The Armour Archive

SO anyway, I sold the last one to a guy who needed a helm fast, so had to make myself another. Needed it for practice tuesday, but also needed to get back to working on helms for orders. One of these days I would really like to make a helm for myself and see how well I can make in, instead of how fast .
I tried some different things with this hat. One, bar grill welded inside instead of outside. I hoped it would look better. Not sure if it really looks better enough to warrent the extra pain in the ass. Opinions? Also, helm is completely welded togeather on the inside, so I used brass rivets (and blackened the whole helm except the nasal)

Nice for a quickie; slight, er, terrain relief on the quarter panels noted, as well as dishing of spangenbands dispensed with.

Good, well-penetrating welds on interior-set bargrill ends would be called for; I'm glad to see an image of what low-profile bargrill-setting at the sides of the face would come out like. I've done some thinking in that line myself. But haven't bent any metal. The method would seem superior to using rivets so, because of more metal cross section being part of the structure taking impact loads.

Ear slots, ahead of solid nape plate. Probably less trouble than making a slat back. Certainly less fastener bother. I like ear slots for the hearing they allow in Dark Ages helmet styles; again, less fastener bother in riveting the seam closed; I always wonder about the style's ultimate strength low on the sides of the head thanks to not being riveted shut there.

Stainless brows and nasal? Wonder what the handy-crafty client might do with its expanse to engrave in some hair lines or such hatching with a Dremel?

Yeah, the camera flash really made every little flaw in the surface stand up and shout. Usualy I make the helm as follows
Sizing, then cut out my parts.
Bend the browband into a hoop and buttweld. Then refine shape and take the top edge a couple passes over the ball stake to curve it inward.
Dish side to side band, tack weld to brow band.
Dish front to back band, tack weld to brow band and cross band.
Tweak over all shape as needed.
Rough dish all 4 panels.
One at a time finish dishing panals and refine shape to fit. Trim as needed.
Planish dished and fitted panels (by hand right now, using ball stake and hammer)
go over panels with abrasive wheel, then wire wheel, then buffing wheel with coarse grit coumpound, then fine grit compound.
Tack weld panels in place.
Shape face and tack weld in place.
Shape backplate and tack weld in place (or tack weld slats and reinforcing band in place)
Weld tabs between backplate and cheek plates
Bargrill (usually riveting ends on outside of helm)
Blacken
wire wheel then buffing wheel the bands (unless they are being left black as on this helm)
Crease and curve nasal then polish (its just polished mild steel, not stainless)
Rivet nasal in place
Lay out holes and rivet the rest of the helm
Spraypaint the inside black.

This time I welded the bargrill on the inside instead of riveting on the outside, I full welded the helm instead of just tack welding (because I used brass rivets) and I was much more quick and dirty with the planishing. I needed it done FAST and usually blackening does a lot to hide little flaws. Except from flash photography

Well, I think it looks awesome and will referring several people your way that have been looking for spangen helms.

Thanks much. For the record, a little more tlc goes into the stuff I make for anyone other than myself lol.