Where is arai made

Once an Arai is ready for shipping, it will have seen nearly 40 different pairs of hands. The application of graphics is done solely by women. Helmets can indeed be beautiful, especially given the shape of an Arai, which has been in a continual evolution since the s.

But the fact that an Arai has gone through so many people before it saves you from your next crash gives it a special significance. Plus, get digital edition access and a free tote bag. Travel Destinations Hotels Resorts Spas. RR One. Search Close. Give the Gift of Luxury. Access Exclusive Content All Year. The technology learned from MotoGP and Formula 1 is evident in street helmets. In recent years, Michio has worked closely with his grandson, Aki Arai, who will eventually take over the reins of the Japanese helmet manufacturer, ensuring that the company remains in the family.

Well, consider these facts your foundation for understanding the practices and philosophy of Arai, something that I would come to learn over my two-day tour of all Arai manufacturing plants, where I saw nearly every single aspect of the production of its helmets. I have sat through several Arai presentations in the United States. Frequently, factory tours involve being led through antiseptic manufacturing plants, while employees with drooping eyelids smash buttons or wield pneumatic wrenches in nearly fully automated production lines.

Arai is not one of these places. The Arai manufacturing warehouses are dusty, loud, hot environments, with employees fixated on their work. Outside of a few bits such as rubber liners, foam padding, and injection molded components, every piece of an Arai helmet is made and installed by hand, by an employee who has tirelessly labored to create it.

When I say everything, I genuinely mean everything. As new technologies came into the fold, Arai either created the components and machines to get the job done or appropriated a device from another industry, modifying the equipment for its own needs.

At 81 years of age, what became abundantly clear, is that Michio is still as passionate about safety as he was in his youth. His eyes lit up as he told us that Arai is not directed by members of a boardroom, and they are not driven by profit.

By his own admission, they are what he described as bad businessmen. Arai has built a culture fixated on safety, one where each employee believes in the vision laid out by each member of the Arai family throughout the years.

Michio does not want employees collecting a paycheck and punching out helmets; he wants employees who are extensions of his philosophy, with pride in their work equal to his.

There are numerous points in the manufacturing chain that could be streamlined by automation. However, that would detract from the goals or proven practices that Arai has built. Yes, the Arai way is more expensive and less efficient in a purely capitalistic view. However, achieving the bottom line is only a means to an end in their pursuit of protection. Luckily, it is a family-owned business and has no board members that require kowtowing.

Being a principled, family-owned business is the intangible part of the philosophy—the substantial portion is what we now know as the R75 shell shape. The smooth, egg-like design that helps alleviate energy from impacts through glancing blows. There are no flat spots for the helmet to hook up on—an Arai helmet wants to slide and rotate freely during a crash.

Any protruding venting is designed to sheer off, as well. All Arai helmets adhere to that design philosophy with almost no deviation between them. Look at the latest entry-level Regent-X and compare it to the race-ready Corsair-X.

Outside of ventilation, their profiles are virtually identical. Off-road helmets, despite their pronounced chin bars and peaks, still abide by the same rules. While we know it as the R75 head shape in , Arai has been married and dedicated to this idea since the early days.

We saw examples of the first fiberglass shell ever created for mass production in the s and, while the company has made countless tweaks to every aspect of their helmets, the lineage is distinct. Logically, one follows the other. If Arai is dedicated to safety and feels that this shape is the safest profile available, then the company will not stray from that path.

Where all these concepts began to coalesce for me is when I saw how a shell is born. Superfiber is six times more expensive than the typical variant, and 30 percent stronger. It was first introduced in the s and has been continually refined since then. One layer of the shell is made, various materials depending on the model are added, a final shell layer is applied, toss in some resin, throw it in a heated steel mold, and bam!

A shell is born. Many helmets use fiberglass strips or entire pieces that are laid out to form the layers of their shell, in conjunction with a laminate process. While light and durable, it creates a situation where fractures follow the path of least resistance. Think of the way wood breaks when hit with an ax. If you strike the log vertically, the chance of it splitting is more likely as it will fracture along the grain—the weakest point.

Fiberglass shells that use predictable weave patterns are susceptible to the same weakness as cracks will form along the path of least resistance. Creating an utterly randomized fiberglass weave helps distribute impact energy more evenly, resulting in a spiderweb-like impact zone.

Another benefit of the random-strand process is that less resin can be used in the final molding process. The gaps between fibers become smaller, reducing overall weight without compromising structural integrity. We even got to experience some of this ourselves, as we were given standard fiberglass cLc and SNC samples to illustrate the difference in behavior. Though we just had small strips of material to play with, it was more than evident that Superfiber sample pieces are more resilient to flexing.

Inspired by the structure of a trellis bridge, the material between each layer is meant to improve energy dissipating properties and help absorb impacts before the EPS liner comes into play.

The materials used are dependent on the model, as well as size. A smaller shell size may not need as much reinforcement as a larger one. Each size, and each specific model, has slightly different recipes. You might see as many as 20 separate materials in one helmet. Superfiber is threaded on a loom-like machine—mesh, matte, and reinforcement pieces are stamped out with huge die cutting presses, and all those components are distributed amongst the various factories.

In Shinto, skilled employees preassemble each set of the reinforcement pieces, either by stapling them to together or tacking them together with a heat-gun.

Those preassembled sets of reinforcement material are then inspected and weighed before introduced into the production line. Again, all these reinforcement sets are unique to the model and size of their respective helmets — a Ram-X will feature different construction than a Corsair-X, for example.

A simple open-faced helmet made for low-speed riding may not feature the same mesh technology designed to keep the laminate pieces from sheering apart during high-speed impacts, for example. Mesh technology is exactly that — a mesh that is introduced to the laminate process to help improve durability.

When the shell laminates are pressed together, the cross-section of the mesh is the thickest point and digs into each side, effectively acting like rebar and preventing the two halves from delaminating. Another example is the peripheral belt, a feature found on most Arai lids, which supports the upper area of the viewport from deformation during an accident. Again, not all helmets employ this feature. Even things like resin, which I previously thought were one dimensional, are always being analyzed and remixed to capitalize on their respective properties to improve the performance of the helmets.

Each helmet calls out for specific formula of resin and, in the case of certain helmets, these resins can have shelf lives as low as six hours—shell makers need to work fast. What goes in the mold is crucial to our story, but equally important is who is doing it: The Shell Expert.

Each Shell Expert goes through a rigorous training process that can last over a year, working directly with a mentor before eventually being left to their own devices among the piping hot steel molds. Even then, these Experts are initially only allowed to operate one molding station in the beginning, working their way to greater independence and responsibility.

By the end, a well-rounded Shell Expert can command up to five molding stations at once. The Shell Expert lays all the materials into the mold, which changes for each make, size, and model. He then puts his signature stamp with his actual name on it, pours the resin in, and seals the mold up.

Should you credit an Arai lid with saving your life, you could rip the EPS liner out and know the name of the man who built your shell.

Each shell spends roughly 15 minutes in the mold, and the Shell Expert must be able to determine the exact time to pull the shell, based on experience.

It feels primitive as an observer. The workshops are undeniably hot and uncomfortable, especially when you factor in the humid Japanese summer. Shell Experts watch the clock, managing multiple molds at once, moving down the row, prepping each station and repeating the process over again. Once a shell is done, the Shell Expert pulls it and carefully inspects it for any issues. If it passes, he signs off on it. But then comes an interesting piece—the wet layering of graphics—done almost exclusively by female hands.

Getting a Nicky Hayden or Dani Pedrosa replica to look the way it does is an exacting process, one on that is completed almost entirely by women. If watching a shell being created is beautiful in an industrial sense, seeing these ladies take a plain white Arai Corsair-X and craft it into a Doohan, Nakagami, or Roberts replica is gorgeous in the artistic sense.

Only the sounds of moving trollies and the machine in the background popping rivets for the chin strap locators breaking the silence in the cleanest area of any of the four Arai factories we visit. Nearly all the graphics are laid by hand, although some, like the Freddie Spencer 30th Anniversary Corsair-X, are painted by hand. And yes, every helmet is given a final spray and polish by hand.

An example of this is the man who fits the EPS liner. After the shell is drilled for the visor, chin strap, and ventilation points, the helmet is sent to the EPS employee who carefully pushes the multi-density EPS liner into the shell, lining up the vent holes and getting it ready for the final stages in construction that include fitting the chin straps, inner cheek and head liners, visor, and vent fitment and boxing.

Typically, a machine would do this EPS fitting, but Arai believes no machine can do this task better than two human hands, which contributes to the expense, but also the quality of the finished product. Once the helmet has been fitted with the interior, including cheek pads, top liner, riveted double D-ring retention system, and chin bar, its sent to packing for what is likely to be its final journey to the customer.

In this specially constructed room around the corner from the shell construction area we started today in, sits a machine that can reach as high as 16 feet, and provide the most stringent testing for high impacts anywhere in the world. To be Snell certified, another test had to be performed but from a lower height of eight feet. The Arai tech then dropped our helmet from 16 feet, and the rod hit the helmet three separate times, and nothing got through to the EPS liner.

An interesting tidbit was the helmet used for testing was a motorcycle helmet, not a Formula One helmet, and it still passed. Watching the test hammered home just how much abuse a helmet must take, and these impacts are defined and repeatable, while a motorcycle crash on the street or track can be completely unpredictable.

Arai is uncomfortable with this facet of the job but knows through the enormous channels of human labor and quality control they have done their absolute best to make the most protective helmet possible for your head. Indeed so. That crash was a belter, everything was sore, the helmet was trashed, but it did its job absolutely perfectly.

The Arai facilities we visited, as well as two-day ride thanks to Honda Motorcycle Japan more on that in the gear review of the new Regent-X coming soon , showcased just how important Arai is not only to the people running the company but especially the workers.