FEATURE
manufacturing process will certainly help when selling the products going forward, with actual, genuine experience.” All of ABUS’ road helmets are currently made in Italy, with the production of other helmets like the mountain bike and children’s ranges made in Asia. The internal part of the helmet, the EPS, is produced in another facility. Since 2017, Maxi studio has grown from 45 people to around 90, which will grow again in future as ABUS brings all elements of its production under one roof. They’ve also recently brought some elements of testing in-house, performing a range of safety tests to streamline elements of production testing in a new laboratory.
EPS Factory: Combining all the Elements EPS, also known as expanded polystyrene might look like polystyrene, but they have very different characteristics. It’s the part of the helmet designed to take impacts, formed from raw material by being preheated and formed for the inside of the helmet.
ABUS believe, though they admit they aren’t sure, that they are the only European manufacturer making white EPS in Europe, as many moved production abroad. And whilst they aren’t the only manufacturers to make white,
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it’s something that took them two years to develop using their own formula.
The EPS production starts off as very small spheres that are heated by steam to increase their volume. This activates a gas that acts as a sort of glue to hold them together.
Each part of this process is phased to ensure there are no defects during production. When the helmet is ready to be combined, the machine performs multiple tasks, injecting the material and adding additional anchor points. The tool injects the material, and with foam and heat, each part is combined. The outer shell has a certain glue that helps it bond to the EPS during the injection moulding process. There are strict testing protocols in place, with helmets being weighed during production to make sure they are within the limit. ABUS say you will not find any EPS that comes from them with holes in; they only want to create masterpieces. Weight is important due to its correlation with safety, the weight must be within certain limits to meet internal tests and external certifications. Once this process is complete, helmets go back to Maxi
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