Hey, so I'm doing sketches and getting ready to make a pattern for an italian export helm
And I noticed that it has a little whole in the middle of the top ridge which I assume is for a plume (Or a plume mounted on some kind of orb?) as seen in a sketch of Burgundian infantrymen c.1480 (AAOTMK p.132).
Does anyone have any idea how this orb/plume would be mounted?
Someone once proposed a hypothetical arrangement to me that is simple and elegant for attaching a CREST. I'll describe it and you might be able to adapt it to holding plumes of feathers.
Take a dowel that just fits through the hole. Drill a cross-hole near one end and insert a nail or pin through the cross-hole so it pokes out on either end. Slide dowel up through the hole until the nail/pin rests in the crest. Take a piece of antler with a hole drilled in it, bone or decorative brass fitting and slide it down over the dowel. If antler or bone carve the bottom until it matches the top of the helm. If brass shape it to be so. Now mark the dowel at the top of the antler/horn/brass whatever, take it apart and drill a cross-hole. Now when you assemble it you can mortise and tenon pin a dowel coming out of the top of the helm that will not lean or rotate and is fairly simple and cheap to make (it's a stick with 2 holes.)
Down-side to this arrangement is the helmet liner prevents easy access from below... BUT... some of the top holes are key-hole or lollipop shaped. Build the stick as before but round the bottom a little and make the cross-pin longer on one end then the other. Now insert the long end of the pin into the lollipop hole, rock the rest of the dowel in with the short end of the pin into the keyslot then ROTATE the dowel so the long end is captured near the slot but the short end on the side with no slot. Install bone/antler/brass thingy as per above.
If you wanted to make a plume holder in the same fashion you could get some brass plumbing fittings, cross drill the smaller one to replace the dowel, carve the larger one to match the crest shape, cross-pin and then wedge/glue in some feathers. Now dress it up with file, chisel and imagination. If you make the cross-pin holes sized to match common toothpicks then you can buy a few hundred cross-pins and WHEN they snap in combat they are a few seconds to replace.
The above is speculation based on speculation so please don't assume that it is proof of anything but it will probably work.
