The Armour Archive

This is my second helmet and the first time that I have ever made a helmet like this. The only other helmet that I've made is a bucket helm. I am using Doug Strong's bascinet pattern from Talbot's Fine Accessories. Any problems displayed in this project are totally from my own lack of skill and should not reflect on the quality of Doug's instructions. Doug is awesome.

I cut the metal out of 13g mild steel using a cutting wheel on my angle grinder and dished with a weighted rawhide hammer in my medium dishing stump. I had difficulty getting the edges to line up as you can see in the pictures below. Doug Strong told me that I had dished them too much and needed to flatten them out to fit them. After much coercing of the metal I got them to fit together and ready to weld, but it did not fit on my head anymore. I began to get frustrated and thought that this helmet was going to end up sitting abandoned on my Wall of Shame.





I am also making a conical visor to go with this helmet. This visor is made from the same 13 gauge mild steel the helmet is made from. Like the helmet, the visor shape historically would have probably been raised from a flat piece of metal, not a welded cone as I have done. To bring the tip to a point, it was necessary for me to apply some heat with a MAPP gas torch to persuade the metal to the correct shape. I used a weighted rawhide hammer for cold shaping and my 20 oz dishing hammer and planishing hammer for the hot work. After I was finally able to get the edges together, I took it to a welder to weld it for me.





After I got the top of the helmet back from the welder, it was very obvious that I did not shape the top correctly. It was very long in the front to back measurement, and too close together on the side to side measurement. I was not able to even put it on my head since the sides were so close together.

With much effort, I alternated hammering with the weighted rawhide hammer to push the front and back in and the sides out. This was quite difficult to do, especially since the welds did not like to move very much. The front brow was not shaped with the edges flat, edge to edge, but they were at an angle at the time of welding.

I needed to hammer the angle to created the correct profile and a smooth, rounded transition from side to side. I heated the front to red/orange heat the best I could with my MAPP gas torch. With the metal hot, I raised the metal down with my raising hammer. You can see the hammer marks in the first picture below.

I ran into a bit of a problem with the front shaping. The weld really did not want to be moved and really resisted changing shape. I heated it up, but I don't think my MAPP gas torch was quite enough for the task. An acetlene torch would have been better I think. You can see in the next picture below, a hairline crack developed in the weld just to the right of the midline. I needed to have that ground out and rewelded when the welder finished the rest of the welding for me.




I will add more pictures soon.

I'm glad you like the pattern sets. Thanks for the compliments.

It is coming together nicely. The first one is always harder than any that follow. You figure out things along the way that make them easier. When making my first attempts at new arms, legs and other paired items I often wind up making three of any complicated bits--making use of the second two as they are more likely to be more closely matching. This only applies when I am "off the map" and trying something new.

Keep on going. I look forward to more pics.

I think it looks good lol do you feel like making me one

Lord_Tofu wrote:I think it looks good lol do you feel like making me one

I know where you can get the patterns...

oh Talbot don't be mean dam you :p i cant buy online otherwise i would own quite a few of your patterns

i cant get paypal or a credit card ......

I ground down the crack and took the helmet and visor to the welder to get welded up. I went to a local welder and he thought this was a pretty interesting project and he said would be happy to do it for free. I ended up helping him get rid of some viruses on his computer, since I didn’t want to feel like I was taking advantage of him. He welded up the helmet skirt and the visor. Again, the helmet would not fit on my head because it was too small side to side. I hammered it out on the sides and in along the back. I trimmed the sides of the face opening to sweep back just a little more than the pattern and hammered the face open a little more. I punched to start the holes to sew the liner in and I drilled holes for the vervelles which I will add pictures of the construction of them later.



As for the visor, I really had a very enjoyable time shaping this. I felt like I was really making something cool. With the completion of each step, I would be amazed that I had actually shaped it that way. I tried driving the ocular ridge up out of the cone, but I just could not get the metal to move. I had much better results leaving the ridge where it was and raising everything around it down. I had hammered a ridge in front of the ridge of the ocular after heating it and then raised the top of the nose down flat to that level. This really worked to my advantage since I couldn’t figure out to get a chisel all the way up to the point of the nose to make the crease. I just sculpted the crease from the outside with the hammer while I was raising the metal down. I did the same thing with the mouth at the bottom. While shaping the bottom of the visor, I cracked the weld just like on the front of the helmet. I will have to have the weld ground away and rewelded, but I am going to wait until all of the shaping is done.

That is looking sweet....I'll add to the greatness of Talbots patterns as well..I have the 14C set and love it...I thought I would start with something a bit easier though..The gaunts....

well at least the metacarpal...I'm doing scale fingers for it ala the St. George statue...

Not too bad. For the hinge to work in the open and close position, you maybe should put it behind the maximum width of the skull.

Myyyy... that's sexxxaaaayyyy. Really, I'm gettin' a hard-on, that's so nice.

Sounds like you need to make a particular point of annealing your welds to cope with the shoving around you're doing to them at the hammering stage. Or only work the welded areas hot. Your mild steel should cooperate -- remember welding can change the steel's internal properties.

Armourcake, though -- sheer red-velvet armour cake.

NIce.

Carnifex- wrote:Not too bad. For the hinge to work in the open and close position, you maybe shood put it behind the maximum width of the skull.

Good point. Don't forget tough there is another part for the arm so he had plenty of room to put it where he needs it to go.

Doug,

On that topic - is there any trick to finding the best pivot point for the hinge plates? Is it trial & error or is there a clever geometrical process to figure it out?

Talbot wrote:

Carnifex- wrote:Not too bad. For the hinge to work in the open and close position, you maybe shood put it behind the maximum width of the skull.

Good point. Don't forget tough there is another part for the arm so he had plenty of room to put it where he needs it to go.

Ah, yes, of course, so he is safe.

Sean, who did the welding for you?

@ Lord Tofu - Thanks for your kind words. I have been working on this for months and I am still learning myself. I am not a point where I could take commissions and I don't feel I could make one of these for someone else anyway right now. I still need a lot more experience before I would feel confident enough to let someone else's head get hit in a helmet I make.

@ Eamonn - Thanks. I've got Talbot's finger gauntlets in the works as well. The wrists need welded. Dang, I need to learn to weld!

@ Carniflex & Talbot - Excuse my ignorance. Please tell me more about the pivot position placement. Why does it need to be behind the widest point? I cut the tabs on the visor according to the pattern. I have since folded the tab around to make the hinge and I am constructing the other side of the hinge that the pivot will be attached. I don't have them done, but I think the pivot point will be right at the widest point. Should I make a new pivot side of the hinge so sits further back?

@ Konstantin - Thanks. You flatter me too much. If you saw it in person, you may feel differently. Unfortunately, I did work the welds on the brow of the helmet and the lower part of the visor hot. The welds were thick and I tried to heat it with A MAPP gas torch. The front got to red/orange heat but the back would just get to a dull red and cooled off fast. I think I became impatient and continued hitting the metal after it was too cool.

@ Sha-ul - It was Shane Chadd that did the welding. I work with his wife.

I worked on the visor quite a bit this past weekend. I hope to post more pictures soon.

The hind position will give friction to the visor and will help keeping the visor in the up or down position.

Hal gave me a push button latch that worked very well on a bascinet. I used a sawzall blade for the spring. You just chuck up a rod for the button and latch matterial in a drill and file a shoulder in it. Peen it into an appropriate size hole in the spring. The same latch rod also holds the visor up when opened.
These are Hal's pics of it in a sallet.

Good job and thanks for posting all your tips and tricks learned. I have learned a lot.