baseball helmet restoration

[dwight24]

Hello,

i have a 1960 batting helmet in need of some restoration (it has cracks and needs a new decal).

Does anyone know who would do this type of work?

Thanks,

Mel

[icollectDCsports]

More info would be helpful and photos would be best. Is it a helmet that was worn in competition (game worn)? How badly is it cracked -- so much so that it's in danger of falling apart? As far as the logo, in almost all cases for a game worn helmet I'd say just leave it as is because adding a new one lessens the vintage, original character. Just my opinion.

[dwight24]

Hi,

It is a game used batting helmet. In pretty rough shape with some big cracks and lots of tape holding it together.

I'm attaching some pis to give a better idea.

[icollectDCsports]

Cracks: I can't tell whether the whole thing would fall apart without the tape, but you might want to consider carefully applying strong but pliable tape to the inside to hold it together and then remove the outside tape to improve the looks. Perhaps the helmet's cracks are just part of its use, such as a player slamming on the dugout floor, and I'm not sure you'd want to completely obscure that element of the helmet's use history.

Decal: There appears to be so much old pin tar on it that I don't see where there was ever a logo, and to apply a new logo, you'd have to remove pine tar which again is taking away an element of the use of the helmet.

[BrianK]

This is super cool as it is.

[dwight24]

Thanks for the responses. I do love the helmet. It is a Boston Red Sox helmet (I don't think I mentioned that before).

The more I think about it, the more I think that you are correct in not adding a replica decal. I do want to keep all of the pine tar and old look/feel to it. Practically the entire inside helmet has this same tape as is on the outside. I'm thinking of removing all of the existing tape, glueing the cracks with crazy glue, and re-taping the inside. So, a few more questions...

Any suggestions on a specific type of tape I should use?

Any idea what I might want to use to remove the tape residue from the outside of the helmet?

Thanks again.

Mel