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Something more than 80 inch bandsaw should give you clearance. Recommend you use latex gloves with double sided adhesive to pull the halves apart as they go thru the blade. 1/4 inch blade and 20 teeth per inch should be okay.
Tightly applied masking tape will reduce chipping.
You know most people are looking to get stuff done in a hurry. Most of the time you make mistakes and the job turns out less than you'd personally accept or be satisfied with. It has always been my practice to take the time to do it right the first time. I wonder if this requires disassembly of the inner cushions? Probably would turn out being a whole lot easier if you did. With that being accomplished first in this case, I would use a simple hack-saw or multi-toothed blade (no sharks) and take the time to do a good job. The high speed saws like a Dremmel can race away from you, if you pay the least less attention to the work, ending up with money out of your pocket.
If you have many (a whole teams worth), well spend your time to do the first one then figure what it is worth to you to do the job. $50-$75 a helmet sounds fair if you've done a nice job of it. Most of us don't have a high speed band-saw of the nature required in discussion here, so doing it with what you have is usually a great way to go, just take your time. Besides when your done you can feel good about the quality put in and value given to your customer. Good luck!
I do this once a year, I use a cutting disc on my bench mounted grinder and cut down the middle. Takes 30 sec.
I mount the helmet the hard way, mark the holes for the face mask and drill holes. Insert the bars from the facemask and glue in place. I use epoxy or silicon on the inside edge of the helmet. Works great.
$300 is insane to cut helmet in half.
i used to work for a football helemt company and now sell them into the promotional and awards market. Any heavy duty bandsaw will do the job. Most difficult thing would be to keep the cut straight on the shell. Faceguards are typically carbon steel so again are not such a big issue with a heavy duty bandsaw
to attach it to the plaque, glue three blocks inside the shell around the edge you've just cut and screw it to the plaque. facegaurd really doesnt need any support as its fixed rigidly to the helmet
i would be very surprised if it took longer than 10 minutes, $300 is incredibly high, i agree he doesnt want the job
I cast my vote for the Fein multi-tool or possibly a Dremel. There are a variety of blade types available, and I am sure that you can find one to cut through all of the helmet parts. The silicone is a great option for the mounting. Gorilla glue may be good as well, but you need to be careful if you use a glue product that expands as it may seep into places you don't want it to go.
Steve Boek
Graphical Systems USA
www.graphicalsystemsusa.com
Oops, can't spell today. Correct spelling is "Fein".
I own a small woodworking shop as well as Laser engraving and cutting service. I have two bandsaws but would not attempt to cut this item it's to dangerous in my opinion given the odd shape and multiple materials involved. You might want to try a hand held multitool such as a "Fien" or similar tool. They are extremely easy to use safe and will cut many different materials with one blade. Please feel free to contact me if you should need more information. I would be happy to help if I can.
Sincerely
Rick Cole
Lincoln Laser Crafts
rick@lincolnlasercrafts.com
Anyone with a quality band saw should be able to slice the helmet in half. A good band saw should have a slide on it which would make securing it fairly easy. Water jet might also work. You would need to secure the protective cage, but that should not be a problem. What you really want to show on the award would be the helmet. It certainly is not a $300 job.
As for mounting on a plaque - 3m silicone would take care of that.
Richard, the metal worker that told you it would cost $300 to cut the helmut in half just indicates to me he doesn't want to do the job. That price is way out of the ballpark. it can be done for less than half of that.
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