Upgrade Your Old Skateboarding Helmet Into a New Snowboarding Helmet for Free

Upgrade your old Skateboarding Helmet and turn it into a Snowboarding Helmet with things lying around the house...

stuff you'll need / want:

Tools:
1. Hot glue gun
2. Hot glue sticks
3. Scissors
4. Knife (exacto, Boxcutter, etc.)
5. Ruler (Maybe)

Materials:
1. Fabric (I chose camouflage) - about 1.5 to 2 sq ft
2. Soft Plastic (I cut some off of a blister package) - about 3" x 4" rectangle
3. Packaging Foam Sponge
4. Self-adhesive, Reflective fabric tape (for optional search/rescue panel)
4. Scrap Fleece (for optional ear flaps)
5. Hard Rubber media (for Optional goggle strap stays, i used a power cord hider)
6. Velcro or Hook 'n' Loop fasteners strips
7. Narrow Nylon webbing - about 12-20" (depends on how big your chin/head is)

Step 1: Grab Your Brain Bucket

i used an old, classic Pro-Tec Skateboarding helmet i stopped using, you can use others as well, or as the original design allows....

-clean it with rubbing alcohol if need be
-remove the old cushion lining on the inside

Step 2: Attach an Optional Goggle-Strap Stay

In this step, i cut a section off of a hard rubber Cord Hider that i had lying around the house to use as a base. with a good imagination, you can use whatever media you may have at your disposal...

- use hot glue to anchor down one end of the strip. i used a compressed air can and turn it upside down to spray the hot glue with the liquid diflouroethane in order to speed up the cool down/hardening process - just try not to breath in the gas, it's extremely harmful

- once you've anchored down one end and have the strip in the right positioning, apply hot glue to the rest of the contact surface directly onto the helmet

- you should add a second small piece underneath the main piece. the main piece is to keep the strap from going up, the small piece is used to keep the goggle strap from falling down

Step 3: Start Adding the Fabric Cover & Replace the Old Padding

i chose to use Urban Camouflage pattern fabric from old uniforms i had laying around and killing my closet space - in this step, you can use pretty much whatever you can.

some suggestions: Blue Jeans, Corduroy, Sweat shirt/pants fabric, Leather?, etc etc, you get the point.

i didn't get to take pictures until i finished the project, so i tried to use my limited and hasty drawing skills to sketch up some graphic aids.

after you've added the main piece of fabric, you can start adding additional strips or desired shapes of fabric to cover the rest of the exposed areas.

if you did choose to make the goggle stays, you might have to cut some awkward shapes to ensure good coverage.  note the 3rd picture below...

when you're done with this step, add the new foam padding in there, shouldn't take you that long...

note: in order for the sides and corners of each piece of fabric not to fray, what i did was fold and glue them.  if you use the pocket flaps of the unitform (each Military uniform yields 4 pocket flaps and 2 sleeve cuffs which save you the trouble of having to do this)

Step 4: Adding the Optional Ear-Warming Flaps

in hindsight, i could have made the ear flaps removeable by adding velcro tabs, but i figured, if i reallyt had to later on down the line, i can remove them and make it so.

this part is fairly simple:

1. cut the piece of fabric that will cover the one ear, and duplicate a mirror image.
2. cut a piece of scrap fleece or other insulating material by tracing the pieces from step 1. above.
3. glue the fleece to the camo fabric.
4. glue the top edge of the completed ear flaps to the bottom lip of the helmet.

Caveat: make sure you wear the helmet and look in the mirror to see where the flaps should go, mark the areas where they will go if you have to AND make sure the flaps will be going behind the chin strap - (between the chin strap and your ears)

Step 5: Upgrading the Chin Strap Into a 3-points Head Harness

This part of the upgrade is quite possibly my favorite addition to the old helmet just due to it's practicality.��need something that's going to hug your head, and make sure you're protected.

In this step, you'll need a thin strip of Nylon webbing, some velcro, and hot glue:

2nd chin strap:
- get a length of Nylon webbing, approx 4-5", depending on how big your chin is
- make 2 loops on both ends, as shown in the diagram, and fix the ends to itself
- unclip the chin strap and slide it thru the loops, make sure yuou have the right side facing your chin

Tension Band (back of head):
- get a length of Nylon webbing, approx 8-9", depending on how big your head is
- cut 2 small squares of the hook portion of Velcro and hot glue them to each end evenly
- cut 1 piece (or 2 pieces - this is your preference) of the loop portion of the Velcro and hot glue it (or them) evenly and centered on the Nylon webbing
- enclose the Tension Band ends to the back-top part of the chin strap as shown in the diagram

Step 6: But, What If I Get Lost or Stranded on the Slopes??

i got you covered on that!  still have some of that 3M Self-Adhesive, Reflective Tape??

time to get a little creative about getting rescued...

you're basically going to:
- cut a rectangular piece of fabric
- cut a rectangular piece of plastic off of the blister packaging (smaller than the fabric piece mentioned above)
- glue the plastic onto the fabric
- fold the sides of the fabric in order to enclose the plastic
- apply the reflective tape onto the face of the plastic
- using hot glue, add velcro on both, the edges of the finished Search/Rescue Panel
- glue the other portion of the Velcro onto the top of the helmet

take a look at the diagram to get an idea

Step 7: The Finished Product - Friggin' Rad!!!

This is one of those projects that doesn't have to have all the steps followed by the "T", just use your own creativity, trial and error, and customizations.

everyone's head, chin, ear, and neck ratios are different, so my measurements may end up different from yours.  remember, you can still use this for skateboarding, and if you want, you can use it for hiking, streetfighting, airsoft, headbutting, etc...

i hope you enjoyed my Ible, take a look at the finished product below.

WEEEEEEEEE~!!!!  IS IT SNOWBOARDING SEASON YET????