Experimental helmet forging

[Tableau]

It is a common misconception that helmet skulls should be equidistant from the head of the wearer. They tend to have a lot of crush space in the top, something missing in most modern pieces. I don't see anything wrong with your drawing.

I think the drawing looks good, i'm just trying to reconcile the hight of the drawing (11.6") with the museum measurements (10.5") and my actual piece (10.25"-10.5"ish). A real head scratcher, but maybe im overthinking it

[Mac]

I think that the neck should be cut up a bit higher in back. This helmet is very round in back. That means that is will end up close to your neck. This is why the original is cut up high in back.

The neck should end up on a plane. That is to way, it should sit on a table and not really rock.



The cheeks do not seem too short to me. I expect this type of helmet to just cover your jaw line.... kind of.. sort of. We moderns always try to fudge in more jaw coverage than our ancestors did.



What I'd like to see in this front view is for the widest point of the helmet to be at or just above the widest point of your head. As it is now, the wide place is just about at the tops of your ears. The wide place of the human skull is about two fingers above that.

Mac

[Tableau]

I think that the neck should be cut up a bit higher in back.

Yeah, it looks weird as it is now. I was just waiting to see if I wanted to draw the cheeks out a bit more before I do more trimming

What I'd like to see in this front view is for the widest point of the helmet to be at or just above the widest point of your head. As it is now, the wide place is just about at the tops of your ears. The wide place of the human skull is about two fingers above that.

That's a good note. After my last post I double checked the Royal armouries' width measurment against my helmet, and found mine came out too narrow. So adding more volume there will be a good time to raise the height of the widest point

[Tableau]

Well, after some years I've decided to resurrect this thread.

So I haven't had the time to work on armour in quite some time, but about a year ago I talked a few of my friends into forming a band. We meet every couple of weeks (if we're lucky) and get a few hours of hammering in.

Our mandate is to learn stretch raising as a team. First the basic concept and techniques, and hopefully in time we'll be able to do some experiments in different materials. Perhaps first modern wrought iron, and eventually bloom iron or steel and maybe even hearth steel.

We started off making tools, as is tradition



The double ended long neck hammer was based on that one illumination, but our version didn't really come out right. Too heavy, faces not quite a useful shape. Oh well. We ended up making 3 dog legs, between 5-8 lbs that work quite well. 8 is really too heavy for what we're doing, but works fine. Probably we'll make at least one more between 5-6lbs.

I also made a couple new pairs of tongs

[Tableau]

For our first bucket, we went for a conical helm.

Starting from a disk of 1/2" plate about 5 3/8" x 7 3/4" at about 5 - 5.2 lbs



My notes aren't great but squinting at this photo tells me the flat was drawn out to about 10.5" x 8.5"



The final volume on this took about 3 sessions, probably about 9 hours



After that, I did some angle raising and some more stretch raising on my own to dial in the shape



it's currently sitting at about 3.7lbs

I wanted to make a slightly deeper conical helm, but I didn't quite have enough depth... as is tradition. I had a thin spot near the point which I pushed just a bit too far and cracked, but I put a little sneaky forge braze in there, so hopefully it wont be too noticeable.

I'm thinking I might cheat on this one and add a band along the lower edge with a nasal to cheat my height back up a little bit. I know its' not what our extant examples typically show, but I could choose to interpret it as what this guy has going on:https://armourinart.com/213/346

[Tableau]

just for a visual for those who haven't seen on facebook or instagram:

[Mac]

Well, after some years I've decided to resurrect this thread.

For some reason, the images are not showing up

When I copy the image URL and try to go there, I get an image-shaped gray rectangle with a barred circle in it. I wonder if your security or sharing settings need to be changed. Failing that, perhaps someone who knows more than me will chime in.

Mac

[Kristoffer]

It looks like Tableau has not put the images in a shared google images folder.

[Tableau]

Dammit! I thought I had finally cracked it. How about now?

[Kristoffer]

This is what I do to get google image pictures to work:

I move the pictures to a shared folder, then go to the folder, open first picture, right click and "open in new window", then copy the URL from the new window. That URL I can then post here.

Repeat for each picture.

[Tableau]

Alright. I did that and this time I checked on an incognito window, so hopefully it works now

[Mac]

Whatever you did, the pics are working now!

Great project!

Mac

[Armadillo]

I've seen video clips of the striking. How great that you have a regular team, it really shows!
-Adair