Mac's blog

[Mac]

Since the completion of the St Florian armor, I have been a bit lost. I think I benefited from the blogging aspect of that project, and I wonder if a return to that practice might help me to get my feet back under me.

My plan here to start a thread that documents my current projects, and the first thing on the table is to dig into some of the things that have been on the back burner for a while. This image is of my shelf of "lost boys". These are mostly things that can, and should be finished up.



The first item will probably be the pointy sallet. This has been "on hold" for a decade or so. It is bespoke project, and the original client is still interested. It's 1050, but it will be a non combat helmet, and I may or may not harden it. There will need to be a bevor to go with it. The left over one from the St. Florian armor is too wide, so I will have to make it from scratch. Perhaps that's fortunate, really, because it will make for a more interesting set of postings.



The bulk of the projects on the shelf are barbuts. Long ago, I had it in mind to "take the world by storm" by making "the perfect sports helmet". Well, the project languished, but there are a number of good prototypes here. Some of them (two, I think) have been hardened and tempered, and just need finishing and lining. Two more are wired and braced for heat treatment, and another one still needs work.



Mac

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Hooray, more Mac projects! Looking forward to your posts with interest.

[Woodswork Armory]

Holy shit I can't wait for these posts!

[Gerhard von Liebau]

Looks like it'll mostly be a lesson in sanding and polishing. Ha! Good luck gettin' it done!

[Gustovic]

UUUuuhhhhhhh!!

This is gonna be glorious!!

Go Mac go!!

[Jason Grimes]

Yay!! Awesome.

[Mac]

Thank you for your enthusiastic support, guys!

Like Gerhard says, there's going to be a lot of grinding here. But you know... grinding is where we spend 40% of our shop time; perhaps something good will come of this.

I decided to start with the barbute that's furthest along. There's a faded sharpie mark on the helmet that tells what temperature it was tempered to. I'm pretty sure it says 650. That's a bit colder than I am using these days, and I may or may not temper it to 750F later in the process.



After a quick inspection, I decided that it was indeed ready for the grinder, and pulled off the stop rib.



I started with an 80grit belt on a flattish platen, but after a couple of minutes, I decided that it would be better to go with something coarser, and switched to 40gr.



That created a very satisfying spray of sparks.



Unfortunately, it also created the distinct smell of combustion. I use the grinder on wood sometimes, and the smell of burning cellulose is always a sign to turn off the suction and tear the machine open to find out what's burning. There was nothing burning in the collection bin, so I could relax a bit. The most likely thing was a pocket of sawdust in the duct work.


While I had the vacuum apart, I swapped in a clean filter and emptied the bin. I suppose I probably emptied it at the start of the St Florian project, and there turned out to be about 20lbs of crap in there. If you look closely, you can even see a belt from one of those expando-drum sanders which came apart and got sucked in some time ago. If this were a book or a movie, that would foreshadow further trouble....



It turns out that all my coarse belts are about five years old or so, and none of them ran for more than 5 minutes before coming apart.



I've experimented a bit with putting them back together with CA, but that only works for another couple of minutes and gets my fingers all covered with glue.

So, it looks like I'm stuck here for the moment until I can get more belts.

I got a pretty good pass over most of the convex areas and the places that were not too concave to get with that platon before I ran out of belts. I didn't go all the way to the edges or to the crest yet. Those are the places where it's easy to mess things up, and I will save them for a time when I am well rested and attentive.



Mac

[Tableau]

Excellent! I remember seeing that shelf of helmets when I was there and thinking it was a shame for them not to see the light of day. Glad they're getting their chance at last!

[Tom B.]

I decided to start with the barbute that's furthest along. There's a faded sharpie mark on the helmet that tells what temperature it was tempered to. I'm pretty sure it says 650. That's a bit colder than I am using these days, and I may or may not temper it to 750F later in the process.

Mac

I am I right in thinking that 650 degrees on the Old Mac scale is really more like 680 degrees?

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The first four columns in this chart show the temperature as displayed on Dave's digital pyrometer, the display on my (incorrectly wired) analog pyrometer, the time of the measurement, and finally the amount high or low that my pyrometer read.



The results were somewhat surprising. At room temperature, my pyro was more or less correct, but it soon came to read low. By the middle of the tempering range it was about 50°f low.

Mac

[Mac]

I am I right in thinking that 650 degrees on the Old Mac scale is really more like 680 degrees?

Oh my....that's caught me off guard. Good catch, Tom.

I'd forgotten about how that number predated the horrible pyrometer revelation. So, I guess it's really tempered closer to my current norm than I had thought.

There are a couple of deep spots that will grind out faster if I hammer them up. I'll try that and if the helmet doesn't move like I want it to, I'll re-temper to 750*. If they hammer out OK, I'll probably leave the temper where it is.

Mac

Something strange is going on vis a vis my new computer. I used to get the degree mark by typing "Alt 248", but now it takes me back a screen and I have to use the forward button to return to my text. I wonder what's with that.

[Mac]

I've just ordered up some more 40gr zirconium belts from Supergrit. These guys are pretty close, and usually get their orders out fast. I should have the new belts by the middle of the week or perhaps sooner.

Mac

[Christian Wiedner]

I have always wondered why you do the grinding after the heat treatment. Wouldnt it be easier to grind the pieces at least to a medium or fine grit before? It should save you time and abrasives.

[Mac]

I have always wondered why you do the grinding after the heat treatment. Wouldnt it be easier to grind the pieces at least to a medium or fine grit before? It should save you time and abrasives.

I tried that long ago, and found it did not work well for me. The fire scale from the hardening made me go back to 80 gr. Besides, it does not really take much more time or abrasives to grind hard steel.

If I had a controlled atmosphere in my kiln, scale would not be a problem. I think that Chris G. uses an aerospace heat treating firm that lets him go pretty much all the way to polishing without much trouble.

I sometimes think it might be better to do the initial rough grinding on things like helmets before the heat treating so that I can more easily pick out the deep dents. Perhaps I'll try that on one of these projects and report about it.

Mac

[Mac]

I have always wondered why you do the grinding after the heat treatment. Wouldnt it be easier to grind the pieces at least to a medium or fine grit before? It should save you time and abrasives.

Do you grind before heat treating in your shop? How well does it work for you?

Mac

[Johann ColdIron]

Looks like you have half the Known Worlds Barbute population on that shelf Mac! Great to see you digging into the shelf stock.


Did you try using 2" packing tape to rejoin your sanding belts? I've had success with it on 3x24" belts we had hoarded at work. Not sure how it would behave with the longer belts and potentially greater tension.

[AwP]

If you have problems grinding fresh scale with fine belts after you HT it, just give it an overnight vinegar soak before the final grind.

[AwP]

If you have problems grinding fresh scale with fine belts after you HT it, just give it an overnight vinegar soak before the final grind.

[Mac]

If you have problems grinding fresh scale with fine belts after you HT it, just give it an overnight vinegar soak before the final grind.

My experience with grinding before heat treating was that scale did not form an even coating, but rather that it formed in patches. This left the surface covered in a network of fine lines (think of an aerial view of farm land) that required a backtrack to coarser grits to remove.

So, it's not that I'm having trouble removing scale, but rather that the surface scaring left by patchy scaling causes trouble.

Mac

[Mac]

While waiting for my belts to arrive, I thought I'd turn my attention to the sallet.

The first thing I did was to find as many images as I could and put them into a Pinterest page. Then I brought the helmet in so I could compare it with the different view to see what needed changing, and where to put the lining and chinstrap rivets.

I was pretty pleased in general with the work I had done years ago. At the time, I only had two or three views, and was forced to lean pretty heavily on them.

Here are a couple of places where I need to change the line of the visor edges a bit.



This is the only problem that's going to make me reshape something. For some reason, I thought that I could see a corner under the lip of the sight, and I worked hard to put it there. The images I have now show me that it was all in my head, and I will have to smooth it away.



The exposed lining rivets and the flush rivets for the chinstrap were pretty straightforward to locate.



The ones up under the visor had to be read from the inside view. You can see that the corners of the facial are a bit sharper in the original, so I have indicated a trim line. Unfortunately, the inside view also shows that the cheeks should have been longer and less rounded than I made them. I think I made my decision about the cheeks based on the pointy sallet skull from Rhodes that's in Toronto. Since I had no way to know, I had to make my best guess. Changing the shape of the cheeks would require welding material on, and frankly I think the difference it would make is more trouble than it's worth. I'll take a comparable inside view of my helmet after the holes are drilled and the difference will be easy to see.



The inside view also shows definitively that there is a hole in the stalk. I expected that there would be, but it's not certain in the external views. I can't tell if it's threaded inside, but that's probably what I will do with mine. It's better to have threads and not need them than to need them and not have them.

Mac

[Grischa]

Wow, thank you for posting Mac. Those Barbutes look great! One prettier than the other

[Mac]

Wow, thank you for posting Mac. Those Barbutes look great! One prettier than the other

Thank you!

Mac

[Christian Wiedner]

Do you grind before heat treating in your shop? How well does it work for you?

Mac

I dont have much experience in heat treating, so just gathering information. I guess I will try both ways.

[RandallMoffett]

WOW Mac these are awesome! I cannot wait to see these as they come out!

RPM

[Chuck Davis]

Those marks look like Missaglia? But I can't see them straight on.

[Mac]

Those marks look like Missaglia? But I can't see them straight on.

They are certainly Italian, and probably Missaglia. This image is from the Goll thesis.



Mac

[Mac]

I tried to get a pic that approximated the inside view from the Goll images, and this it the best I could do without having the other image in the shop with me. It's not bad, but I think I need to move the camera back a bit and crop the image to get the same view. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to crop or otherwise mess with my images in Windows 10.



I think we can all see the thing I was saying about the cheeks.

Another difference, which may be more significant, is that the original has a somewhat wider visor. Mine follows a smooth curve, but I should have had a sort of kink in the line. The reason this may be important is that the original will accept a wider bevor than mine. This is a think that's very difficult to see in any normal view of the helmet, but brutally obvious in this view. I will try to change the visor shape a bit when I rework it to get rid of that angular thing under the sight lip that I mentioned earlier. I don't think I can ever get it to be this shape exactly, but I probably bring it a bit closer than it is.

Mac

[Gerhard von Liebau]

One thing that may help regarding the bevor is that you seem to have the cheeks on your sallet slightly more rounded and less pronounced than on the original. Once you bring out the visor a bit on either side, you'll probably have comparable wiggle room given that the original cheeks are more restricting than yours.

[Mac]

One thing that may help regarding the bevor is that you seem to have the cheeks on your sallet slightly more rounded and less pronounced than on the original. Once you bring out the visor a bit on either side, you'll probably have comparable wiggle room given that the original cheeks are more restricting than yours.

Yes. The original has just plane got more jowl room than mine. The more I think about it the more I see that it's a thing that must be addressed.... and I'm working on that right now.

Mac

[Mac]

Here is what the visor looked like this morning. As I said earlier, I worked hard to make have a boxy look.... which turned out to be a bad interpretation of views I had to work with at the time.



The plan is to heat the visor locally and hammer it down to the curve of this track.



It still needs a bit of work, but this it the general idea.



So, I figured that this modification would make the visor "move", but I was not sure if it would flatten out or curl up. It turns out that it curled up.



..but I have a plan. Some local heating down the center line and a squeeze in the vise opened it back up.



The plan is to continue in this vein until the visor is as wide as the original, and then make the sides fit by introducing that bend we see in the inside view. Once that's done, I'll see if I can't open up the helmet cheeks to match.

Mac

[Novice]

Your shelf of misfits, even in this rusted state, would still find a happy home on many a head, Mac. Your skill never fails to impress.

I have a question about the shape, though. This (to the best of my knowledge) is some ways an atypical sallet, but is the bluntness of the face as opposed to a more pointy look a common occurrence in history? A quick google tells me most repros have a pretty steep angle in the visor, whereas this one goes for a considerably blunted snout. Is this a stylistic choice or are most of the high-quality sallets of this period more angular and less streamlined (or long in the nose) than our modern attempts end up being? I ask because sallets, whilst not exactly my cup of tea, are certainly attractive helmets and I've still really no idea what looks 'right' and 'wrong' in one.

As I understand it, the trend in sallets from fashionable/high-cost to practical/low cost is that they conform more and more to the human head as they get pricier, with the cheapest ones resembling somewhat compressed horseshoe crabs. Therefore, even though having a sharply angled face seems as though it would deflect better, is that feature generally indicative of a (historically) cheaper helm? Furthermore, do we see any divergence in sallets between those used by horsemen and footmen?

Also, what was the historical method of grinding? An apprentice and a strip of leather?

Sorry if you don't want rubbish like this on your blog, I'll gladly remove it if so.

[Mac]

Mathew,

This is all about learning. You're learning, I'm learning; we're all learning. There are no bad questions... although there are sometimes lengthy and convoluted ones.

While I like the comparison of cheep sallets to horseshoe crabs, I don't think we can really say the any sallet conforms to the shape of the human head. It's like we can't say that a shoe conforms to the human foot. Armor, like shoes is designed to perform the dual function of protecting the body while at the same time making it look better than it does naked. Like a shoe, a helmet has to accommodate and enhance the body.

There are two aspects to "pointyness" or "bluntness" in the front of a sallet. The first is the business of the crest line, and how much the cross section of the helmet deviates from a circle or an oval. This is about making room for the wearer's nose as well as making the thing look good to the people who are expected to buy it. A lot gets said about "glancing surfaces", but I think that much of this is just putting our modern spin on it. It's like describing the lines of a late 1950s car in terms "aerodynamics". At the end of the day (and in the show room) it comes down to the idea that tail-fins just look cool.

The second aspect is the step or lip of the sight. This really is about keeping pointed objects out of the wearer's eyes. That lip creates a situation where any sort of "trouble" that comes from slightly below the wearer's eyes (like a lance) does not have a straight shot into the sight, and strikes below the lip can not slide up without skipping over the sight.

These two things can combine to produce a visor with a very pointy "nose" in the step. Are these more effective? Probably not. Think of those tail-fins again. They look great, don't they!

Oh... yes, there are also long, convoluted answers. ... and while I'd like to think they were authoritative and well thought out, I'm sure they are not the last word.

Mac

[Mac]

Also, what was the historical method of grinding? An apprentice and a strip of leather?

Grinding and polishing of armor was a specialized craft of it own. It's one of the burdens of being an armorer today, that we have to wear the polisher's hat (and respirator) as well. If you hand a piece of armor over to an unskilled guy with a power tool, he will probably ruin it within a few minutes.



We spent some time discussing it here and I have a pinterest board of relevant images here

Mac

[Mac]

This is where I am now at lunch time. I've got the visor reshaped a bit, and back on the helmet.



I need to think about whether I will apply more of the same correction, or just move onto reshaping the cheeks of the skull to take up some of that new room.

[Johann ColdIron]

Another difference, which may be more significant, is that the original has a somewhat wider visor. Mine follows a smooth curve, but I should have had a sort of kink in the line. The reason this may be important is that the original will accept a wider bevor than mine. This is a think that's very difficult to see in any normal view of the helmet, but brutally obvious in this view. I will try to change the visor shape a bit when I rework it to get rid of that angular thing under the sight lip that I mentioned earlier. I don't think I can ever get it to be this shape exactly, but I probably bring it a bit closer than it is.

Mac

I see that sharper transition on the original now that you point it out. Is it my eye or is the originals visor slot a bit longer, horizontally, than your work as well? Seems to be roughly half the width of the visor on yours and just a hair more on the Goll image. Though that might be an artifact of the photography scaling.

Looks to stop right at that Kink.

[Mac]

Is it my eye or is the originals visor slot a bit longer, horizontally, than your work as well? Seems to be roughly half the width of the visor on yours and just a hair more on the Goll image. Though that might be an artifact of the photography scaling.

Looks to stop right at that Kink.

Yes, it is. I think the original's sight is probably about 1/4" or so wider on each side. I can't just cut mine though; not without reshaping the step, and I'm just not going to do that at this stage.

In all, I feel worse that my sight it a bit too tall than that it's a bit too short. I'm thinking about whether I can close it a bit by cross peening the upper edge. I don't think that's really viable, though.

Neither of these things is tragic, and I think they are both within the normal range of things, but I wish I could tear my attention from them.

Mac