nearly transparent enough to see through.

Maybe if we contact one of the companies that makes the mirrored cycle visors they could give us some help???

Thoughts?
 
i looked into it i found a site where they make visors, they wrote back but they want to know how many i need to make and i thold them how many i need and they havent wrote back....its been 6 months
 
I'm sure their standpoint is that they're only going to do it if you want to
order hundreds of them. Thats really the only way they'll make any
money at it. But maybe approaching them just asking for technical
information about their mirroring process...maybe they'll divulge
something useful'

Anybody have a friend who works for Bell, or Shoei, or any of the Helmet
companies? We just need to find a Halo fan that works in one of these
places that could answer some questions at the least...

How cool would that be to find somebody on the inside who could slip
some 'custom work' into their job!
 
I'm sure that if a few of us got together we could get this figured out.

I'm curious about the vacuum forming metal to it thing....is it some kind
of lamination? Like in layers? Or is it a reduction, like a atmospheric thing
they do with releasing chemicals or atomized metals in a chamber with the visors...?

I've asked some of the people who make chromed armor (Cylons, C-3P0)
if they could do this kind of thing, and they all said no. Theres got to be
somebody who knows out there..!
 
The way motorcycle visors and sunglasses are made is a difficult process. They start with perfect smoothed machined injection mold, this gives them a perfectly clear flawless surface. Then they go threw a process called flash coating. They put the plastic piece in a vacuum chamber and then spray one side with a transparent metallic coating. This is the only process that will give you the look of a mirrored visor. Alternatives such as vaccuforming a chrome piece of ABS will leave imperfections causing the mirror to look foggy or distorted. Kinda like looking at your reflection on the side of a dented car or in a fun house mirror. The way they do vacumetilization for parts such as toys and c3po is a similar method but it’s actually an opaque metalized compound. Companies will not do this for just one or two pieces; you'll have to do at least a 500-1000. Plus all the companies are over seas. That’s why you don’t see many sunglasses saying made in the US. So if you can afford for a company to CNC a metal injection mold and have it shipped over sees to have it flash coated in bulk, then you'll have the perfect visor. That’s if the company has no idea what it is there making. If they find out that it’s a microsoft/bungie design, they will not work on it for there own legal safety.
 
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