The Armour Archive

That sort of rough tearing around the holes of the Lyle certainly looks like an exit hole of a drill bit...to my untrained eyes, at least.

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:That sort of rough tearing around the holes of the Lyle certainly looks like an exit hole of a drill bit...to my untrained eyes, at least.

It does, KI.

To make matters even more confusing, some of the views I have looked at on the web today show the insides to be pretty clean and flat...(ish). I wonder if we are seeing evidence of several different ways of making those holes.

Mac

Mac wrote:




This view of my helmet also shows how I need to change the transition from the ventail to the cheek. If it's not one thing, it's another. Oh well... ten minutes of hot work, fifteen minutes of planishing, and another half hour getting the visor to fit the new shape. That's nothing on the grand scale.

Mac

It took about an hour to make the changes and take the pic. There's still more planishing to be done, but I'll leave it until I'm pretty sure that I won't be changing it again.



It's definitely improved, but I might go back and give it just a bit more of the same thing tomorrow.

Mac

The helmet is in Gay's book under the heading Aquilea, because that city had an early reputation as a source of fine armor, and the PDB is said to be from there. Laking also mentions that it was "said to be from Aquilea." Is there any evidence to back that claim up? That would suprise me.

This is magnificent work, Mac. Your latest photo comparison, despite the minor discrepancy you point out, is quite astonishing. I see that the front and rear bottom points of the ventail appear more rounded in the original than in yours, at least in that view. Or were you thinking of adding back some material at the bottom of the ventail? I think you mentioned that a while back, though I can't tell for certain if there is a need for that or not.

Here's a little overlay animation I tossed together of the last comparison set. I did not warp either of the images, and indexed the placement off of the face opening. I'd say some of the largest differences (left shoulder, front point, and visor size) are due to lens distortion and maybe a two-degree rotation difference of the subject...and a different pivot point for the visor. The focal point I was going for was that ventail to cheek profile.



Personally, I found the overlay fade enlightening, and a little easier than trying to compare the subtle differences side-by-side.

John Vernier wrote:The helmet is in Gay's book under the heading Aquilea, because that city had an early reputation as a source of fine armor, and the PDB is said to be from there. Laking also mentions that it was "said to be from Aquilea." Is there any evidence to back that claim up? That would suprise me.

Thank you, John!

I ran the entry through Google Translate, but never did get the idea that Aquilea was a place.

John Vernier wrote:This is magnificent work, Mac. Your latest photo comparison, despite the minor discrepancy you point out, is quite astonishing. I see that the front and rear bottom points of the ventail appear more rounded in the original than in yours, at least in that view. Or were you thinking of adding back some material at the bottom of the ventail? I think you mentioned that a while back, though I can't tell for certain if there is a need for that or not.

Thanks!

I'm still a bit up in the air over whether or not to add anyghting to the ventail, If I did, it would be only a couple of millimeters..... about half of what I cut off

It's tempting to try to draw out the edge a bit, but I don't want to make it thin and weak.

Both of my points are a bit pointier than the original, but I think the difference in the back here is exaggerated by a cropping error in the old photo. I figure I can round the points when I am done. I've already has the experience of cutting too much off.

Mac

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:Here's a little overlay animation I tossed together of the last comparison set. I did not warp either of the images, and indexed the placement off of the face opening. I'd say some of the largest differences (left shoulder, front point, and visor size) are due to lens distortion and maybe a two-degree rotation difference of the subject...and a different pivot point for the visor. The focal point I was going for was that ventail to cheek profile.



Personally, I found the overlay fade enlightening, and a little easier than trying to compare the subtle differences side-by-side.

I am just astonished! It's like the f*cking Harry Potter newspapers! I had no idea this sort of thing was..... a thing.

Perspective is definitely an issue here. In most of the other views, my point is too low, but here it's too high. I think I may need to pull the camera back even farther and use a longer lens.

The business with the visor arms and the brow really pisses me off, but it's an error that dates back to templating. This seems to be the view that shows it off the best (worst?).

Mac

I think this is where I am now. I've turned the helmet a bit to get the ventail to match better and that has shown up a couple of things...
--The work I just did on the right ventail horizon has been hidden by my having rotated the helmet a bit. I need to go back and extend that work forward a bit more.
--The horizon of back of the head is sloping in, where if should be more vertical. That's probably best addressed by removing some volume at the top.

The brow of the visor is still annoying me. There should be less of it visible from this view. I'll see if bringing the camera closer helps before I do anything drastic.



Mac

That's great development, Mac!!

But I'm afraid that the visor discrepancy is due to the fact the the brow itself is too tall and the "arms" as well are too wide, and attached 1 cm higher than the original, like Kristoffer suggests a few pages ago .

Keegan, would you share how you made that overlay?
I'd like to learn that too!

Best, Indi

I might be seeing things, but if I don't say it...

In the red highlight, is the face opening of yours not a bit rounder than the PDB?

In the blue highlight, is the peak on the PDB less pronounced than on yours?

I feel bad nitpicking, especially on something that's already received so much work, from someone so skilled, with such attention to detail. It's kind of like whispering over Da Vinci's shoulder that Mona Lisa's lips are a bit off.
Dave

Gustovic wrote:That's great development, Mac!!

Thanks, Augusto!

Gustovic wrote:But I'm afraid that the visor discrepancy is due to the fact the the brow itself is too tall and the "arms" as well are too wide, and attached 1 cm higher than the original, like Kristoffer suggests a few pages ago .

I got myself into trouble in a couple of places....

--I failed to get the ends of the visor arms down to the right height before I cut the hinges. This makes them start out too "tall". I can grind a bit more away, but there is a limit to what can be done before the hinges start looking weird.
--Ive got the pivots a bit to high. It's more like 5mm than 10, but they are definitely too high.
--When I opened the pivot holes up from 1/8" (3mm) to 1/4" (6mm) I took the opportunity to move them toward the back of the helmet. I thought that's what they needed, but I was wrong.
--I made the initial length of the visor cone (from point to brow) a bit too short. This has made the brow too steep.

At this point, it's a question of what corrections to apply so as to slew the general form in the right direction without any one thing being too far out.

Mac

Aussie Yeoman wrote:I might be seeing things, but if I don't say it...

In the red highlight, is the face opening of yours not a bit rounder than the PDB?

In the blue highlight, is the peak on the PDB less pronounced than on yours?



Dave

Those are good calls, Dave!

I was aware of the peaks being a bit too sharp and was planning to fix them. The upper part of the face was a thing I didn't feel right about, but couldn't put a finger on. Now that you point it out, it's pretty clear.

I'll see about fixing both of those by some time tomorrow.

Mac

This one was a little trickier...if I indexed off the face opening, the majority of the skull was out of alignment. If I matched the major shape of the skull and nape of the neck, it put the face opening out of whack. I'm thinking this image might have been rotated too far to the right, perhaps? You have nailed the distance and distortion, though. See both options below: Face alignment on the left, skull alignment on the right. I've also slowed things down, since there are more lines changing in this one.



(Apologies if this is slowing down anyone's page loading; I can change these over to links, instead of embedding them, if necessary.)

Keegan Ingrassia wrote:This one was a little trickier...if I indexed off the face opening, the majority of the skull was out of alignment. If I matched the major shape of the skull and nape of the neck, it put the face opening out of whack. I'm thinking this image might have been rotated too far to the right, perhaps? You have nailed the distance and distortion, though. See both options below: Face alignment on the left, skull alignment on the right. I've also slowed things down, since there are more lines changing in this one.

Thanks KI!

Mac

Here are the changes for the facial. I've actually filed this material out already, but I didn't take a pic of it yet.



Mac

This is my plan for trying to change the shape of the visor's forehead. If I crosspeen these areas (from the inside) on both visor arms, that should shove the top of the visor away from the helmet skull. I'll then raise the brow back in till it rests on the helmet again. That should change the slope of the visor's forehead to be more like the original. It will also lower the place where the visor meets the helmet as well as lowering the nose a bit. This should all be to the good.



Mac

This is what the visor looked like after crosspeening the arms to lengthen them...



...and here is it after closing the gap back up. The black line is where I will trim it. This removes the bulge created by the stretching operation and then some.



The pic on the left is before the visor work, and the one on the right is after. There's not much change, but what there is is to the good.



Here's the latest comparison to the visor open pic. I'm still showing a bit more of the visor's forehead, but I don't think I can do much about it. Some of this is going to be about asymmetries in the original and in my repro not lining up. All in all, I don't think it amounts to much.



Mac

Mac,

The shape is better but,
I think that your last photo was taken a bit too low and maybe the visor should be open a bit more.
You previous set of photos are closer (perspective wise) to the original.

Your continuing refinements of the shape go way beyond anything I have ever imagined, thanks for bringing us along on this process.
It seems that that you are approaching the point where the maker of the original could become confused as to which one was his work and which was yours.
Certainly the original owner would not know which one was his.

Tom B. wrote:Mac,

The shape is better but,
I think that your last photo was taken a bit too low and maybe the visor should be open a bit more.
You previous set of photos are closer (perspective wise) to the original.

Your continuing refinements of the shape go way beyond anything I have ever imagined, thanks for bringing us along on this process.
It seems that that you are approaching the point where the maker of the original could become confused as to which one was his work and which was yours.
Certainly the original owner would not know which one was his.

Thank you, Tom!

I'm definitely getting into a diminishing returns regime here. It's probably time to set down the torch and hammer, and move along.

Mac

Last night I started trying to lay out the holes for the lining rivets, and ran into a problem. It's about this "slavish copy" thing. On the original, there is a different number of lining holes on the two sides of the "neck". One hole is clearly in the center back, and then there are 6 more on each side before we reach the visor cheeks. On the left there is one more under the visor, and on the right there are two. This works on the original because of some asymmetries, but is I try to lay them out this way on my repro it gets wonky looking.

I think what I have to do is lay them out in a way that is functionally symmetrical, even if that makes there be one more or less than the original. It may require shifting them so that there is no hole in the center back.

It irritates me to have to deviate from the original that way, but it's clear that I already have deviated by not faithfully copying some accidental asymmetry.

Mac

I think I'd leave the hole in the center back, and just use one less hole on the side. I think it would be much less noticeable. It just seems to make sense since you've worked so hard to make it look accurate. Unless they count the holes a casual viewer wont notice. OTOH, I guess it will be viewed more often from the front than the back. hmmmmmm.... probably better to pay no attention to my feeble minded advice! LOL. Go with your gut.

Otto von Teich wrote:I think I'd leave the hole in the center back, and just use one less hole on the side. I think it would be much less noticeable. It just seems to make sense since you've worked so hard to make it look accurate. Unless they count the holes a casual viewer wont notice. OTOH, I guess it will be viewed more often from the front than the back. hmmmmmm.... probably better to pay no attention to my feeble minded advice! LOL. Go with your gut.

Thanks, Otto!

I'v got them laid out in sharpy pen, and I'm letting it sink in a bit before I center punch them. I think you are right about keeping a rivet in the center back.

Mac

I've done the first rough grind on the skull, and I think my arms will probably fall off. Even though it's only 14ga, it's an unwieldy thing to bring to the grinder.



I'm ready for one of these, so I can sit down and get a knee under the work....



Mac

I know it might get tiresome for you Mac, but I will reiterate my stupor and awe.

This is an amazing project and the whole community is just better off with its completion.

Btw, how much does the helm weight? I'd guess around 5.5 kilos, since you did it in 2 mm (right?).

Gustovic wrote:

Btw, how much does the helm weight? I'd guess around 5.5 kilos, since you did it in 2 mm (right?).

I've got about 4.7 kg right now. The visor is made on 1.5mm stuff, which seems about right from the measurements I have.

Overall, I'm going to be under weight. The real one comes in at 5.29Kg.

Way back in the beginning I had a choice of .075" and .082". I guess I should have used the heavier stuff. On the other hand, it may have crippled me to swing the helmet around I've got a biceps tendon issue that I'm working around, and I'm right at the limits of what I can control with that arm.

Mac

I took a break from trying to swing the helmet around, and worked on the visor.




Mac

Looking good.
Wise choice on taking a break from the heavy part to do the visor.
How many passes of grinding is that on the visor?
What grit did you get to?

Tom B. wrote:Looking good.
Wise choice on taking a break from the heavy part to do the visor.

Thanks!

I can barely lift my arms from yesterday

Tom B. wrote:How many passes of grinding is that on the visor?
What grit did you get to?

Different things in different places...

--I went over the whole thing with a weld grinding disc to remove the hammer marks and level the surface
--Places that were accessible to a belt sander got 80gr with a hard platen followed by 180 on a padded platen
--Places where I coldn't use the belt sander got 5" wavy edged discs in 80 and 180 gr. I used hook/loop discs and a tapered pad
--Where none of this would reach (like the corners of the mouth) I used small discs
--Everything got a going over with a fine/hard scotchbrite wheel

The jump from 180gr to find scotchbrite is not a very good one, but I find that the medium scotchbrite is too coarse.

Mac

Mac wrote:
--I went over the whole thing with a weld grinding disc to remove the hammer marks and level the surface
Mac

Got any pictures? There seems to be quite the difference in opinion, as to what a weld grinding disc is from a google search.

izirath wrote:

Mac wrote:
--I went over the whole thing with a weld grinding disc to remove the hammer marks and level the surface
Mac

Got any pictures? There seems to be quite the difference in opinion, as to what a weld grinding disc is from a google search.

Indeed there is. My bad

I mean one of these guys.



It seems like the best search is depressed center grinding wheel.
I talked about how to dress one up for use on the St. Florian thread. The important thing is to have them running very true and smooth.

Mac

So used to seeing both the original and yours black it's totally different to see it in a polished condition. I'm sure the finished project will be off the charts!

bartholomew wrote:So used to seeing both the original and yours black it's totally different to see it in a polished condition.

It's a bit of a shock, isn't it! I'm not sure if I'll leave it white, or try to give it a dark patina.

Mac

I think I am going to turn my attention to the pivots while my arms rest a bit.

Here's the problem.....

Like a handful of other surviving bascinet pivots, these are partly brass.



Since the hinge has its brass soldered on, it's tempting to think that that's the way to do it here. I could make up an iron rivet on the lathe, and fit it out with a sort of truncated cone of brass.

And, while that may well be what's happening here on the Churburg 13 bascinet...




... it's not what we see on the Ch 16, where the transition is smooth and not strictly circular.



I'm wondering if some of these have their brass cast directly onto an iron core. I could probably simulate that by applying a heavy coat of braze and then turning the pivot down to shape on the lathe.

Thoughts?

Mac

I have only cast bronze once (from a horse**** and straw and grog mould in a clay furnace) but I think that the 'fire-breathing dragon' warhammer in Italy was made that way, and casting the ottone rondel around a iron pin would probably work.

CH 16 looks like the rondel could be coppered iron. The Mappae Clavicula describes one way to do that, and the forthcoming article will have a section on it.

Mappae Clavicula, an early medieval Latin list of recipes wrote:Copper powder (aeris pulvis) or fillings (limatura) are ground with vinegar in a bronze mortar with salt and alum until they have the thickness of honey. Some use water instead of vinegar. Then, the iron having been well cleaned and gently heated, this mixture is spread upon it and rubbed until it takes on the colour of bronze; then it is washed with water and ground, and so it can be gilt like silver ...

gaukler might have an idea.