The Armour Archive

Ok... so I've been chewing on this idea for a while.

This is my first real attempt at a Kabuto. I did one a LOOOOOOONG time ago that was better described as a spangen helm with shikoro.

I'd like to skip over comments like "needs planishing", "Paint sucks", "WTF? Pop rivets?", "Seam looks sloppy", "Shop is dirty" etc. I'm aware of most of that. This is very much a prototype, done out of 20g, and a 're-purposed' desk that I dragged home from work to salvage the drawers since the rest of it was well fubared.

I'm really looking for comments on the overall shape, the lines (as opposed to the minor wobbles in the over all line). Stuff like that. Constructive criticisms are highly valued.

3/4 view:

Side:

Front:


Right away I think my center band is WAY too wide, and I need a bit more curvature in the side plates. Some of that may help with the size isses, it's honkin big.

One of the questions I have regarding that is, typically, when flat before shaping, is the center band a straight strip with paralell edges, or should they have some gentle curvature, possibly narrowing at the front and back, and being wider near the top?

Thanks for looking.

The thing about zunari is that there is a wide latitude in actual design. Narrow ventral plates, wide ones -- it doesn't matter much. They're usually narrower, though. That said, given the width of this one, I think it could benefit from more curvature (when seen from the front). The head looks a bit... well, I think "flat" is the term that comes to mind.

Also, the back curves in, and that shouldn't happen. The back should pretty much be perpendicular to the ground. Essentially, look at a US WW2 helmet, and you'll have the perfect zunari shape (except for the curving lip at the bottom).

Other than that back curve, it's not a bad start, though. Not bad at all.

This is funny because i just started a zunari kabuto for my apprentice. I dished all my plates more then yours and my center plate is alittle more narrow then yours but i think your on track. Effs comments were exactly what i was gonna say.

Cant wait to see the rest. I might even post my progress.

I don't have any reference material, so I'm going off of memory.

I think I probably over-exagerated the flatness.

I remember looking at a Laurel friend's book, and us having a conversation about how flat they were... "the samurai equivelent of a barrel helm" I said...

I think tomorrow I'll drill out the rivets, trim 1/2" to 3/4" off either side of the center band, and dish everything a bit more, then wrastle it back together.

S'funny to me is that I'm a bit out of my comfort zone with this... yet it's the ONLY helmet bowl I've ever gotten close to done with just rivets, and not a single weld, even if some of them are just tacks.

I must be learning something, I would've made the same comments.

Try this:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&s ... ari+kabuto

Effingham wrote:Try this:

I really did...

but got frustrated digging through anime crap and video games. My google fu sucks.

LOL. Been there.

I can't look at the google images right now, but if this is intended for SCA combat, given the apparent latitude you have in how wide the center band is, I'd be real tempted to leave it closer to what you have now.
Reason being, whenever I do spangens I try to have an overlap in the sweet spots, as opposed to having heavier steel there.
2 layers of 14g overlapped and riveted on the sweet spots is pretty damned tough.

BTW, I work in IT and any office building is going to have periodic cleanouts, and equipment gets simply tossed. Mid-size tower cases make great patterning material and are pretty easy to flatten out. But they're only 22g usually.
Also, if you get one with a hard drive, you can strip out the rare earth magnets and use them to hold pieces together for welding.

I think I like this better.

Still a lot of undercut on the back, but on THIS one if I trim the bottom edge on my sharpie line, I think I can hide most of the rest of it under the brow band (koshimaki?). The pattern will need tweaking for future revisions, the metal just isn't there to push it back out on this one.