Dusting off the cobwebs

[Galileo]

I prefer this style of sallet, myself - http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the ... arch/23213

Though it's mainly because of the pierced visor

[Ld Thomas Willoughby]

Mac if you're using Firefox you can get a Pinterest button add on that will let you grab pics from whatever webpage and pin to your board.

[Aussie Yeoman]

Chrome too.

[Tom B.]

I prefer this style of sallet, myself - http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the ... arch/23213

Though it's mainly because of the pierced visor

Galileo that is one of my favorites too.
It is however not as it may first appear, not really a traditional sallet.

PDF for Goll #1810

We have been calling these "close sallets", this example seems to be the first of its kind.
There are three extant "close sallets", all by the Helmschmied workshop, this one and 2 in Vienna.

Here is a thread about these "close sallets"
Close Helm / Sallets by Helmschmied - Additional info/photos

[Jeremy.G]

Those are SHARP! I may have a new favorite helmet style...

[Mac]

It's remarkable, sometimes, what can make you feel better. I have found a new source for welding gasses, and traded up to a larger size oxygen tank. I had been using a stubby little size "Q" tank since I moved, because that's what I could get from the local supplier who's business folded immediately after selling it to me. That's all an irritating story, and it's been sort of pissing me off every time I think of it. Now, though, I have a new size "L", like I used to and somehow it just makes me feel more "whole" again.

Now that I know where my next tank of gas is coming from, I can settle in to working on that helmet.

Mac

[Jeremy.G]

Nice! I can't wait to see that part of the project take shape...

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Awesome.

Mac, are you going to be working the helmet from one piece, or are you going to use your "can" construction for it?

[Aussie Yeoman]

I imagine he might seek to salvage the current one.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Right, of course!

[Tom B.]

Here is an image dated 1478/79 that shows some nice German harnesses with short tailed sallets.
This is plate / page 14 from
Bayerische Fürstengenealogie ‘Ulrich Fuetrer, ‚Bayerische Chronik‘
(Translation? Bavarian Prince Genelogy, Ulrich Fuetrer Bavarian Chronicle)

Link directly to PDF
Link to Online Manuscripr

[Tom B.]

Here's an image that my August Patron sent me years ago. I would put this in that Pinterest page if I could figure out how....

If I remember correctly it's said to be by Friedrich Herlin.



Mac

I can't seem to find that image online.
The only St George by Friedrich Herlin that I can readily find is this one, which we have already discussed, from Nördkingen (Swabia), Stadtpfarrkirche St. Georg (Parish Church of St. George).

[Tom B.]

Here is an album of images I have saved, I will be adding more and going back to add comments with sources and dates for these.

Picasa Album - Sallet Research

[Mac]

Thank you, Tom!

I could not find any image of that other St George either....

Mac

[Mac]

I started dinking around with the helmet yesterday.

These areas were a bit too convex, and has to be knocked in a bit.



The crest had some uneven places that needed to be regularized.



That happened over this stake.



I want to see more "sweep" in the tail, so these areas had to be pushed in. The crosshatching represents where the bevor is at its closest inside the helmet, and those areas get left as they are.



These processes always look nasty before they look nice.



The tail is starting to look a bit better. That chalk line is where I think to trim the tail.


I looked at a lot of pictures of sallets last night, and I see that I need to sharpen up the forehead a bit. I am coming a bit late to the understanding of just how sharp and narrow the foreheads of these helmets are. The sharpness helps to position the helmet farther forward on the head. This will help balance the weight of the tail, and ensure that the lower edge gets out past the bevor.

Mac

[Amanda M]

Hey Mac, is that stake a repurposed paving breaker bit or something like that?

[Mac]

A thing that's been nagging me about the visor is that the pivots are too high, so I thought I'd begin by moving them down a bit. This involves riveting the visor down at three points, and hot bending the arm. I was able to lower them about 1/4" or so. Twice that would have been better, but that would not be easy to do.



Then I welded up the old hole, and reasembled the visor to drill a new hole. After riveting the new visor pivot location, the wrinkle in the arm gets hot raised back down.




The next issue was the brow. Like I said in a post above, it's too round. I made it be a "comfortable" shape; just sharp enough to give nose room. That's not enough for a sallet of this date. It's got to be sharp enough to force the head back a bit. This will move the center of gravity of the helmet forward on the head, and help counterbalance the tail. This is a new idea for me, and I came to it by looking at the sallets in the Goll thesis pics. Those pics change everything. We no longer have any excuse for not making things the right shape.

The chalk marks show where the assault will begin.



The right side is starting to take shape.



Before and after.



With the visor back on, we can see how much sharper the brow of the helmet skull is.



Now, I have the make the visor fit again..... but first it's time to square up the crest.



The plan was to support the work on this stake....


...and hit it with this hammer.



The stake would be just forward or just behind the place that was hot and being worked. Well, it turned out that it was easier to put the helmet on a ball stake. That worked just as well, and it let me turn the work easily to get to the other side.

After about a half hour of selective heating and tapping it looked like this.



Here's what it looks like with the brow edge as the horizon.



There are still some issues of symmetry and sharpness to be dealt with after lunch.



Mac

[Mac]

Hey Mac, is that stake a repurposed paving breaker bit or something like that?

It was just some jack hammer bit I picked up at a flea market. The end was broken off more or less square, and I forged it up to this shape.



It turns out to be a pretty useful shape for roughing out helmet crests. I have another one like this, but sharper, which is good for fluting up in helmet bowls

Mac

[Mac]

And so, it's heat a spot on the visor up and knock it down till it touches the skull..... and just keep doing that till it fits again.

This is what it looked like when I had the area above the eyes in good contact and was working my way up toward the edge.



It's nice an snug here.....



...but there's still a long way to go here.



I used an assortment of hammers, most of them quite light weight. I want to use fast blows that will carry the red hot metal down into contact with the "cold" metal below, but I don't want anything left in the hammer when it gets there.



Lather, rinse, and repeat. Most of the brow is down tight now, but the point is always the hard part.



Finally.



Before and after.



And that, my friends, is all the fun an old goat is permitted to have in one day. There's a couple hours of fussy work to find the little high and low spots and to straighten out the crest, but that will have to wait till tomorrow.

Mac

[Jeremy.G]

Nice! This progression of photos is super helpful.

[James Arlen Gillaspie]

I would have pushed down the crest first and then worked out the two resulting bubbles on either side, but hey, nothing succeeds like success.

[Mac]

I spent much of Saturday adjusting the shape of the helmet. There were low spots to bring up and high spots to knock down. It was pretty much all cold work. I also found that my old barbute-crest-stake worked OK on this crest, so that's looking better.

Here's a few pics of what it currently looks like. I have not trimmed the tail yet, but that black line is probably where it will be cut.








Mac

[Jeremy.G]

I want one.

[Mac]

I began thinking about how to make the fancy rivets for the lining strip in the helmet. There are aperently two different things going on here. The one is a hollow fluted dome that gets used as a sort of washer. You can see the circle in the middle which is the actuall rivet shank. I have done ones like this before, and have the tooling.



The other sort appears to be a rivet, rather than a washer. There is no trace of the rivet shank coming through the dome here.



Making the washer sort is pretty straightforward. You dap up a hemisphere of thin metal and then use a shaped male punch to drive it into a shaped female die. Punch a hole in the end, and there it is.

Making such a thing as a rivet presents new difficulties. This part of a notebook page where I was thinking about them.



Starting down in the lower right where lefties begin drawing, we have a cross section through the proposed rivet. By the time we get all the way from the very top of the rivet, through the helmet, lining strap, and washer, it's a pretty long shank.

The little sketch above that is the starting shape of the rivet. I presume that I would start with that rivet "blank" and work the head up to a hemisphere with a series of hollow dapping punches. These would look just like normal dapping punches except for a 1/8" hole in the end for the rivet shank. These would be made on the lathe, and present no technical problems, so I have not bothered to draw them yet.

That brings us to the shaping punch. It, like the dapping punches would have to have a hole for the rivet shank. The flutes are to be spiral, and that will probably make it difficult to start the rivet off of the punch. For this, I plan a cross hole at the level of the end of the rivet shank. A tapered drift will dislodge the finished rivet.... I hope. I have used this idea on a small punch for re-heading brass escutcheon pins, so I am confident of it in principle. It's a question of whether or not just getting it started will be enough to free it from from the punch.

to the left of that is a cross section through the middle of the business end of the punch. There's not a lot of metal there by the time I drill that center hole.

This brings me to the question of how to make the starting rivet. In the middle of the page are sketches for a two piece heading die to be clamped in a leg vise. The hole for the rivet shank is blind so that the rivets end up the same length, and also so that the heading operation does not drive metal down the hole. The die has steel dowels to locate the parts accurately, and shoulders to sit on the vise jaws. If there is difficulty opening the die, I will have to make the holes for the loose ends of the dowel pins go all the way through so I can use a punch to free up the halves.

Over on the left is a sketch of what it might look like to upset that much rivet head from a rod. It's pretty scary. The chance of getting all that material to lie down concentrically is sort of slim. That brings us up to the top of the page where I had two different ideas about using a lathe to produce the blanks, and substitute time and material for skill. The one on the left involves turning down the shank of a carriage bolt. That will not let me get the shank small enough, though, unless I come up with a way to steady the head with the tailstock. The other sketch is about starting with a large diameter rod and turning down the shank and then parting the head off the stock. That tedious, wasteful, and time consuming, but I only need about a dozen of them.

But, hang on here. These lathe processes are supposed to sub in for my lack of rivet making skill. But, do we really think that even a skilled rivet maker can make that big of a head on than small of a shank...with wrought iron? It would take some really high quality, slag free stuff to let that happen without any splits in the head; and any splits will be deadly to the subsequent steps.

Let's think about our premises again. If these are really rivets, and the fluted cones are truly part and parcel of the shark, there must be an un-fluted area near the center. That area would be at least a big as the shank diameter, and probably a bit bigger so as to let the shaping punch have enough substance for strength.

If we look at our extant examples of fluted hollow rivets, we see that the flutes go clear across the middle of the dome. They can't really be rivets as such. They must be fluted domes soldered onto rivets.



So, it's back to the sketchbook to come up with a viable process for soldering the caps onto the rivets. I'll also need to address a couple of other things. How to make the twisted, fluted female die. How to get the completed dome off of the punch. Other things too, no doubt.

Mac

[Lorccan]

Mac, why wouldn't you just cast the rivets?

[Jason Grimes]

Could the rivet have been constructed like this?

big-rivit-1.jpg (19.92 KiB) Viewed 371 times

I was trying to come up with a way to solder the cap on and still be able to close the rivet with out collapsing the cap. It shouldn't be very hard to make this kind of rivet, it's very similar to those hob nails the Romans made? Or do you think that this would be too fiddly?

[Zanetto]

Mac,

I've been watching this thread eagerly awaiting the part where you address the spiral rivets. As I was looking at your sketches and reading how you proposed to create the one piece spiral rivet, I kept thinking "would they have gone through all this trouble in the 15th century?"

I like the idea of dapped up spirals soldered onto proper rivets. I am in the process of making up the tooling to produce these for a sallet I have on the bench.

I will see if I can get the pictures of what I have so far uploaded and posted to this thread.

Rob

[Tom B.]

Mac, why wouldn't you just cast the rivets?

Because that is not what they did.

[Mac]

Mac, why wouldn't you just cast the rivets?

Lorccan,

Of course, nothing we ever do is really authentic. Our materials and techniques are wrong, but we all have to draw our "authenticity lines" somewhere. For me, a solid rivet cast in copper alloy just does not make the cut when the originals were clearly hollow constructs of iron. You might say "but, there you are, thinking about turning your preforms on a modern lathe!" It's true. I was contemplating techniques that they would never have used, but they would have produced a similar product.

In the end, it's the product I'm interested in. I want to make something that looks and acts like the real thing, even if I did not get there the right way. I want the person who wears my armor to have something of a medieval experience, even if I did not have a medieval experience making it.

Mac

[Mac]

Could the rivet have been constructed like this?

big-rivit-1.jpg

I was trying to come up with a way to solder the cap on and still be able to close the rivet with out collapsing the cap. It shouldn't be very hard to make this kind of rivet, it's very similar to those hob nails the Romans made? Or do you think that this would be too fiddly?

Jason,

I don't think there will be any problem with having the caps pretty much entirely hollow. I have done hollow caps with separate rivets before and they worked fine. The important thing to remember is that these are only lining rivets. They don't have to be set very hard, and they are not subjected to much stress in use.

The worst case scenario for these rivets would be that someone landed a mace or war hammer directly on one and crushed it down. This might cause the rivet shank to protrude into the helmet. That sounds nasty, but I think you could probably spend all day trying to do that to these rivets and never actually hit one hard enough and straight enough for it to be a big problem.

As an aside, though. Does anyone know how the Romans made those hobnails? Did they upset the head or draw down the shank? What you have drawn has a much bigger head to shank ratio than modern industrial rivet makers are willing to do.

Mac

[Mac]

Mac,

I've been watching this thread eagerly awaiting the part where you address the spiral rivets. As I was looking at your sketches and reading how you proposed to create the one piece spiral rivet, I kept thinking "would they have gone through all this trouble in the 15th century?"

I like the idea of dapped up spirals soldered onto proper rivets. I am in the process of making up the tooling to produce these for a sallet I have on the bench.

I will see if I can get the pictures of what I have so far uploaded and posted to this thread.

Rob

Rob,

I look forward to hearing and seeing what you are up to. What type of solder do you think you will try? I am concerned that tin/lead will not me strong enough, but brazing seems like a lot of risk and trouble. In either case, there has to be some way to make sure that the rivet is more or less concentric and straight.

Mac

[Barbanegra]

The worst case scenario for these rivets would be that someone landed a mace or war hammer directly on one and crushed it down. This might cause the rivet shank to protrude into the helmet. That sounds nasty, but I think you could probably spend all day trying to do that to these rivets and never actually hit one hard enough and straight enough for it to be a big problem.

Mac

Mac, would it be possible then to treat the rivet shank as a verveille of sorts to prevent that from happening, like this:

Безымянный111.JPG (12.15 KiB) Viewed 283 times

[Tom B.]

Here is a pic I took in Leeds.


Link to downloadable full sized photo
Link to all Leeds Photos

[Mac]

The worst case scenario for these rivets would be that someone landed a mace or war hammer directly on one and crushed it down. This might cause the rivet shank to protrude into the helmet. That sounds nasty, but I think you could probably spend all day trying to do that to these rivets and never actually hit one hard enough and straight enough for it to be a big problem.

Mac

Mac, would it be possible then to treat the rivet shank as a verveille of sorts to prevent that from happening, like this:

Безымянный111.JPG

Barba,

You could do that, but I would be surprised if they did. I guess if I this helmet were destined to be be beaten about by the brutes in the Battle of the Nations or something like that I might consider some sort of step or collar on the shanks.

The problem would be getting the length right, so that the cap would sit squarely on the helmet. I suppose if the step were a millimeter or so deeper into the cap, you would be able to rivet it up nicely. If it were struck, it could only intrude into the helmet by that millimeter.

Mac

Mac

[Mac]

Here is a pic I took in Leeds.


Link to downloadable full sized photo
Link to all Leeds Photos

Tom,

Do you have any more details like that? There seems to be more variation than I would expect. That calls my proposed method of construction into question.

That one that's all bent out of shape would be a perfect candidate for inspection with a dental mirror and a flashlight.

Mac