The Armour Archive

Greetings all, I am new here but I have been armoring for a few years. I would like to build SCA legal helms but have no clue how to construct a bar grill so I was wondering if anyone here had some tips or tricks or just a basic explanation. I know how to weld just not sure how to get started. I plan on making grills that have some aesthetic qualities rather than the generic ugly grills that seem typical.

So here is what I would like to know:

What is the correct size of round or square stock used in bar grills

What is the best sequence for construction

How to handle and shape the shorter lengths of stock when building a bar grill

How to fit the grill to the helmet

Any thoughts or advice you might have

Many thanks in advance

The Bumpkin

Ok, I would start by looking at the marshals hand book.
It lists minimum standards for bar stock and spacing on the helm.
Going up to the next size and use spacers that are slightly smaller then the max bar spacing.

Now build a prototype with jumbo pipe cleaners.
Consider building a crude jig/template to check your work as you go.

Construction methods vary depending on the shop.
Bars are often shaped with a hammer over an anvil or other large heavy object.
Sometime hot. A few shops use bar benders.

It can be helpful to study other bar grills and sketch out what you want.

Welcome and well come, Bloodybumpkin.

Second the notion on the Marshals' Handbook. It tells you among other things how to gauge helmet openings, go/no-go.

What is the best sequence for construction?

In a framed, movable-visor type grill, frame first, any centerline stringer next if it goes all the way from top to bottom, then fill in the rest of the bars. Usually, think of putting the key pieces in first. Simply drawing pictures for yourself gets you to think a lot of the way through what you'd need to do and in what order too, since a lot of what you cut and weld first is probably the same thing you drew first. Like if you're doing something that sketches the box sights and box mouth of a bascinet's visor.

Lostie mentioned using pipe cleaners, and they are endlessly useful in bargrill making.

For instance, in:

How to handle and shape the shorter lengths of stock when building a bar grill?

The cheap way is to bend first, then chop off, which is cheapest done with boltcutters suited to the size round stock you're cutting. 350mm handles is about the required size for 1/4" round. Bending it first before you cut uses the rest of the length of stock for a lever, and a hammer or a bench vise as, and at, the other end. You then check the bend and length against the relevant curve and length established by that corresponding bit of pipe cleaner.

The more expensive way is to purchase a parts bender, and bend 'em out replicably that way with quite a bit of precision. Good if you do a lot of grills and baskets all day, as its modest cost will quickly pay for itself.

How to fit the grill to the helmet?

Have the helmet right there. There are a few workarounds involving the guy who does have the helmet sending you radii, measurements, or jigs -- but it's a *lot* faster and lots less hassle with the helmet in front of you. Did you really think you ought to do it any other way? A bit of hammer work can move the bits or the edges in or out as needed. I revised the bargrill on my boughten bascinet to lie tidily over my camail that way.

A frameless bargrill, like something set into the edges of a Dark Ages hat's face, lacks the surrounding and reinforcing frame and may be a little weakened perhaps thereby, but is also correspondingly lighter weight, and each bar end may be stoutly riveted into the helmet's structure anyway. Some helmet designs call for this subtler treatment that uses the helm body itself in the capacity of a frame.

Nasaled early-period helmets usually do strongest with putting the bargrill and even a centerline stringer under the nasal -- have the nasal live a little farther out, to make room. Even something based on a cruciform nasal like the St Wencelas conical helmet may simply have this nasal and its brows all integrated as part of the bargrill, and attached, once curvatures are matched, to the rest of the helmet. Such contouring is best done with a heavy but soft faced mallet, such as a Garland Mfg brand split-head hammer -- an implement very well thought of around here for its efficiency and capacity to raise and dish metal without lumping it up. A deadblow is very nearly as good.

You can Search-button onsite here on bargrills and ugly bargrills to see not only us complaining about them, but also some things we've done to answer the ugly bar grill problem, from using square stock to produce something that looks more like it's hammered out of plate to plasma-cutting of actual plate and sculpted piercework of the Ugo Serrano school of modern pretty-making.

Use round and half-round files with fine grit carborundum cloth to clean up and contour your welds, more or less melting one bar into another crossing it.

A centerline, convexly curved vertical stringer of bar stock rather than round is a very good idea: you can set the bars that cross it not into holes, but into notches on the outside curved edge, and fill in with weld, from outside where you can work. You can cut the notches in with the edge of an angle grinder disc.

I've cold worked all the grills I've made but hope to start experimenting with using heat. Remember that hammering the attachment points of the grill flat lengthens them slightly. For slight bends I use a 2 pound sledge and a shallow dish in my stump. I use 1/4" mild round stock and make the upper and lower ends of the grill first and work from there. For smaller sections I bend them out of the end of the round stock and trim them off when I get the bend(s) I want. You can even get creative with the termini of the grill like I did with the Vendel helmet I made. The lower attachments are raven heads.

Hope this helps.

I should mention padding the helm first helps ensure the line if site is centered between bars.

There are a few shops that build bar grills without welding.
The center line is often a crescent shaped piece of sheet metal with holes drilled/punched to accept the bars. Ends are flattened and rivited.

This technique always reminds me of the skeleton of a ship.

Great advice, guys, thanks. Keep 'em coming.

You mention having done some pieces of armor. Where at, and what were the pieces? Your location could be very handy, and what if some Archiver guy were pretty much around the corner?

Look at Sevastian's example. Note how the entire bargrill can be removed by grinding off four rivets.
I'm a big proponent of this idea, of making the barwork a completely separate piece which is fastened with rivets as opposed to being welded on.
Helmets with bars just spewing forth from the metal always look terrible, no matter how you grind down the weld. At least in one man's opinion.
Also, fastening a completed barwork with rivets is going to take more skill than just tacking it down to the rest of the hat. You have to have everything set to the point where it will mostly sit right where it's supposed to. It ends up looking more like you spent time on it then if you just globbed it on with mig paste.
And, importantly, future users will be able to do something different if they like by just grinding off some rivets.

How is it you're going to weld yours, BB? I'm a proponent of gas for barwork.

Konstantin the Red wrote:You mention having done some pieces of armor. Where at, and what were the pieces? Your location could be very handy, and what if some Archiver guy were pretty much around the corner?

I have made knees, elbows, vambraces, greaves, cuisses and breast plates. I have access to a pretty good shop and a couple of SCA laurels. They just haven't built any bargrills so didn't have any advice for me. So I came here.

schreiber wrote:Look at Sevastian's example. Note how the entire bargrill can be removed by grinding off four rivets.
I'm a big proponent of this idea, of making the barwork a completely separate piece which is fastened with rivets as opposed to being welded on.
Helmets with bars just spewing forth from the metal always look terrible, no matter how you grind down the weld. At least in one man's opinion.
Also, fastening a completed barwork with rivets is going to take more skill than just tacking it down to the rest of the hat. You have to have everything set to the point where it will mostly sit right where it's supposed to. It ends up looking more like you spent time on it then if you just globbed it on with mig paste.
And, importantly, future users will be able to do something different if they like by just grinding off some rivets.

How is it you're going to weld yours, BB? I'm a proponent of gas for barwork.

I would likely use TIG since that is what I currently have access to. Well, there is also an O/A setup, I guess I could use that as well.

I personally do not find welded in grills to always be ugly, especially if they are hidden by a nasal or cheek pieces like the vendel 14. This does not mean I would not use rivets in some cases. I'm just trying to get a good idea of the process for building
a bargrill.

Excellent. And your whereabouts? For one thing, from that we'd end up understanding every detail of what Kingdom's armor standards you're building to -- not, AFAIK, that helm standards are any different over kingdoms.

Yeah, having a torch or TIG, you've got 90% of everything you'd need already.

I'd say your first grill should be in 1/4" round, so lay that in. 1/4" square, as you can imagine, is fiddlier to work in; have to get the corners lying right and not crooked, so sometimes you're going after a square bar and actually twisting it because one end is attaching to a piece that isn't in the same plane at all with the bit of the helmet under the other end of the bar. Absolutely everything depends on the contours of the helmet with square stock; round can let you be more casual.

For the centerline stringer you can lay crossbars into after notching by one method or another (no angle grinder -- use a drill press and a bit of filing/hacksawing to open a drilled O into a U), use 1/2 by 1/8 black bar-stock. This can also be used as a good inside anchor for the right and left ends of the bars, and run rivets, flush or roundhead, through them -- flush rivet the inside so you don't protrude excessively into the helm interior. You're safe with 1/8" and less, and the flatter the better. Exterior-fitted grills of course don't have that consideration, though they're more prominent to the eye. Said flat stock also makes good riveting tabs welded on the edges of or within a frame-style bargrill.

The vertical stringer can simply have its top end twisted through 90 degrees and laid upon the helmet's brow and riveted, for five rivets all round the face and making its fastening 25% stronger. Decorative treatments of this top of the central vertical stringer are fine things, and help to set your helm-making apart from the others. You've got an oxy-acetylene option for hotworking such things and that really opens up flexibility of both form and even breadth up at that end. I'm very fond of putting a bit of decoration into a helmet. Barrelhelms are notably plain, next to the things that came before and came after: decoration of the ends of vertical and cross bars (about the sights) seems as far as barrels went.

You won't experience much trouble fitting left and right edges onto a helmet. Once you have a fixed visor or two under your belt, we can start trying to guide you on center- and temple-hinged movable visors. And somebody may have a good reason to look into removable visors as well -- with, perhaps, attendant SCAjun-straps going around the back of the bascinet!

A parts bender -- and the shorter bench-top model.

Build one yourself! Yay!

I reckon I should invest in a buttload of clecos.

I love my clecos. They make a lot of things possible before peening a ton of rivets on a helmet. Cheaper than #10 machine nuts & bolts, to boot. Also, simple can be clean and elegant. Simple bends on this munitions Norman came out nicer than I was expecting.

That is a nice hat, Sevastian.

Konstantin the Red wrote:Excellent. And your whereabouts? For one thing, from that we'd end up understanding every detail of what Kingdom's armor standards you're building to -- not, AFAIK, that helm standards are any different over kingdoms.

Yeah, having a torch or a stick, you've got 90% of everything you'd need already.

I'm in Ansteorra.

And no way am I using stick welding. I hate that dirty filthy process.

Thanks. It's a simple piece going to a start up group here in Oertha.

Clecos are nearly mandatory for helms with multiple plates.
Valsgauld 6, spangen helms, or those crazy Japanese kabutos with huge numbers of plates.

A one of machine screws work well enough but once you have more than one in progress they speed things up.

Lostie means more than one helm, and Cleco fasteners. And their little Cleco tool too. In, out, real fast.

In 2008, Andrew Young wrote: [Item] -- the pulley chinstrap mechanism which is easy as pie to make allows the helmet to be worn without the faceplate or bargrill EVER touching the face. This method means that the bargril can be protude less and thus be smaller, lighter (most bargrills are big enough you can trap a small animal inside!)....and a bigger grill adds significantly more weight, its very deceptive buta big grill and add upwards of a pound or two which creates more fatigue!

[Item] --the other issue is the look of grills. Ive been noticing some really great work being done by creative armourers to enhance the otherwise boring look of the bargrill. Square stock grills look amazing. I also think more grills should incorporate some form of covering to minimize the football look. ...hence edging toward that ideal medieval sense.

This thread, on restoring an old CoP and a lopsided old bascinet, has an example of a rather inelegant bargrill. Workable, good coverage, something to do better than. Features framed grill and shows overlap onto the basc. In fact, too much overlap, as this is a fixed bargrill -- the riveting tabs do all that's actually needed. Framed fixed grills can stay very close to the edge of the face opening. Numerous pix.

I wrote:It's rather a lesson to the rest of us that we'd not want to overlap the bargrill over the helmet metal very much except on a hinged visor/grill-visor, hm? A fixed grill should work just fine with only a frame, if there is one, overlapping the helmet's edges, and work all the easier and better with three points of fastening [as that particular grilled basc was built -- KtR], port, starboard, and centerline. I like it; it's as elegant as it is strong.

Later on, I wrote:Taking a semi-educated guess, I suspect a movable, hinged visor/grill wants fairly substantial overlap onto the helmet, and a fixed, frame-type bargrill wants only the frame to sit on the helmet's metal, if that. It could be held right off the metal on the flat-stock metal tabs.

A low-pro fixed grill would fit the flat-stock interiorly [inside the helmet -- KtR] and flush riveted if you want it readily convertible, with the ends of the bars flush fitted, welded to the flat stock in notches taking the ends of the bars by about a quarter inch for lots of weld marrying flat-stock to bar end, the bars stepped to continue smoothly from helmet exterior to the bar itself at the helmet's edge, thus to continue smoothly from helmet edge to centerbar to the other edge of the face.

Did a little calculating once, adding the thickness of 1/8" flat bar stock to 14ga helmet metal -- hmm, there was only a tiny bit of the diameter of 1/4" round stock in the grill that needed a step filed into it to fit flush to the helmet's steel. Well, now, thinx I, wasn't that interesting! Almost all of the 1/4" rod's metal is still there making up the structure and strength of the grill.

With that 1/8" intrusion inside the helm I was talking about.

This thread features pix of a neatly done fixed frame style bargrill.

Johann Coldiron wrote:I tend to make a frame first and fill in from there. PLAN your bar locations based on eye level so you do not place a bar right in view just because the math works that way. Build from eye level out to the top and bottom (if horz). For vertical builds it is important not to have bars that obstruct the direct view of an opponent at normal fighting distance. It will block at some distance but human stereoscopic vision can ignore it for the most part.

Try to plan to not end up with a thin bar spacing at the top or bottom as well. It looks like you ran out of room when you have to throw an extra bar in at the top/bottom to make it SCA legal. Better to adjust the frame size or between bar spacing to even them out.

Poster accdntprone uses 1/8" dia rivets particularly for 1/4"round bars w/ends flattened.

accdntprone wrote:Even when I use 3/16th" rivets on the rest of a helm I still use 1/8th" on the bar grill. It just doesnt look like enough metal left when you put a 3/16" hole through a 1/4" bar. The bars are also fitted into the vertical bar and welded in place.

Duke Thorfinn's helmet, early period. Nasal with grill bars behind it to reinforce.
Bearded Bargrill

You can go with smaller than 1/4" square stock, though you may catch flack from dumb-ass marshals who don't get the whole pi r squared thing. /4" square stock is massively heavier than 1/4" round. I forget what I used; 3/16", maybe? Easy enough to calculate.

Konstantin the Red wrote:

Johann Coldiron wrote:I tend to make a frame first and fill in from there. PLAN your bar locations based on eye level so you do not place a bar right in view just because the math works that way. Build from eye level out to the top and bottom (if horz). For vertical builds it is important not to have bars that obstruct the direct view of an opponent at normal fighting distance. It will block at some distance but human stereoscopic vision can ignore it for the most part.

Try to plan to not end up with a thin bar spacing at the top or bottom as well. It looks like you ran out of room when you have to throw an extra bar in at the top/bottom to make it SCA legal. Better to adjust the frame size or between bar spacing to even them out.

Thanks for finding that! Saved me a bunch of typing redoing it.

Wow lots of inspiration. Thanks KtR.

@ BB -- thought you'd like 'em!

@ Johann -- yeah, I thought that was the best part of the little 4-post thread it appeared in.

BB, I think I left some of my results unplumbed when I thought my post was getting long enough. Hit Search button on "bar" and "grill" as independent terms. I promise we don't talk much about restaurants of that genre. Maybe add "grills" plural in too.

A bit of looking up re a lower half of the helmet in 12ga vice 14ga gave me 12's thickness as 0.1046". Add on the 0.125" of the bar stock equals .2396" thickness for half the thickness of the 1/4" roundstock bar plus the sheet metal laid on it, and the merest hundredth-and-some of an inch of filing on the bar end to blend it flush and smooth with the helmet's metal in a low-pro don't-see-me interior-fitted installation with flush riveting. Woohoo.

Will do off to do a search

Decorated ends to exterior-riveted bar ends: Sevastian showed us ravens for his Dark-Ages roundhat... coldworking bar ends is still flexible. So, ya bang on 'em on the anvil and you can have, at a quick thought:

• Leaves -- laurel, linden, oaks both white and red with filework
  Dragons -- just the heads, or half dragons if you're really stringing things out
  Wolves -- ditto
  Eagles if your ravens just aren't looking like ravens
  Bears if you can get them to not look like wolves
  Boars' heads. Heads of men -- these two being particularly anciently Celtic and northern European
  Acanthus leaf termini for the Classical World feel

While none of these bar termini were exactly what went onto helmets in history, they're attempts at decorating in the spirit of the things they did then.

Id say have fun and experiment a lot.
I made many grills, all done cold without a jig, just free hand and a good eye for symmetry.
Certain cheek and helm shapes can dictate what will look nice.
Angle grinder was about the only tool used by me for grills, that and my mig
I also used 2 deep sockets as measuring tools much like a marshals gauge.
Another thing would often do is turn a "curve" into an "arch" by bending my bar in a gentle curve, then make a small notch dead center on the inside of the bar so when I bent the bar a little more it would bend at the notch creating an arch shape.
The bars on this bascinet should show what I mean.
I also put a slight flat grind on the bars surface

http://www.whitemountainarmoury.com/ima ... /basc1.jpg
.

double post

Current regs are 3/16" round bar minimum. With mild steel they tend to deform in heavier calibration situations.
Most use 1/4", it give a little more material for shaping.

If your looking for clecos eBay or the yardstore.com often have decent prices on used equipment.
It may be worth learning the rules and putting in some time to become a marshal.

Two hours at pennsic or one of the larger events will let you see and handle what other armourers are doing with bar stock with a deeper understanding then looking at pictures on line.
It also lets you look for points of failure and that can be just as helpful.
Its fairly easy to ask questions about construction, most fighters are happy to talk about their kit and who made the critical pieces much like owners talk about their cars at auto shows.
As long as you keep moving and don't slow up the inspection line.

white mountain armoury wrote:Id say have fun and experiment a lot.
I made many grills, all done cold without a jig, just free hand and a good eye for symmetry.
Certain cheek and helm shapes can dictate what will look nice.
Angle grinder was about the only tool used by me for grills, that and my mig
I also used 2 deep sockets as measuring tools much like a marshals gauge.
Another thing would often do is turn a "curve" into an "arch" by bending my bar in a gentle curve, then make a small notch dead center on the inside of the bar so when I bent the bar a little more it would bend at the notch creating an arch shape.
The bars on this bascinet should show what I mean.
I also put a slight flat grind on the bars surface

http://www.whitemountainarmoury.com/ima ... /basc1.jpg
.

I absolutely love your work Master Magnus. Just beautiful work.

I used to use keystock for square face bars that, if memory serves, was 1040. Now I see lower carbon than that for keystock, typically 1018. That's a bit of a bummer, if I remember correctly. I think it was right, though, because I used to heat treat it when I made tools out of it. You can still make it tougher by using 'superquench', I suppose.

Looking through this thread has definitely given me inspiration and more than a few new ideas!

Sevastian, seeing your work so far, I think you're more than ready for it!

Reckon your chiefest difficulty is shipping in materials and supplies! Not impossible and a lot easier than some places -- you are in cosmopolitan Anchorage and its generally clear harbor after all -- but it calls for you to attend to getting the stuff in before Old Man Winter really imposes delays.

Wasn't there an Archive poster on the Alaskan south coast well to the east of you? Had you confused with him for a little while I was writing this. His location was near the top end of the panhandle, someplace with a suitable bay to the sea.

Anchorage may as well be any city in the Pacific Northwest, truth be told. I grew up on an island in the Bering Sea-St. George Island, now that's hinterland for sure. I run to Lowes or Home Depot for roundstock since I don't have a garage to store 8 feet of the stuff. Not cheap but manageable. A local steel fab wholesale company is where I go for sheet mild end cuts. Growing up where I did probably gave me a make-do mindset, even when I don't need to. Time to start experimenting with bearded spectacle helmets!

Ooo... maybe even w/handlebar mustaches included! One for the GeneriCelts!

Or you could do what I did once....cut the entire thing from a single sheet of 1/4....and ask yourself later why you were so thick headed.