The Armour Archive

(This is Wulfgar by the way, just to avoid confusion)

I made a leather spangen yesterday, 8 panels, with oculars. Very basic, as I wanted to nail down the basic pattern first.

I'm happy with it, but not ecstatic as I usually am with my leatherwork. With practice it'll get better I guess.

So I thought I'd post my experiences here and ask for any of yours.

1) Steel patterns do not work in leather
2) Sizing is tough... holes have to be pre-punched and trying to line them up when a panel or strap is too long or short (after bending and fitting two peices together) is a real pain in the ass.
3) Shaping leather and creating flares and bends through clever placement of rivets and stitches is a very "trial and error" process

So, now, some questions... from anybody, steel workers or leather workers...
1) How much extra length do you add to the circumference of a helm to allow for padding, ear clearance etc etc... i.e: If my head is 24 inches around, how long should my bottom strap be for a spangen helm?
2) Has anybody out there made a leather spangen? Tell me about it, I'm keen to hear!!




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Gylðir Ullicsson inn Gerpir af Ey-Vist

1:I found this on another post.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Otto:
<B>A really basic sizing aid, it the distance around your head at the forehead level. If your head measurement turns up at 22 inches, and you want room for 1 inch of padding all around, add 6 inches to your measurement...so the pattern would be 28 inches long. If you only want 1/2 inch of padding, then only add 3 inches for a 25 inch pattern length. This is simple math when figuring the circumfrence of a circle. (a helm is not done as a cirle, but close enough that the math still works)
</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gylðir:
<B>(This is Wulfgar by the way, just to avoid confusion)
2) Sizing is tough... holes have to be pre-punched and trying to line them up when a panel or strap is too long or short (after bending and fitting two peices together) is a real pain in the ass.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why perpunch them. Measure the size of your rivet and use a drill to make the hole. I do this a lot when I'm make alrge quantities of strapw ith eyelets in them. One side will be a bit ragged, so do a couple of test holes in scrap until you get use to it. This is nice because as long as you can get two pieces of overlapping leather your holes will line up.

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Chance Wheeler
DarkMoon Armory
http://www.chainmaile.com

Just a few suggestions/ideas:

You might do better making the whole dome from one peice of leather, then cutting the spangens out. all you'd need is a form to stretch it over (maybe a too small helm??) it will take a good bit of stretching to get a real round shape, but it is possible with a long enough soaking.

as for hole punching, you should be able to punch the holes in the straps, and then drill the holes in the spangens, using the pre-punched holes as guides.

as for sizing, here are some handy mathematical formulae:
circumfrence of an ellipse (average of the major and minor axes) X pi
Lets say your head is 8" long and 5" wide. a close fitting hat would need to be ((8 + 5)/2) X 3.14 or 20.15" around.
If you add 1" padding, you get a 10" long x7" wide "head" giving you {(10 + 7)/2} x 3.14 or
26.69" needed...


-+G

1: Scott posted on here in response to my question on spangehelms a while back and basically said that after you take the measurement around your head, add four inches to it for the brow band if you are going to use 1 inch of padding. For the top and side bands, make your measurements and add 2 inches to them to accomodate your padding. It works for me now that I have that formula down.

So, you have a steel pattern for a 8-panel spangenhelm, do ya? Wanna share?

I add 4 inches to the brow and 2" to the cross straps. 6" is way too much, unless you want to have 1" of padding on all sides.

Circumference is 2*pi*Radius, or 6.28*Radius. If you want to increase the radius by 1", add 6.28". If you want to go minimal with 0.5" of foam, add 3.14". 4" seems to be just the right amount to add, IMHO. It guarantees that you will have at least 0.5" of padding, and adds some "padding" to your measurements in case you screw something up.

- Scott

Are we going to see pics of said helm? as a fellow Albertan/Near Edmontonian/Leatherworker I'd love to see your work.

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YMMV

Yeoman Chris
Artisan, Clerk, Man At Arms
Editor of the KnightHaven newsletter