First Helmet Tips

[critch]

That sounds like it'd be a ton of work to punch a hole with one lol

[Konstantin the Red]

One thing about our forebears -- they were patient.

[critch]

Before a world ravaged by mass production... Lol

[Ckanite]

At least you don't have to do that hammer/spike/file the dimple pimple routine!

I might try it, though, someday to see what it's like. Coming up with a suitable hard-steel spike might be something of a trick -- either whack the hell out of a large center-punch or some big drift pin thing (the likeliest tool to modify this way, grind a bit of a point on it) or a length of drill rod with a point ground on it...

I remember doing that for my first all metal shield... HUGE PITA! I value my punch more than I would a child!

[Konstantin the Red]

"Now, my son, this is how you use the metal punch... "

[critch]

LOL! You should post a nice video of the process

[ManOnFire68]

Just took a look at those pictures you posted. The last one (the concept art) is Creighton, a character from a recently released video game, Dark souls 2, which I am a huge fan of. If you were to make a repro. of creighton's armor set, that would be rather gnarly eh wat old bean.

[critch]

Just took a look at those pictures you posted. The last one (the concept art) is Creighton, a character from a recently released video game, Dark souls 2, which I am a huge fan of. If you were to make a repro. of creighton's armor set, that would be rather gnarly eh wat old bean.

Nice! I plan on doing a lot of different stuff once I get all my tools! Waiting on some mushroom stakes and a dishing ring then I'm off to the races.. I tend to like stuff like that where it's borderline realism but with some different niches.

[Konstantin the Red]

Looks like the most distinctive feature of his harness -- hauberk and chausses, 12th/13th century style -- is that faceplated pot helm. Googling is not yet yielding any view but face on. I'd like a 3/4 view, really -- to see if I could believe the profile (does his pot helm bite him on the nose? ). I don't count his rotting, mildewy, lich-ly fashionable surcoat as a feature of his harness -- just as a sign that it's time for him to get a new one and make what's left of that one into char-cloth for his tinderbox, 'cause there sure as hell ain't much else left to it.

From reading around about Viking Age axes for another thread (there's a tute on how to use your li'l ole backyard forge to wham out Viking and Danish axe blades by hand (big anvil very good here)) that axe, the world's weirdest bearded axe, kept razor sharp, would be quite the tool to earn Creighton of Mirrah the Wanderer some pocket money planing big boards to thickness or to taper... they didn't have power planers then. Both hands, choke up close on the head, take a shaving off the board. Tapering shield boards for plank shields, like. Then he'd have funds to go a-wandering on. Beats hanging out at the crossroads snarling "None Shall Pass!" and going through their purses after they, well, don't pass. At least, it'd be more popular round about.

[critch]

Well if I want Iconic I should make this fellah then



Dark Souls has a lot of cool stuff... I plan on doing more then one of them lol. This one below would be quite the challenge.. If not impossible.. Pretty crazy design right there

[Konstantin the Red]

That ol' boy's so stumpy he's probably an alien underneath.

[critch]

It would be a cool display piece .. Unless SCA was okay with it LOL

[Konstantin the Red]

If his strength stats are human, he's going to dump the roundshield before using that whiffler. (Elderly English word for a great big sword) They want both hands.

[critch]

lol! I can picture it now.. Someone steps into the SCA "ring" and gets whooped three ways to Sunday due to being the most cumbersome thing since a John Deere tractor.

[Ernst]

Ole Punkin Head looks like the Michelin Man in fluted Maximilian armor. I like it.

[critch]

Lol good point. I think flutes on armour are pretty awesome.

On a side note I've got two mushroom stakes being shipped to me and should be here next week from IronBadger...
I'm ordering a medium dishing doughnut from Halberds as soon as he comes online...
Next Paycheck I'm going to get a hole punch...
Then comes the files
Need a chisel to put a flute in the helmet (That should be a challenge)

[Ckanite]

Ahh... the Onion Armour set... I was wondering when that would be popping up on the archive...

[Konstantin the Red]

Ahh... the Onion Armour set... I was wondering when that would be popping up on the archive...

Wasn't what we mean by onion top bascinet, was it?

Another SCA deluxe onion -- don't bother with the FB link; scroll for pix in thread.

[Konstantin the Red]

Need a chisel to put a flute in the helmet (That should be a challenge)

You're going to end up with a well equipped shop!

There's a lot written around here about fluting and creasing. The favored tool is a masonry, a brick, chisel. The 1" across size is the handiest; can handle curving gently left or right. 1 1/2" and more chisels are good for straightline creases.

Blunt the edge of the chisel to about a 1/32" diameter, so 1/64 radius, put its shank into a vise or fabricate up a stakeholding post with a setscrew to it to clamp the stakes in position. Have a Sharpie and a small file or abrasive to hand. Even a triangular file will do. When you hammer the crease, the first thing the metal will do is bend, roundedly, over the stake edge, leaving a rounded-off contour and not a crisp line. Sharpie-mark where the centerline of this rounded mound is, where the two slopes of the crease will neatly meet. Now hammer the rounded crease-in-embryo on either side of the crease-line with the metal still on the stake, hammering the the rounded )-shape into a flatter >-shape. Do each side as smoothly as you can with your hammer, hammering the radiused bend in the metal, upon the stake-edge, into two planes meeting. When you've done all you can with the hammer, file or sandpaper to finish off and make the crease more exactly a crease. Some people will put their sandpaper on a paint stir stick, a tongue depressor or a popsicle stick; anything like that: a nail-file on 'roids.

[ManOnFire68]

Dark souls is awesome. Demon's souls is made by the same developers and has some armor that would be worth checking out... if you haven't already that is.

[critch]

Sounds like a heck of a process, Konstantin. I saw a video of a guy put a crease in a great helm using a tree stump. Sounds like your method is better using the vice though.

ManOnFire68, Yeah I've been checking it out and I'm really liking the game and designs. I think my new goal is going to be "Solaire" and/or one of these for starters:






Pretty challenging stuff but nevertheless something I'd like to pursue.

[Konstantin the Red]

That sepia chap in the middle, his barrel helm (an early type, c.1250 in this Earth) looks like what can happen making a tab top bucket-hat the first time -- all those little corners developing between each tab.

The bottom guy -- well, his frogmouthed helm doesn't really want those vents piercing it. The vents do a nice job of letting lance-irons pierce it too, which seems more than a bit uncalled-for. Frogmouths were specialized, and you notice historic, period art doesn't show frogmouths in battle. They were tiltyard gear, with a very high sportsmen's safety factor. To save your neck, they bolted down (or used hasps and staples) to the breast and back, encasing all of your upper half except your arms in one rigid shell. Good for playing lance games with and having fun; not mobile enough to fight a war in. Or even cruise the countryside in, looking for one to fight.

[critch]

I think in that concept art that barrel helm is "flush" on the top without tabs holding it together. Looks like it's made from one piece of steel. Is that even possible?




The brass/ bronze whatever it is helmet is pretty awesome for a decorative piece... I'm not going to lie I'd like to tackle something like that someday....

[Ernst]

Quite possible if the top is raised. A couple of surviving great helms are made this way, including the one from Aranäs.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... shelm1.jpg

[critch]

Would it be possible to raise a helm like that using mushroom stakes? I like that a lot actually.

[ManOnFire68]

I was actually seriously thinking about raising this helm from one piece but I just ran out of oxygen for my o.a rig.

[critch]

I wonder if you do it in 16 gauge you could do it without heat. Definitely keep me posted on how it goes.

[ManOnFire68]

Will do man!

[critch]

I look forward to it! I haven't been able to finish my 14th c. Great Helm yet due to waiting on tool shipments. Once I'm done this one I might get some advice from people on here and try out Solaire's helm and raise that.

[Konstantin the Red]

I wonder if you do it in 16 gauge you could do it without heat.

Yes, but far slower and with much more time and labor. 14 gauge, more of the same; you can get there and it will take all week. Wearing yourself to dust and frazzle swinging a big heavy hammer.

Constructing a helve hammer, though (better living through leverage, look on Anvilfire) would handle that hard & heavy hits thing and not kill your elbow and shoulder joints. Big project in itself, though; maybe later, eh? Bigtime helmsters, they'd want one. Little guy, maybe not so very much.

Cold-raise smaller pieces like cops for shoulder, elbow (especially) and knee. Shoulder point and knee cops may be formed entirely by dishing/sinking, as their curves are less. Elbows end up a lot pointier in flex and to get them far enough from a single piece of metal means raising them down over stakes. By comparison to a roughly conical elbow point, the knee is almost a hemisphere. Lumpy, but almost.

[Konstantin the Red]

I look forward to it! . . . and try out Solaire's helm and raise that.

The Dark Souls 2 guy up-thread with the red and yellow sun on his tummy.

I see one guy made one with the eye slots too short -- no peripheral vision. The pic has it better... In barrel helms, always expect to give them a long eyeslot going well around to the right and left; try and get the ends of these sights to around 170 degrees apart at least.

These Solaire sights in the pic on left of the three in a row could be stretched wider side to side too if'n ya want the helm to work.

[ManOnFire68]

A sharp eye you have Mr. the Red.

[critch]

Thanks, Konstantin.

So I'm gathering I need to get my propane forge up and running first. Other then raising the top of the helm would be a challenge and getting it cylindrical and the right size for the noggin'. Good points for the eyeslots, if that helmet were made like that you wouldn't be able to see a thing!

For the wrap-around part on the "visor" part and the bottom "curtain" part, what would you recommend? Would it be possible to raise the entire helm from one sheet and then raise out the eye slots or would you rivet parts on to make it work? I'm confused how it'd be possible to make the fat band that wraps around the helmet?

[Konstantin the Red]

I'd rivet parts on -- and only raise the top half of the thing. The ventail and the nape I'd cut from sheet to shape and rivet onto a raised, one-piece top half. Even the very advanced, protective, and specialized frog-mouth helm was generally made in two riveted pieces.

Frankly, Solaire's looks constructed of riveted panels, like a 5-plate of the Maciejowski Bible's large-topped style. The form of it is about the easiest way to put a 5-plate type together, and you simply would not need to do the long labor of raising the entire helm from a single sheet of metal. A flat, broad top cap needs the right-angled corner all the way around.

Contrasted with this, a raised top half can as easily, or more easily, be built rather more gum-drop shaped -- sloping glancing surfaces and being fitted more to the skull. Being smaller up top and with glancing surfaces, such a helm is correspondingly harder to hit with a lance, which is a mighty armor-piercing weapon.

Poster Ernst found a nice, multiview actually, pic of a 5-plate greathelm type, last quarter fourteenth, that has a more rounded, smaller-topped profile than the Solaire helm -- a century's more development, as it were, and a development path that gets away from the corners. Quite like the Pembridge in the top cap, in fact.

There is a battle or tournament-melée scene illustrating the Roman de Giron here, with very many great helms mostly of this one type, and a few other helms varied, like with movable visors. They are almost sugarloaf-helm profiles, but their five plate construction is visible, particularly in the enlarged detail Ernst posted here. Scroll down about halfway. The men in the enlargement are way up in the upper left corner of the general melée scene, and you have lots of other angles of similar helms to look at. Busy crowd of men. See how steeply the top halves slope and how very dished the small top caps are. If top caps like that got any smaller, they'd about disappear, and the helms would be sugarloafs -- though I could stretch the sugarloaf definition to include helms of the loafy shape that had small top caps in the build.

The very slopy top halves of these helms could be made by raising also.

[Konstantin the Red]

And I don't have any idea what that fat band is supposed to do. I had taken it for the fur collar of a garment worn for warmth under his breastplate. Barrel-hats really don't have any big reason to flare wider down at the bottom; they can just keep the bucket look and do their job just fine...

Gamers and their graphic arts teams designing armor, don't you know. They paint up something they think looks cool, and the kids who don't know much about armor murmur "Wooowww" and want one.

Often the devil in these things is in the details. Try our discussion of the plate armor in the Assassin's Creed game for what the experience of trying to move wearing plate armor does to what some guy that doesn't know the subject enough drew because he thought it was stylish looking. The kid that was talking with us about it didn't know any better, and was miffed he'd have to learn. Well, trying to bend the metal woulda larned him, too.