Leather viking helm

Hrothgar02 · Post by **Hrothgar02** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:09 pm

I am look for a Pattern to make a leather viking helm can any 1 help me.

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:34 pm

With the timeing I expect this may be a prop or costume for halloween.
Try patterning this out in posterboard at first to avoid wasteing expencive leather.
Many of the patterns available will need some resizing.
http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/l ... m_gerhard/
The instructions fail to mention that its vegitan leather used.

ajusting the printer scale to resize is easy enuff for one pattern but if you need to ajust the scale a few times building a Pantograph may help. Try a google search for information on construction.

Hrothgar02 · Post by **Hrothgar02** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 10:50 pm

this is not for a halloween i am part of a Belegarth group in Nashville that does Medieval Combat and after 4 to 5 years of fighting with no armor i am trying to make me some. www.belegarth.com if any wants to know more about what we are like.

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:34 am

Welcome new member.

Yes.

Leather panel and steel bands type of helm option.
You might try it in all leather, no sewing. :wink:

Rivets are good.

http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... angen1.jpg
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... angen5.jpg
http://home.armourarchive.org/members/h ... angen2.jpg

This pattern may be of help:
http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/n ... _halberds/

Hal

Norman · Post by **Norman** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 10:48 am

Hal,
So you are only riveting the panels at the bottom and then holding them in place between a sandwich of upward frame bands?

Is this based on a particular find or set of finds?

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 2:00 pm

Hrothgar02 Thanks that helps a lot many different groups are represented on the board and it can be a little dificult keeping track of who is using what rule set.
SCA is the big one with a number of other groups and some artisans without any paticular group affiliation.
Hals pattern may be a good place to start the nasal will need to be modified to comply with the penny round rule.

hardening the leather may also be worth exploring a little.
Hear is a link to one of the more productive discussions.
hope it helps some.
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=94793

If your intrested in tooling leather at all I would sugest watching martha stewart tomarrow.
The featured artist.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5334810

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 7:12 pm

Yes, the leather panels are sandwiched with a metal strip inside.

Just like in the Norman spangenhelm pattern shown above.

It is historical, Eggfroth showed me how this method works.
You will need to ask him where and when it was used.
I forgot. [D'oh]

Hal

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:27 pm

Welcome and well come, Hrothgar02! May your stay at the Archive be long and profit you much.

Essentially, any pattern suitable for metal suits for thick leather as well. Square foot for square foot and pound for pound, leather costs more to get than steel, unlike the situation in the Middle Ages, but is also quieter to cut and to form, with all your necessary tools and most supplies fitting inside a tackle box rather than in something about the volume of a footlocker, exclusive of supplies. As Belegarth's rules exclude the use of nonperiod materials like HDPE plastic, we can ignore things like that -- though leather cutting tools work just as well on HDPE.

About the only difference between making something in metal and in leather is that brought on by the leather's thickness. Primarily that affects articulation. Leather's friction around articulating rivets is greater and the fit of overlapping articulating pieces is nowhere near as smooth. Articulation of a series of lames upon internal, vertically disposed leathers is usually most successful. Otherwise, expect to adopt independently floating pieces, pointed to an arming coat worn beneath them. This is a method that works so well that German-type plate armor was famous for using it, particularly on its arms. You can spot German arms a mile off by the great big elbow couters which up close reveal themselves to essentially be two good-sized cones intersecting to make a point at the elbow and an elbow shape over the rest of the joint. With just a little experience, you could build a pair of these things in leather.

So what you end up learning in all this is how to make 3-D shapes in vege-tanned leather by wetting (casing) and forming, perhaps by cutting out and rasping, filing, and sanding down a wooden form to shape leather upon, either drying it at room temp or hardening by baking very gently in a 175-180 degree oven, a process called water hardening around here. There are many threads about it. Forming water hardened leather over a wooden last can mean tacking its edges down around the last like somebody home-making a shoe. Always use vegetable tanned leather for this, as chrometanned isn't going to harden this way. But garment-weight chrometanned may be used to cover something in a pretty colored appliquÃ©. Looks really jazzy and gives a professional finish even to homemade efforts.

Konstantin the Red · Post by **Konstantin the Red** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 8:33 pm

Hrothgar02 wrote:. . .I am part of a Belegarth group in Nashville that does Medieval Combat and after 4 to 5 years of fighting with no armor i am trying to make me some.

So aside from a helmet, what other armor pieces would you like to make, and what would you like to have (which may be just a little different)? We can talk a lot about how to make stuff AND where to buy suitable pieces. Since your game's head hits are very tightly restricted (three of your five weapon classes are not allowed to do head strikes) I can see why helmets are conspicuous by their absence in so many of your pics.