First Helmet Tips

[critch]

Hey guys I've got limited experience (very) and I just started gathering tools. Right now I'm limited to:

Ball Pein Hammers (varying sizes)
A section of tree
A vice with "anvil" (Very small)
Tin Snips (up to 18 gauge)
Hand Drill
File
6" Bench Grinder (no polishing wheel yet)
A propane torch
Jigsaw (Not sure if I bought the best blades for the job)

I've only made a simple pauldron and have cut out different shapes to test out my bench grinder and snips as well as hammers. So today I'm looking to make a helmet my new weekend project. I've got enough crazy ideas I'm sure I can't do with out a torch. Such as this: http://jollyknight.com.ua/armoury/image ... ht0547.JPG

Obviously that will be too tough for a beginner but what're some designs I could try out?

Thanks,

Nate

[RoundTop]

The pattern archive on here has a bunch of ones that work.

http://armourarchive.org/patterns/greathelm_ab/
http://armourarchive.org/patterns/greathelm_sinric/

http://armourarchive.org/patterns/norma ... _halberds/

Great Helms and Spangelhelms are the easiest to do with tools you have.

[critch]

Ok awesome. Thanks for the links. Do you have any suggestions for measurement? I'd like to get into the habit of making different sized helmets.

Thanks,

Nate

[losthelm]

What purpose is the armour being used for?
18 gauge works for decorative pieces but SCA standards require thicker material.

Updating your profile to a general location may help you find other shops locally.

The radius of your hammers likely will need to be adjusted.
Additional tools will help I purchased my better tools used at flee markets, estate sales, Craigslist, and EBay.
Knowing quality and availability of parts can help.

Your bench vice will work much better to hold stakes then the anvil that's attached.
Larger pieces of steel can be placed in the vice so they rest on the bench and the jaws of the vice just hold the steel in position. You may still get some rocking of the improvised stake but that can also be minamized by adjusting your orientation.

[critch]

This armour is going to be for learning purposes. Eventually I'd like to make and sell fantasy type for SCA. Not quite there yet though lol. I'm trying to learn as much as possible, to me, I really get sucked into this stuff! In general I don't know where to get 18 gauge or 16 gauge near me... Home Depot only sells Sheet in 22 gauge at the thickest I've seen so naturally I've been learning with 22 gauge. I need to get some today though and need to find them fast.

I wanted to ask how do you guys make eye slots, etc without making two pieces to form them? Like what if I wanted to form a great helm from raising the metal? How would you go about making rectangular eye slots without a torch or plasma cutter?

[Konstantin the Red]

Welcome and well come, Critch.

If you're building helmets for the Society for Creative Anachronism's rattan fighting, you want to start with 14ga mild steel and go thicker from there. Most folks quit at about 10ga mild/12ga stainless, which is much tougher to work and form than mild is, but you can use thinner metal for the same strength, because of the chromium alloying it. Other armor can be much lighter weight. Whew.

You are probably going to use rivets, since you didn't mention welding (a big enough propane torch and some firebricks are good for hot-working metal). Domehead rivets are okay, though they want a bit of medievalizing by filing their hemispherical heads down to rather flatter. Hemi heads are like totally steampunk and Victorian-boiler era. Flat head tinners' rivets are excellent for helms because you can set these in the holes with their heads to the inside of the helmet, and pein over on the outside, where you can swing your hammer. In an emergency, use a big nail for a rivet -- like if all your rivets aren't long enough to reach all the way through a spot on most 5-plate barrel helms and greathelms where 4 plates come together -- 4 layers of metal right there, and it stacks up. There you might care to use a 16-penny nail.

Sizing: helmets can usually go Sm-Med-Lg-XL. Hat size (scroll a bit) is more precise, but helmets also leave room for padding, so there's really a range of at least one inch of head measurement to any helm or helmet. To start out, anyway.

You're going to need a more powerful cutter than aviation snips. Those are for light-gauge metal. The cheapest tool is the saber saw, which with other blades can also saw you out knockdown camp tables for events, other useful things, and shields. Unfortunately, sawing metal with it is very noisy. It also takes clamping practically every inch of every edge of the metal to kill vibration, which breaks blades a lot. A big step up in price is the 10ga-rated power shear or the power nibbler.

Priced in between these are the straight cut bench shears, sometimes called slitting shears: these can handle straight cuts and outside curve cuts. Harbour Freight sells a Chinese knockoff of a lighter model of Beverly shear, priced about like one of those powerful slitting shears. Not as powerful, and almost always needs tweaks and resetting. Do not assume an HF Chicom shear is ready to go straight out of the box -- people have chipped their blades that way; check everything with feeler gauges and tighten the screws.

The ultimate in nice quiet bench shears that does curved cutting is the Beverly B-2: US-made, expensive new, still 400-500 bucks used on eBay, will last you forever. This, the lighter B-1 (the HF is the cheap Chinese imitator here) and the heavier and less handy B-3, are all throatless shears, which can cut curves either way.

[RoundTop]

The chinese throatless shear I got from HF needed the following adjustments:

Remove cutting plate, file down the bed (there was flashing at the front that prevented it from sitting properly)
Tighten bolts holding handle and upper assembly (This required a lot of torque, but well worth it, went from sloppy to really nice)
Re-add cutting plate and align properly.
mount to bench (or other solid material). For mine I mounted to a 1" thick wooden board, then clamped that to a table (that I couldn't drill)

Works like a charm now.

[losthelm]

For steel I would make a list as to what's in your area.
Machine shops, fab shops often have drops or larger pieces of scrap. Some will act as middle men and add your material to their regular order. Drops usually are cheap but your options are limited to what the shop has as excess from a job.
welding supply shops and retail shops are other options.

Tractor supply company or other Agracultural supply company.
Lowes, home depo, ace hardware, value home centers all have 14-22 gauge sheet metal.
Your paying roughly 3x the price you would for a 4x8 sheet from a steel yard but if you have no other option or need it now its an option.
The steel is usually in a rack with bar stock near the loose hardware.

[Sevastian]

These are invaluable for assembling helmets.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cleco+f ... 8956821731

[critch]

Damn, thanks for all the help everyone! What size/length rivets should I get? I bought some "bad rivets" from a local store because that's all they had (they're the type with a split, pretty weak not solid.) RivetsInStock.com?

I forgot to mention I do have a jigsaw, I bought a $30 one from Home Depot because I'm on a tight budget right now and figured if it burnt out it was only $30. Do you guys do plunge cuts for eye slots with it? My only thing with the jig (and it could be my 22 gauge thin metal or blade) but it jumps all over the place. I guess I'll try clamps but I don't feel safe using it if it's going to jump about. I was looking for power shears or nibblers but they're so expensive. I figure some of the power nibblers rated for 10 gauge are $500-1,200.. At that point couldn't you just buy one of those stand tabletop saws with a vertical blade? It's funny though you mentioned the bench shear! I've wanted a throatless shear and was eyeballing the Harbor Freight one for $150! RoundTop, what size steel can you cut with the shear? I'm curious because I only saw one thing saying 16 gauge in a video, is that true? Also can you do curved cuts with it?

Moving onto working hot metal, my propane torch has a wide head but a little canister. I figure that could be good since I don't have an oxy-acetylene rig yet! Where do you get insulated firebrick from? I saw a guy do that trick but he was using thin steel for a demonstration at a museum (in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgzQiO9liNw) Is that insulated firebrick or is it some other stone? I can't tell..

LostHelm, I couldn't find anything thicker then 22 gauge steel at my two home depots.. I'll try Lowes this afternoon but I'm not sure if they'll carry it either. And I could try Tractor Supply, they just opened one near me.

Thanks for the suggestion Savastian, I never even heard of those before but look invaluable!

Last question is what's your guys' take on finishing and planishing metal? I only have the 6" bench grinder which I feel extremely limited. I'm not sure if it's the 22 gauge or if it'll be easier with thicker steel to grind corners and get them smooth. For smoothing, is it possible to get large strips of sandpaper? What order grit do you want to use if done by hand to get that nice smooth finish?

[The Iron Dwarf]

you should get the metal as level as possible by planishing with a hammer onto something as close to the shape you are working towards as you can, a large steel ball is good for a lot of things, this way you are not removing most of the metal thickness.
you can use a hammer on the inside with a radius near to what you want and a flat surface outside or a dished surface outside like a dishing stump.
to cut a hole with a jig saw away from an edge first drill a hole big enough for the blade, clamp the metal down as much as you can, add small sand bags if you can and make sure the area you are cutting is clear underneath, insert the blade and holding the saw firmly aim it along a line you have drawn for the cut ( leave a little for filing later ).
if you planned well you will have a hole drilled at each corner then use the saw to connect them, go slow and cool the blade with a cutting liquid or oil or even dishsoap

[Galileo]

Rivets - McMaster Carr has solid rivets in packs of 100 (usually, depending on rivet material). RJLeahy sells em by the pound or half-pound (again, depending on material).

1/8" diameter solid rivets can be had with roofing nails (galvanized steel or copper). They have a large, flat head, and a 1/8" shank. Just cut em to length and peen them over. The steel ones are far cheaper than the copper ones.


the more time spent planishing, the less time spent sanding. You can sand by hand (I recommend an auto-body sanding block at least), it just takes time. Grit depends on the finish you're looking for.

[Ernst]

On cutting with a jigsaw, you should use blades with a high tooth-per-inch count -- 24 tpi, 32 tpi, etc.. As noted, to reduce vibration, you should clamp the steel, and cut as close to a supporting structure (bench edge) as you can get. Slower speeds and cooling oil help. Also let the blade cut, and don't push it forward. If you're breaking blades, you're doing it wrong. I've cut out 3 mild steel helmets with one blade, and the teeth wear down before the blade snaps. If the blade breaks high, you might still be able to use the lower half of it if the stroke doesn't clear the metal.

[Ceawlin Alreding]

Critch- where are you in Massachusetts? Getting in contact with your local SCA chapter would get you in contact with your target audience.

[critch]

Awesome stuff guys! I'm finally finding out all the information I've been searching for weeks. Great suggestions for the jig saw, I'll be sure to get some higher tooth counts on my blades. I've got some clamps I'm picking up tonight so tomorrow I'll be off to the races. What do you recommend for oil?

I'm going to place an order for some steel rivets from McMaster Carr tonight as well. (Not sure if I should get steel or stainless?) So 1/8" is a good rivet size? Also is it a good idea to get the rivets with washers?

Ceawlin, I'm in Worcester county, MA. I should get in touch with the chapter here I just feel I'm not ready just yet.

[Galileo]

Don't get stainless - you will frustrate yourself to no end trying to set them.

For helms (SCA use) - get 3/16" -- 1/8 may not clear marshals.

[critch]

Alright awesome, will do. I'll place the order tonight! I'm going to have to check out the SCA info to get more ideas on what's expected. I figure whatever I do now I can try to sell off for cheap money I suppose. Maybe someone will buy them who doesn't care about high quality or maybe even a Halloween costume, I don't know.

[critch]

Also any tips on where to buy insulated firebrick and how to set it up for a small propane torch forge? What gauge of steel can you heat up using this method?

[Konstantin the Red]

Also any tips on where to buy insulated firebrick and how to set it up for a small propane torch forge? What gauge of steel can you heat up using this method?

Ah, definitely the beginner class -- seriously, it's fine! -- no bad habits to unlearn! (A lot of which has to do with wearing your elbow, wrist and shoulder out whamming away with heavy hammers for a long time -- there are at least two ways out of that, one is the DIY helve hammer, powered by your foot on a lever; the other is a ChiCom-built $200 50-ton hydraulic press and making your own forms to do by squashing what hammers do by hitting.) So, getting all Pink Floyd on ya and laying yet more bricks in the wall -- of text...

For firebrick, look at kiln suppliers in your area, or ask at a welders' supply shop about where to look in Worcester County MA. Don't forget that Google is every man's friend. MA has potters, in plenty. We like it when young beginner lads do their own homework. Some of us are grouchy old holdovers from the 1970s, and sound like it. Nonetheless, we are become netizens. "When I was your age, floppy discs were this big!" [hands well apart]
"What's a floppy disc?"
"Get offa my lawn! -- and ask your mother."

Firebrick and a propane burner can get any gauge of steel to red, where it becomes easy to work and bend. Isn't always necessary -- in fact usually it isn't, with mild steel. You don't have to build a little oven; usually a corner of two walls intersecting a floor will do for heating small to medium pieces of metal, concentrating that burner heat. An oven would be more specialized and elaborate and more suited to bladesmithing. Don't expect to do a sword first thing either -- you need to sneak up on heating and beating out long blades literally inch by inch if you want them to actually function. Read Jim Hrisoulas first: you want the experience of making numerous knife blades, gradually making longer and longer knives, before trying for a sword blade. Swords like plain, medium-to-high carbon simple steels; super-space-alloys don't mix all that well with working swords, though they are excellent for knives. Swords need a springiness and a toughness knives don't.

The HF knockoff of a Beverly B-1 can be persuaded to get through 14ga mild by taking little bites well back in the throat of the shear -- slow-ish, but silent. You may care to adjust the blade spacing a small fraction wider, as shears like a bit of adjustment to land just right for the thickness of metal they're shearing. Any throatless shear does curves and straight cuts -- it's in its design.

The horrid vibration you got was partly because you were sawing 22ga sheet metal -- 14ga steel engages more of the saw teeth and that's one thing you want for reducing vibration and noise. The 22ga -- snip it, make durable finalized pattern pieces of it. They hold up some better than using manila folder material, which except for that is terrific and you can write notes on it.

22ga stainless is useful for SCA brigandines and some bits of Coats of Plates, usually abbrev'd CoP around here. Needs more than snips to cut, 'cuz stainless is a bugger. It's even worse to saw or drill! Hand metal punches make more sense for thin stainless, but unless big and powerful, they give out on stainless as thick as equivalent mild steel. Use mild steel for about everything for the immediate future; SS is for the experienced. And even they b!tch.

You don't have to schlep in an inventory of hardware and goods to come see the SCAdians -- they are people of many assorted crafts and interests, of which armor making is only one, and there's a lot of DIY going on in there. SCAdians seldom buy butted chainmail because any of them can make their own if they have the patience in the first place, and if, like you, starting from the plain wire is the thing they can best afford. Riveted- or welded-link mail is another story -- and takes more tools invested in to do either. Mailmaking satisfies, all right. Satisfies a crafting urge, keeps your hands busy, has some, albeit rather limited, use in SCA warharness. Fact is, just come see the SCAdians without toting an inventory with intent to sell -- and take a good long, inquiring look at the stuff they use on the field.

Don't expect to get rich making or dealing in armor -- a) it is a hobby good, essentially a luxury good; b) there is a lot of competition at every level from costume grade stuff we tend to disdain as ugly through corner-cutting design by people who have heard SCA armor described, but since the SCA is pretty thin on the ground in India, they've hardly ever seen any, though some make some attempt to sell to the SCA Heavy fighter market, the stick boys.

Armor that isn't SCA heavy might suit SCA Youth Boffer combat, where the kids can suit up in a helmet "just like Dad's," slip on a catcher's cup, etcetera. Youth fight in 2-year age-classes. Depending on kingdom you can graduate to heavy rattan swordplay by age eighteen.

SCA fighting is all over YouTube. Don't know how much you're going to learn from most of it, though.

[losthelm]

Rjleahy.com has a better price on rivets just ask for priority mail flat rate shipping.
If you just need a few I have some listed on eBay.

For fire brick you can try a store that sells fireplace inserts, chimmy cleaners.
Personally I would try ceramic studios and Craig's list.

kilns usually have ceramic brick and ceramic wool liners.
Ceramic wool replaced asbestos do some research before volunteering to pay someone else's hazmat fee.
A lot of kilns are cheap or free, shorts in the control board or elements are not dificult to rebuild but it takes time and parts you will need to special order.

[critch]

I just found "Sheffield Pottery's" site. I'll likely get some brick from there if I do.


Thanks for the input, I've never been to SCA and haven't really heard about it until a few weeks ago to be honest. All well in good though hah. I've got plenty of time to catch up. And dually noted about the stainless.. I don't plan on touching that anyway until I can get some actual faith in what I'm doing.

Question: What would you recommend to keep mild steel decorations clean of rust? Gun Oil?

I'm definitely going to buy that HF bench shear! Can't wait to mount that bad boy to my table and get to cutting with it.

[critch]

Rjleahy.com has a better price on rivets just ask for priority mail flat rate shipping.
If you just need a few I have some listed on eBay.

For fire brick you can try a store that sells fireplace inserts, chimmy cleaners.
Personally I would try ceramic studios and Craig's list.

kilns usually have ceramic brick and ceramic wool liners.
Ceramic wool replaced asbestos do some research before volunteering to pay someone else's hazmat fee.
A lot of kilns are cheap or free, shorts in the control board or elements are not dificult to rebuild but it takes time and parts you will need to special order.

Thanks Losthelm I'll order from there then.. I'm eyeballing those steel 3/16" x 1/4" flat rivets. Any need to go longer then 1/4"?

For the brick is there any preference over soft brick or hard fire brick? Also should I get the highest heat resistance?

Thanks for all the help guys.

[Konstantin the Red]

Finding steel that is thick enough: look in your Yellow Pages under Steel. Steel shops are located in grungy parts of town, very humble looking places, and their job is to sell sheet metal and bar- and round-, and other-shape stock to people who weld things together out of steel like restaurant kitchen furnishings (stainless), trailers, wrought-ironwork window grills and gates -- anything made locally from steel. Mostly mild steel, because it works so easy.

It's also pretty cheap, if not maybe as cheap as it was. But it will kick @Z$ on Home Despot. Particularly ask for "drops," as they are called in the trade: you don't have to buy, new, an entire 4'x8' or 10' sheet of steel in any desired gauge. They will cut off a slice for a customer, usually charging a bit for the service. The piece that's left is usually hard to sell full price because it's not big enough -- generally gets hauled away to be recycled. That's where you come in: any single component of armor of plate will fit on a piece 2' x 2'. Most will fit in a piece 2' x 1'. 1x1 is still good for a lot. A piece 1' x 4' is downright luxury. Also you can carry drops home in your car! So you can get these smaller pieces at quite the discount. Much more reliable a source than scrounging in industrial alleys after scrap.

Rivets: the usual, overwhelmingly so, SCA rivet habit is 3/16" dia rivets, any rivet type, in steel. Some leather fastenings riveted in with brass or copper rivets. But in the helm body, there is the Marshals' Handbook "or equivalent construction" standard. Rivets smaller than 3/16", just use lots more of them, put closer together. This does mean a lot of hole-drilling. With a rivet join, the deal is to get enough of a cross section of rivet metal holding the plates together. Nothing wrong with mixing rivet sizes and metals if you're getting that kind of artistic -- a bit of steel for strength and brass for glitter is around. Dark Ages style helmets (spangenhelms and such) in particular can look very handsome with their rivets holding them together arranged kind of fancy. Some artsy-rivet guys weld their hats together and then put rivets in mostly for decoration, though they also contribute to the structure -- pacifies inexperienced Marshals very nicely, that: Look, good milord, it's welded. Bucket-helms tend to be far more regular in rivet layout -- all business, these.

So you'll want to master the SCA Armoring Standards for maximum rivet spacing in helmets -- but you're always safe with 3/16" steel rivets no more than 2" apart, applied to 14 or 12 gauge. They are after sturdy, not chintzy, construction for your bucket-o-brains, and thick-gauge metal also helps prevent concussions by its mass. It is very little more difficult to hammer and form than the thin stuff -- in fact a bit easier for the new guy, more of a safety margin so the metal doesn't fatigue and crack.

Okay, bucket helms/barrel helms/in latter days, great helms, which were direct descendants of the previous two. You'll also find 13th-c. bucket hats called in German Topfhelms, which is the same as bucket-helms. By now you've seen the usual basic method was the 5-plate helm: a forehead, an occiputal plate, a nape plate, and the face, or ventail, plate -- so named because you ventilate through its breaths. The ventail plate may have an extension rising from its centerline to rivet onto the forehead plate; thus your sights, your eyeslots, can be entirely cut into the ventail plate also -- divided into two sights by that nasaloid tab in the center, and set down into the ventail so that at the corners of the eyes, a tab of metal rises up to lay over the bottom edge of the forehead plate. Notice I only named four of the five plates. The fifth plate is the top cap, and is traced out, cut, and worked after the forehead plate has been riveted at either end to the occiputal plate once these have been bent and fitted together.

Yes, there were other patterns than the 5-plate: make the occiput and nape plates in one, in a semicylindrical trough shape -- that's a 4-plate, slightly heavier than a 5-plate because it's a little more bulky in the rear. There is hot-raising the entire upper half of the helm; that was done back then, not so common now -- needs a forge and stakes to work it over, by raising. That could amount to as few as two pieces of metal, riveted together halfway up. Continuing with the idea the 4-plate started, there is a 3-plate, where forehead and ventail are in one, connected by the narrow isthmus of the nasaloid, which is bent after the sights have been cut out with shear and saw, slicing in from either side, then bending the forehead to the proper slope and riveting closed the dart taken at either eye corner to get the sights cut and the forehead sloped, then a bit more trimming to meet the back half of everything, and a top cap put on. Easiest if you have a bench shear like a Beverly, that one. Some very sturdy 3-plate helms may still be soldiering on in Atenveldt, where they were most common because the guy who made them lived there. The things were absolute tanks. You'll know one, if you ever see it, by the anvil and the capital K stamped into it, for Kirby. His wife Laurie posts here.

Another, quite late model, 3-plate design is the Pembridge type greathelm, of which two examples have survived. This very handsome, gloriously sinister-looking headpiece is of two broad horizontal hoops of steel, forge-welded closed in the back, and a creased, pent-roof top cap. The three pieces are riveted together along two encircling horizontal seams. Very tidy piece of work. Don't confuse Pembridge with Pembroke, which is strictly a modern model of great, invented by some hobbyist or other, and not to my mind as goodlooking, not being as authentic. Though still plenty functional; keeps you from getting hurt.

Two pages of how-to on good helms for first timers. Search-buttoning on things here is a good, hopefully fun, way to do your armoring-knowledge homework.

About then you're ready for a first look at Brian Price's masterwork, Techniques Of Medieval Armour Reproduction. It concentrates particularly on the mid- to late-fourteenth century, but it can teach you about as much as a book can about techniques of hand-working sheet steel into that wearable sculpture, plate armor.

{edited because "isthmus" is easier to mix up than I thought}

[Konstantin the Red]

I'm eyeballing those steel 3/16" x 1/4" flat rivets. Any need to go longer than 1/4"?

Yes, but only some: places like in a 5-plate helm where four pieces of metal meet like how AZ/UT/CO/NM do at Four Corners. That's four layers of metal, and you want something longer in there. If need be, cut off a couple of big nails to the right length. There's also a design trick you can do to reduce the number of layers built up right in that spot down to three layers: you stagger the vertical seam back a bit by starting with an extra-wide ventail plate and a correspondingly smaller nape plate. It's kind of like a Microsoft OS; there are four or five different ways to get anything done.

Quarter-inch-shank rivets are otherwise very good for about anything in armor.

To size a rivet just right, you want no more protrusion through your metal pieces than about the same as the diameter of the rivet, so with a 3/16" rivet, no more than about 3/16" should stick up before you hammer it down. Too little sticking up and your joint is too weak, too long and it's likely to bend over instead of upsetting, and make you swear.

Flush rivets sit the head down into the thickness of the metal. Pretty good with thick metal. Hard to do with thin. Note that flush riveting can make a rivet that's a bit short work out just fine.

There are other big-rivet things done, but they are all advanced -- things like making the visor pivots on movable visor helms, bascinets, or sallets. Peachy keen neato, but -- Later! when you're ready to make movable visors.

[Konstantin the Red]

Any oil at all, including olive oil if you haven't anything else. Though they love Ballistol around here. WD-40 works too. Is cheaper.

Petroleum oils do work better than vegetable oils. Get a little bit on a paper towel, and wipe all the metal surface with just that much. Too much oil and dust and crud start sticking to what you oiled.

And paint. And Rust Reformer underneath paint acting like a primer -- if there is already some rust; it needs it to react with. Great stuff for preventing rust inside a helmet, say. Modern-day armor schleppers have been known to paint the entire inside of their plate pieces. Cuts maintenance in cleaning right in half! Since they maintain their own harness, you can imagine how much the SCA fighters like that idea.

[critch]

Wheww! You're a wealth of information, how long have you been doing all of this??

I'm going to buy that book ASAP! Looks like a user friendly tutorial judging from the pictures.

I'm going to give oil a shot on my next project and I'll be sure to buy Rust Reformer paint to save my work... although I would eventually like to make a decorative suit covered in rust and patina (don't ask why..)

I clicked the link you supplied and I'll be sure to grab a great helm template from there.. It just so happens one of my favorite helms is a great helm so this works out nicely. I really like the major slope on the forehead, I think it adds a nice touch compared to the basic bucket look.

As of right now I'll get the 3/16" x 1/4" flat rivets and work with them. What's your take on riveting? Do you put the rivet on the outside of what you're hammering or the inside? (For helms I know it makes sense to put them inside)

[critch]

I'm not sure if I could swing it but I'd love to replicate this helmet. http://www.lagunablanca.org/userfiles/s ... t_helm.jpg

[Konstantin the Red]

Hmm -- round heads, outside. Flat heads, usually inside. Neither head style looks exactly Middle Ages/Renaissance (two very different times, with a big difference in psychology -- probably an aftereffect of the Black Plague, when people just couldn't go on as once they had), but you can mess with them, especially the round head. A lot of people just leave round heads as-is.

Pan-head rivets are quite modern too -- like the round-heads they are very strong -- but you can round them off to something like the head of a tiny carriage bolt and make them look ancient-style.

Flush rivets they actually did from time to time all through the olden days, but rarely. For them it was a bother; they didn't have twist drills and may have made their small holes in metal using a spike, to pound a dimple in the metal, and a file to take the top off the dimple pimple until the hole was big enough. Sometimes, anyway. Followed by flattening the metal out again and doing any needed cleanup in that hole. For us moderns, drilling a flush rivet hole is just a matter of using two drill bits. Which we do unashamedly. An ancient flush rivet wouldn't even have the conical head, but be a mere slug of metal until you upset it into the hole with the hammer. Often enough they were sort of semi-flush -- not flat but rising to a slight bump. Eh, works for me.

[critch]

Alright then I'll order round heads and flat heads in 3/16"x1/4" I actually really like the look of the round heads.

[losthelm]

Truss heads are another option depending on who your ordering from.

[Konstantin the Red]

Sort of a cross between a barrelhelm and a saltshaker pothelm (some of those things really did look like the top off a saltshaker -- even the puffed-out kind like a chef's toque). Not so sure about it being authentically Middle Ages, though. But anybody can fool with its details and help that. (A profile view would be very nice to help assess.) There's lots of stuff out there that looks really really neeeeat to the new guy with a new eye.



For instance, I'd say those very open cross piercings left and right on the ventail plate are both inauthentic and dangerous -- where an array of small drilled holes in a cross form would not be. Stuff like this.

A lot of nice views of a saltshaker type pot helmet, of the early twelfth century, can be seen on Arthur, King of the Britons! in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This is the angular, conical model, not the rounded kind. Possibly, this was the direct ancestor of the 13th century barrel helm, which first grew some protective bars, then an entire face plate with sights and breaths, and then, knowing a good idea when they had one, they developed the nape plate and there was the complete 13th-c. barrel helm. And doughty warriors were now a lot of bucket-heads. Except for the ones who were hopelessly out of fashion.

Unfortunately, what we can't swear to at all is a conical-saltshaker top combined with the all-round protection of the rest of the helm there. No old helms dug up, no art like this at all.

Big BUT, after all the discouraging words: something with the sinister impressiveness of the above hat can still be made, and just as easily if not more so -- conical saltshakers are a little fiddly to get together and 5-plate helms really aren't.

The Pembridge, c.1370, is a little later than you're leaning, but check it out:

Looks about as mean as a Tiger I tank, doesn't it? And it's not even German.

This is what I mean by profile, and what the genuine article looks like: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16681. Nice big image to look at. The discussion calls it a Pembridge, but I wouldn't, because it is of 5-plate construction, for all its Pembridge-like details in the sights and breaths. Probably latter 14th century too, like the Pembs; it shows advanced-model details like the interior-fit, curved-ridgeline top cap and the little lips formed to the sights to keep lance points out a little better. Pounded-pimple holes for breaths, too... the bracket thingie on the back may have been put in there at the end of its service life, to hang the helmet up as a votive offering in a church.

[Konstantin the Red]

And a saltshaker. I think this is a repro:
but it'll do.

[critch]

Truss heads are another option depending on who your ordering from.

I was going to go to rjleahy? Truss is good from them?

[critch]

Really awesome helmet.. It is mean as a rattle snake! Something about narrow eyes and a bucket helmet is an intense look. Maybe that's why I like it so much. As far as kit; what would be worn with this (if I was going to do a complete build for a first complete set) is this considered "Crusader" armour or am I naive to believe this? Worn with a chainmail shirt/skirt and helm/ tunic and spurs right?

I'm not even close to it but I think my other favorite intense looking helmet would have to be the Pigface Bascinet .

Also a mean looking helmet in my opinion.

What're some of your favorites to build?

[Konstantin the Red]

There's a whole raft of people in the SCA and elsewhere luvvvvs them some bascinets like that one. Usually fielded with a bargrill, which is unrivaled for seeing and breathing. Some will tell you that it's easier to switch, if you must, from a closed visor like the hounskull visor on that bascinet to the openness of a bargrill than to go the other way round. Others will say to the new chap that with a bargrill he can much more easily see what's going on, and thus not have to fight his own gear as well as the other guy on the field. One can struggle with that problem all the way down to one's ankles, fighting your own gear. Basically, plate armor has to fit your limbs quite closely all over, getting on towards like a thick coat of paint. On your body, a little extra room right on the chest, in the breastplate, is okay, and usual: spaced armor over the vitals, in fact. Good place to keep a sandwich too if you get hungry sometime. They have room for a bottle of soda pop, but a leather boda is probably far more comfortable. I'm only half .

Fabric armor or stuff to throw over hidden, close armor isn't so very demanding -- it's not as heavy and dense.

Hounskull, Hundsgugel, or Pigface -- same thing.

Bascinets in about any form -- there are several, both historical and on the SCA field -- are excellent fighting helmets because of their superb glancing surfaces against attacks from the front. Starting at around $130-150 at entry level for a welded-up one -- and built stout enough to pass the SCA's safety people, the Marshallate -- they are affordable too.

Darn few people have the loose cash to buy hot-raised ones. That's a very skilled and laborious method. Sometimes shown off around here. See also the thread in Design & Construction about Prototyping a Bascinet, the "Can" or "House" Method. Gives you some idea of what it can involve, this whole helmet-building thing. But that's advanced stuff. The basics are a lot easier.

Fourteenth-century hats came well after the Outremer Crusades of far fame, and the 13th-c. Albigensian Crusades -- a span of about twenty years, but would be contemporary with the crusades of the Teutonic Order in NE Europe, which were an ongoing affair for centuries. It was for all that time quite the thing to do for young aristocratic German males, to spend some time converting Lithuanians, Estonians, and others by the sword and getting martial experience. So... basc + a crusade = the Teutonic Order and a suitably German persona to go with. If -- and you don't have to, but you can -- you couple your persona with your harness. (I don't, but I do my fighting in what I can afford that's efficiently protective, and a latter-fourteenth-era bascinet armor fills the bill, for me as for many.) Fourteenth century Germans wore bascinets a lot, like all the rest of Europe.

Armor of distinct regional styles emerged in the fifteenth century, with features you could point to and say, "That's Italian; that's South German." More palpable regions and styles emerged in the sixteenth, following on. The Italian armourers of Milan would happily construct you a German harness if you wanted, particularly for export to German speaking places up north; no less did the armourers of Augsberg and Vienna happily hammer out Italian-style. The von Matsch family of Churburg in Austria, where that bascinet came from, was right in between both German and Italian production centers, and ordered freely from both for quite a while. Sorting out what in Churburg came from where takes a lot of knowhow.