Exchange Visors, How do You do it?

[Vermillion]

Pretty much what the title says. I'm looking at constructing an SCA style visor for a very nice helm with a historic visor that I purchased in an auction.

How do each of you do it?

Constructing the visor is no problem. Its more a matter of how do you attach and secure each of the visors, and the other issues associated with such.

In my case, I'm looking at an early 15th century Italian Sallet.

Thanks !

[Sean Powell]

My close helm now and a previous bellow-visor sallet are both connected with a pair of short clevis pins and R-pins on the inside. You can make decorative head clevis pins from cariage bolts by grinding down the square portion (a lathe makes this very easy) and dremmeling/chiseling/engaving th head into a rosette etc.

Keep a spare R-pin in your armor bag or replace them every 3-4 years. I drove a long distance for a regional practice and a stout hit somehow broke a rusty pin and I couldn't fight the rest of the day.

Sean

[arg]

Sean, what steps have you taken to reduce the ammount of protruding matrerial on the inside of your helm? Do you have additional padding? Is it basically just enough carriage bolt stem to support the hole for the pin and maybe a washer? A picture of the inside would be pretty sweet...

Thanks,

Arg

[Sean Powell]

Actually I still want to cut those posts down smaller but generally they are the shortest posts that I could get. I don't use a washer on the inside but did for a while have a glued neoprene washer between the visor and the helm to cut down on ringing.

Sean

[Vermillion]

Sean,

I would appreciate some photo's myself. Thanks!

[Halberds]

What about this type of cast hinge from Bryan Price?
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... p?t=100149

[Vermillion]

Yes, Price's hinge is extremely sweet.

Unfortunately for me, it works for 14th Cent. Bascinets, but not 15th Cent Sallets.

[CLANG]

There is a gilt close helm made for Francis I that has a removable visor pivot. There's a decent pic in AAMK, pg 154. It's basically a bolt, with the head inside the helmet, the threads outside. The nut on the outside is cut and beveled to match the decoration of the rest of the helmet. It has a slot cut across it that I think is designed to contain a cross-pin that will go through a hole in the threaded bolt shaft, to prevent accidental unscrewing. If any of you have ever removed the front axle hub from a car, you've probably seen a similar, though less elegant, arrangement. The nut which holds the assembly in place on most cars has 6 slots cut into the face to make room for a locking cotter pin, which passes through a hole in the hub bolt. It is appropriately called a "castle nut".

While the Francis helmet design is not quite as pretty as having the head of the bolt on the outside of the helmet (so the threads don't show), it does have obvious advantages. The biggest of these is that you end up with minimal hardware protuberance on the inside of the helmet, pointed at your head. You also don't have to work inside the helmet to change said hardware.

I can't immediately think of any 15th C helmets that have exchange visors, so you'll probably have to borrow your design from later helmets (or invent your own). The earlier helmets with removable visors used systems that, IMO, wouldn't look right with a bellows visored sallet.

I have used the clevis pin/R clip (I call them hitch pins) arrangement with good success before. The trick is to make the parts with very careful arrangement, so you have as little metal sticking inside the helmet as possible, and be sure to de-burr everything well.

The idea of using a soft washer between the visor and helmet seems like a good one. I hadn't thought of it, but I'll try it next time I have occasion.