The Armour Archive

I've made a couple of great helms that were similar to the Maciejowski Bible helms- a rather cylindrical design. Now I'm trying to reproduce an Italian helm from 1300. Rather than the very rounded foot print, it seems to come to a point to match the flute down the nasal. The angle between the deck and the sides is close to 90 degrees.

So my problem is even in 16 gauge mild steel annealed every few minutes, and even worked hot I haven't been able to convince this metal to conform to the shape I want. I can get one section to fit fine, but it pushes out when I try to bend somewhere else. I want to match the original as closely as I can, so I want to avoid cutting notches in the top plate.

Does anyone have any ideas, tips, insights, or tools I should try?
Gaston

Have you got access to a welder?

I'm not positive but I think you're talking about the cap that goes on top of the helmet and you're having troubles pulling the edge down where it goes to a point at the front.

BTW it should be creased at the front and not fluted. A crease has a single corner and a flute (more of a 15th century and later thing) has 3 corners.

Anyway if you've got access to a welder it gets a lot easier. Just make a cut at the point and then pull everything down. Cut the point area again so that the edges match up. Weld and grind that unwanted split into invisibility. It'll basically be invisible to the naked eye.

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The budding mid 14th century German Transitional guy.
Mad Matt's Armory

That is indeed the plate I'm having trouble with, and a good idea to solve it. I suppose my words were a bit imprecise or simplistic in not distinguishing between a flute and a crease. So if I understand you correctly, you picture a crease like a single fold in a piece of paper, and a flute as three folds in alternating directions?

Shouldn't the earlier helm tops be somewhat easier to do than the later ones? Looking at small tops like a Pembridge the doming looks easy. The riveting might be tough if your peening from the inside though.

Any ideas on how they originally did this? Was it a forge weld?

Instead of doing welding on the outside,Have you thought about welding it from the inside?I found that it is a lot easier to weld it this way because all you have to do once your done is just hammer down the edges.After the two peices of metal are joined together it controls how the metal bends and moves.Also try finding a big diameter peice of steel pipe that will fit inside the helmet that you are making.Again set a nice bead on the inside of the two peices and then turn the hemet over and set it on top of the pipe.Hammer down all your edges slowly and finish pulling things in with screws and bolts until everything fits like its supposed to. Once again I have had a lot of sucess making great helms this way.
Thanks Gundo for teaching me this in a previous post.