the resurRECtion bout award helmets (and certificates)

so a little time back, one of the London Rollergirls REC league girls asked if anyone could create some awards for an intraleague bout they were due to be playing (4 weeks from the time of asking). Because they've all been quite a lot lovely putting up with me training to be a ref alongside them and putting up with my body odour, fuck ups and some speckly learning of the rules, I though it might be nice to do something. SO I suggested that I create some helmets as awards for the bout. I was then reminded that there would need to be six (best jammer, blocker and MVP for each team). Realising I'd already over promised, I relied on the fact we could never get that many scrap helmets for free and relaxed. Sure enough the leaguers being as awesome as they are all willingly donated and sure enough 6 helmets were sourced and then I had a mere two weeks to deliver on a somewhat foolhardy promise. This is how it went.

some of the original helmets, raw's is not in shot for some reason,
also notice the original brawling helmet from bette noir

removing all the old sticker detritus and sanding out the worst of the scratchs
and dents also this serves to key the helmets in

where the liners could be removed we pulled them out for simplicity,
this is not recommended if the helmets are ever going to be used

poor old crash, helping out her idjut boyfriend,
also don't bother using a power sander, it won't work

base coat of montana shock black goes on after a plastic primer coat

all six lined up in my parent's garage to dry and fume

first two cans of montana down and the plastic primer is the one on the left

second coat applied, the alarm bells started ringing at this point as
the helmets weren't drying out quickly enough and the montana cans nozzles
were chucking out a load of drops

the offending cans

naughty nozzles

so once we got back to london it became clear that the motana wasn't working out. Although it was dry it wasn't hardening like car paint does. So the executive decision was made to change helmet paint (with hindsight i think if we'd stayed the course and let them dry for the next four days we might have ended up with an easier life. oh well) so we change over to a bmw black cellulose paint. This worked better but dried with a weird grey patina where it reacted with the montana. this carried on through a second coat. So at this point there was 4 days to go, and running out of ideas i decided to make a spray booth and change the plan.

so to try and equalize the colour and stop the weird reacting we left the black to dry for a day and then shot the helmets again with metallics to equalize out the tones. Also it's worth noting that between each coat we were rubbing down the paint with 800 grit wet and dry. (it's also worth noting your supposed to wake a couple of weeks to let the paint dry before doing this - again rushing and helmet painting do not go hand in hand). so for the boners ( the black team) we used up some old purple metallic to try and make a black metallic top coat a bit more of a shiner black, and for the dead riding hoods we shot a really nice rusty red metallic.

desperate to get decent coats in the cold and dark, we started pre warming the cans and the helmets before shooting the coats. (also totally wouldn't recommend shooting any kind of paint in the dark using a head torch for light. IT IS A BAD PLAN FULL STOP)

luckily the metallic coats came out really nicely despite a few issues with running out of paint at 10 o clock at night. Metallic paint in car cans has a nasty habit of spraying the base colour without the flakes in it when they get close to the end which is invisible till the bugger drys.

so once the metallics started drying we shot the black metallic over the top of the other metallic, hoping that in the daylight (almost all of this was done at night which means that true colours and coverage are almost nigh on impossible to work out) that the black would have a subtly different tone for each team.

all the black top coats on

dead riding hoods black top coat, note the slight red tinge at the edge of the light area. thankfully it kinda paid off

boners top coat, this one has a slightly more purple tone. if i was going to do it again i'd use a more cyan extreme metallic blue to really get a shine black

the empty cans are piling up

24 hours of drying time later, it was now thursday night. The helmets had to be ready by the saturday morning, so with crash applying the gold leaf (she kicks arse at this whereas I'm just too effing ham fisted) and me marking out where it needed to go, we started to crack on

see this is the difference between me and crash, she can get one beautifully applied sheet on at a time

the lady herself, leafing away, and yep that's our entire work area, (also note the helmets drying on the light fixture)

drying space in a one bed underground flat is somewhat limited

best blockers leafed up

blockers, jammers and the first bit of leafing for the MVPs done.

so you can't see here, but the lack of drying time came home to roost when we were removing the thin tape. Because of the number of coats and the improper amount of drying time the paint was incredibly soft. and thick. even the tape by itself would pucker the paint if left on for ten minutes. on the jammers it actually tore the top surface of the paint when removing it. At this point on thursday night tho, the point of no return had whistled past days before so we just had to grin and press on and bear it

friday. 18 hours to deadline. After the gold leaf had had a day to dry we could start the enamelling work. Also the base paint had toughened up a little in this time. It could still be indented with a fingerprint by just gripping it though so this was all kinda tricky. 

the plan was to use white to edge all the gold leaf and then provide all the award deets.

team names

date

getting there

so i had a light day at work on friday and so knocked out a matching certificate for each of the helmets.  complete with helmet illustration and blick type to match the gold leafing. You know cos I didn't have enough on my plate by this point

all the little buggers on the floor done at 10am on saturday, suddenly i wondered how the fuck i was going to get them all the way across london without denting, rubbing or chipping any paint. that is another story.

so some lessons learnt. NEVER accept 6 helmets at the same time. NEVER leave 24 hours drying time between coats. BUY new helmets in the correct colour, it'll work out cheaper and easier. Always use 800 grit and above between coats, the mirror shine on these fuckers was excellent. It's nice to be able to see your own shit-eating grin in a helmet top coat. TRY not to paint in the dark. TRY not to paint in the wet. ALWAYS buy enough paint before you start shooting a set of layers. Running out halfway through a coat is fucking annoying. FINALLY really regret not taking proper progress and finished article shots.

still not too shabby for two weeks of evenings

violent disco ball pics

the violent disco baller got used for the first time this weekend, here's a few pics of carly using the bugger.
all image rights to phillip higgins 

coming soon

the violent disco ball

so on the interwebs I saw someone customising a motorbike helmet to look like a disco ball. A couple of things immediately made me think I could firstly pevert this for roller derby and secondly frown. Would it not be massively heavy, as they were using mirror ceramic tiles, and secondly would it not piss off almost everyone on the road at night?


sooooo, i found some mirror vinyl made a tester and one of the girls in LRG rec league liked it an wanted her own, these are the pics of it's creation


so after 24 hours to harden, it got packed off to it's owner who I really hope likes the bugger

one triple 8 noggin saver with all the stickers removed. Matt rubberised finish that is a surprisingly large pain in the arse to work with

rear view

first lines of mirror squares go on

starting to deal with the curves

rough cut around the vents

raw finish is still pretty reflective 

all the tiles on

cut around the triple 8 logo

first coat of varnish to seal the tiles to the helmet and stop them flapping up (hopefully)

as i have to spray  in a stair well after work getting a good smooth finish was fucking hard

especially as i couldn't rub it down between coats, you can see the diffuse finish over the top of the orange detailing i put on

more second coat diffuseness and orange enamel detailling

third coat of varnish and i managed to strike the perfect balance between the varnish being too thick and running but wonderfully reflective, and not enough varnish and the finish being diffuse

sketch book full of helmets and not enough time

I had this idea and had a little spare  time over lunch and no really want to make this. also halloween and horror themed helmets are just queuing up in my brain box now

that is all

something else in development

somewhat of an injoke at this moment in time but hopefully you'll be seeing more of this soon.
the yeti is coming

2 awards at the PM society digital media awards

So something I designed and UXed and slogged on at Woolley Pau won two awards last night.
It was the best "digital tool for use in a practical setting" and the best "healthcare professional website". Congratulations to the WP and to all the other guys and girls who I got to work with on it.
3 awards in the bank

the mirror baller

so a friend posted a tutorial of someone making a mirror ball motor bike helmet using mirror tile and I thought, 'that looks fucking heavy' but it was quite cool so i thought that'd it could be derbyfied. Then having been dared to by LRG rec league girls and having a spare helmet kicking about, i thought it'd be worth giving it a go. So after massively over ordering on mirror vinyl, here is where we're up to.

some work in progress

drawn for keshy kesh, and i think possibly the basis of a tshirt, i shall call her louisa vile slugger (and yes everything now has to make sense in derby world. so long real world

this and that

ready for this to run in the MERD program, also as a consequence took a load of new shots of the helmets which minus a bit of retouching are ready to be posted.

for olivia

T-Mobile complaint

So here is the saga of my full complaint to T-Mobile
it's long but there we go. Also I've deleted sensitive bits:

The Complaint Investigation Team

T-Mobile

6 Camberwell Way

Sunderland

Tyne and Wear

SR3 3XN

Monday 2nd July 2012

Re: Customer Service Complaints for Telephone No:


Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to complain about multiple issues that have occurred over the previous three months at the hands of various departments within T-Mobile, whilst trying to get my HTC Desire S repaired.

My account details are as follows:

Name:
Billing Address:
T-Mobile Phone:

Due to the long and complex nature of my issues I feel I must give a short back story to what has happened so my complaints will make sense when detailed further in this letter.

I have been a T-Mobile customer since 2008, and have an HTC Desire S that I received as an upgrade to my account in the latter half of 2011. By January 2012, it had developed a number of faults, so I went into the store closest to my work (110 Oxford Street). They told me that my phone was under warranty and that T-Mobile would, therefore, repair it for free but that this repair would take a couple of weeks.

Due to this, I held off repairing my phone until the hassle of using it outweighed the hassle of two weeks without a phone. I went to the 110 Oxford Street store on the 16th of April to send off my phone for repair. Despite explaining carefully to a member of staff, my phone’s issues were incorrectly entered on the form. I was lent a Nokia phone whilst my phone was in repair but this phone also stopped working and I had to return two days later to exchange it.

My phone was returned to store, and on the morning I went to retrieve it, the store opened twenty minutes late due to the till system “going down” (as I was informed by the manager, when he poked his head round the door and asked me to come back in an hour). When I returned 15 minutes later the store had been opened and I retrieved my phone.

This delay was not a huge inconvenience but did cause me to lose an additional hour of working time. However, things went from bad to worse when I discovered the phone was still faulty but in new ways. I spoke to Customer Service and in-store staff to find out what the procedure was regarding multiple repairs and was given various answers but the consensus was that, after three repairs, a new phone could be given. During one of these calls to Customer Services, I believe I was given 15 pounds off my bill due to the fact I hadn’t been able to use the services I was paying for.

I returned again to the Oxford Street store on the 10th May 2012. The phone was sent off for repair a second time. This time the store had no working stand-in phones (they did, however, offer me the same broken one I had previously received). This left me unable to make or receive any calls. In addition the phone’s issues were again entered incorrectly into the repair form. Using the repair tracker I saw that the phone had been dispatched from the repair centre back to the store. Due to my experience during the previous repair I called the 110 Oxford Street store on Friday 18th of May, a full three days after it had been dispatched. I was told by the store that they still hadn’t received it, and that I should wait until after the weekend to call back.

On Monday 21st May I tried calling the store multiple times over the course of an hour and couldn’t get through. I then called Customer Services to find out whether the branch was closed. I was told that, as far as they knew, it was open and, upon further investigation with the courier, that my phone had been delivered and signed for on the 16th of May. Customer Services were an answer from the store and sent an email to the manager to contact them and advised me they would “get to the bottom of it” and call me back.

On receiving no call, I go back in contact the next day to find that Customer Services were still unable to reach the store or locate my phone. On Wednesday 23rd May, tired of being passed between departments, I walked down to the store to find it open and my phone there. Upon asking the members of staff in the store, I was told the store had been closed due to refurbishment for two days.

A week or so later, my phone was still misbehaving. I called Customer Services multiple times to try and receive a definite answer as to the exchange procedure and the number of repairs I would have to go through before the phone was replaced with a new one. I still got no concrete answer on this point. On Wednesday 6th June I returned to the store again to get my phone sent off for repair. Again, despite careful explanation, the phone’s faults were listed incorrectly. This time, I called Customer Services to get the fault report corrected and ensure proper repair.

I hoped that, as some of the faults were the same as those reported in the first repair, a new replacement phone might be offered. So I was surprised when, during this call, I was informed by Julie (of the Exchange and Repairs team) that I had already received a replacement phone. When I queried this, I was informed that one of the previous ‘repairs’ had, in fact, resulted in the issue of a replacement phone. No-one had informed me of this and, upon investigation, it emerged that this ‘replacement phone’ was not a new phone at all but my old casing with a new interior piece - at the most, a refurbished phone.

When I pressed the issue of a new replacement phone under my warranty with the T-Mobile representative, I was informed that only the manufacturer (HTC) could make that decision. I then requested the number for HTC in the UK and called them. Their staff explained that my warranty was directly with them and had nothing to do with T-Mobile and that they did not view repairs done by T-Mobile’s third-party agent as coming under their warranty. Further to this I would have to send the phone to them directly for any warranty replacement decision to be made by them.

I was, by this time, frustrated and confused and so called Customer Sevices again to find out why I was being told my phone was being repaired under warranty when HTC had told me that T-Mobile were solely a vendor. I was also keen to find out why T-Mobile were repairing my phone when their repairs were not certificated or respected by HTC. On calling back T-Mobile I spoke to Terry of the Exchange and Repairs department, who apologised and informed me that they could get my phone sent back from the repair centre to the store, as soon as it arrived there, but that he couldn’t help on any of the other issues I had.

A minute or so later I was rang back by Chris Groom, a manager of the Exchange and Repairs team, who explained that he had been listening into my call with Terry for training purposes. He apologised for my issues and could not clarify why I had been told the two conflicting statements by HTC and a T-Mobile operative. T-Mobile as far as he knew, were authorised agents who could nominate a repair. He offered me two potential solutions; receive a new replacement phone from the limited stock they had, or bring my contract to a close sooner so that an upgrade could be awarded. Unable to choose, he said he would call back later in the day to find out my choice.



Needless to say this call back did not occur as promised but, after my calling back the next day and hassling, I received a call from Chris later on that day. On this call I explained I wished to take the second option of the early closing and upgrade of my account. Chris explained that a member of staff from upgrades would call to make me an offer and that he himself would call later in the day to check that I was satisfied.

Again, neither of these calls happened. On Friday the 15th of June I called again to try and prompt a call-back, and was promised that someone would be in touch that afternoon. And they were. At 4:30pm, whilst I was in a meeting from a member of the upgrade team called Wayne. I tried calling back immediately and after one call being dropped whilst I was on hold, I managed to speak to an operative called Jenna in the upgrade team at 5:20pm. She told me that she was incapable of transferring the call to Wayne as he worked in the Oxford call centre. However she said she would email him and get him to call back that evening and that she herself would call me back before she left work at 6:30pm, to check this call had happened.

Again, no call-back. I called Customer Services at 7:00pm. After another long wait on hold I was passed to a member of the upgrade team, who offered me an upgrade but, after checking with his manager, returned to the line to tell me that my account had been passed to T-Mobile Head Office and as such he could no longer action anything on my account. He informed me that there was no way for me to contact Head Office and that they would call me on Monday (18th of June) for sure.

On Monday the 18th of June I received no call from head office. I called Customer Service at 5:20pm that evening, and after a short half hour on hold, I spoke to an operative who informed me that I was wrong, and that Head Office only called people following the receipt of a written complaint. I asked to be passed on to the Repairs and Exchange team anyway. After another quarter of an hour on hold, I spoke to a very helpful lady in the Repairs and Exchange team, who apologised profusely for the issues and dropped calls and checked my account. On returning to the line she confirmed that Chris Groom had done nothing to my account, no promised upgrade existed and that the best she could do was offer me a replacement phone from stock in the meantime. This was sent punctually and is greatly appreciated.

A full two weeks have now passed. I have received calls from none of the people or teams that promised me calls back.



That is a condensed version of the long tragic tale of this repair process with T-Mobile.
My complaints are unfortunately numerous so I have detailed these below:

• I have been misled by members of store staff and customer service representatives as to the nature of my phone warranty with T-Mobile. I was told as far back as January of this year, that my phone was under warranty with T-Mobile, whereas in reality my warranty is with HTC. I would like clarification for myself and other consumers as to what this relationship actually is.

• On multiple occasions I have been promised calls from members of the Customer service, Upgrades and Repairs and Exchange teams, including managers and T-Mobile Head office, which have never occurred.

• Time spent on the phone or in store trying to sort out these issues, or get answers that will enable me to solve them myself, has cost me over ten hours worth of work. At my hourly rate of £50/hour that comes to £500. Enough to have purchased any phone in your range; contract and service-provider free.

• My time spent in discussions with T-Mobile staff has been on the whole, frustrating and at times misleading. I have found that operators contradict each other, and at times it has felt as though this has been deliberate. I have spoken to several helpful members of staff including Christopher Groom, a Manager in the Repairs and Exchange department, However, any progress is almost immediately undone by unhelpful member of staff and non-existent call-backs.

• When discussing the faults of my phone with the staff at the store at 110, Oxford Street, they routinely have filled in the details of the phones faults incorrectly on the repair forms.
• For example on the first repair (Repair Reference No: ) the repair form reads “ Symptom Description; Audio problem – Malfunctioning Speaker – The speaker does not work all the time”. I however had explained that the issues I was getting the phone repaired for were a faulty headphone socket, faulty speaker, and software issues.
• This issue also occurred on the other two repairs (Repair Reference Nos: ). This was especially frustrating as multiple members of staff told me that phones were only replaced if they were repaired three times for the same issue. I had to question this with staff, as I couldn’t believe that contingency for three rounds of failed repair by a T-Mobile contractor would be considered normal and par for the course.

• The online repair tracker on the T-mobile website (http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/help-and-support/index?page=home&cat=REPAIR_TRACKER) has no functionality to show when a repaired phone is received back into store.  This system only shows when the phone has been dispatched by the repair centre, and not when it has been received and who signed for it. For this information even the T-Mobile Repairs and Exchange department had to call the couriers of the phone directly to receive that information. This page is often faulty and will fail to load the desired data which, as you can understand, fails to provide confidence and often adds to frustration.

• I have asked many members of T-Mobile staff, including operators of your social media channels, how to escalate my issue beyond the level of a call centre manager and have been refused that information because of “data protection”. I have subsequently found various pieces of information in T-Mobile branded pdfs such as this one (http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/resources/sites/TMOBILE/content/live/DOCUMENTS/0/DO187/en_GB/MC-19265-0609%20ComplaintsPolicy%20WEB.pdf)

This whole experience has left me feeling totally unsatisfied with the service I’ve received from T-Mobile.  I will never recommend T-Mobile to a friend or family member. I like my friends and family and would prefer that they continue to like me. I will also be actively advising anyone who will listen to stay away from T-Mobile based on these experiences. I will be contacting OFCOM and various media outputs to describe my issues. I will be using my own social media to list these experiences so that others will not feel as alone or misled, as I have during this process.

Please feel free to contact me using my phone or via email or in writing, or even in person. I will be copying this letter to the email address for the Customer Services Director as well to my blog.

Yours faithfully

Jon Creighton-Griffiths