The Armour Archive

I am in the process of making my first helm right now, a spangenhelm
similar to this --> http://members.aol.com/annoratheaxe/spanghelm1.jpg
( Didn't pattern after that one, thats just the closest pic I could find online).

Anyways, the frame went great, but when I come to the corner panels, I'm
having a bit of difficulty. I can make one that fits, but on the inside it is butt-ugly,
the edges all wavy and jagged from cutting and recutting to make it fit. I know it
doesn't matter what it looks like on the inside, it will be an sca helm covered
in padding, but I am just wondering...

How do you pattern those? Is it all just trial and error? Poster board? Aluminum Foil?

Thanks in Advance,
Osric Isensmiþ

What I do is make the panels oversize, then mount the first one in after shaping. Drill and mount it with bolts and mark the closest I can trim it to the bolts. Trim it and remount and proceed to the next panel. Leave the panels in as you mark the next ones because you can pull and warp the framework from panel to panel if they're not secure.

Well, I'm no expert in making spangens, so I don't know if this will help. Have you tried tracing the openings? Fit a piece of paper up in the opening from the inside, and trace from the outside. Then add maybe a half inch or so all the way around.

This may help and it may not. Hal is who you need to talk to.

Cat

What I did for my latest helm (link in my sig), was make a wooden form the size of my head, then I used blue painter's tape to fill in the shape of the panels. Then, I took the tape off the form, flattened it, and traced it onto paper. It worked pretty well, as seen in the latest posts on the aforementioned website.

Still, it's a lot of trial and error. Cut it with extra.

Good advice so far from our members.
I will try to add a little.

This is a basic panel pattern.
http://www.armourarchive.org/patterns/n ... enhelm.gif

Also I like to spread tin foil over the outside of one section and shape it.
Then draw the cut lines with a sharpie.
Flatten it back out and cut out one panel shape.

It will be a little big but that helps with the trimming and fitting.

Remember their are 2 oppisite panels so two are traced from the back side of your pattern. The slope from front to back is greater than the slope from side to side.

Best of luck on your spangen.

Hal

I'll try to put my idea into words, please feel free to ask for more explanations if the first ones are crappy..

Let's look at the frame from the side. Focus on the front panel.
Measure the side from the bottom to the top including the overlapping you want.
Then measure from the top point of your first measure to the front and then finally from the bottom front point along the side om the frame to your first starting point.
Let's call this measurement A, B and C
Now imagine a slightly concave(?), horisontal line with the measure C, in each end draw a 90 degree corner, this will give you two, slightly inward pointing, startingpoints for A and B. These two lines will also connect with a 90 degree angle wich will give them a outward bend and since A is shorter than B the point will end up more to the A side of your "triangle".

Since it can be a bit hard measuring bent lines you could take three pieces of string and tape the corners in an angle on three small pieces of paper, then you can fiddle around with it until you get a nice "flowing" shape. Then trace that shape on a piece of paper and voilà, a pattern!

If you are unsure about wether your hammering will stretch the middle or shrink the edges you could ad a little on the outside of your tracing.

Wow, so many words for something so easily shown..
I hope it made some sense...
Good Luck!

Edit: Or just take your measurements and add them to Halberds pattern!

well this morning when I cut my first panel out I use a peice of paper and fit it to the hole. then used one of the panel plans that is here on the archive (from hal I think) and shrank it so it would fit but I left it a good 1 inch of leeway because as you dish it it will get smaller. I know that sounds wrong but when you curve the metal it draws up in the center and in at the sides.

heres what I came up with about an hour ago:


granted my panels are much smaller than a spangen because of the over sized bands.

~Casey

1) I'm a geek with a CAD station and I use math. Measure the three arc-lengths and draw a triangle that matches these dimensions. It's close but not perfect.

2) Take step one and divide all of the edges in half and create a mark. Take the average of 2 triangle legs and draw a new line from the apex of both of those lines through the middle of the third line. Now scribe arcs that pass through the triangle tips and the free ends of the bisecting lines. This is closer but not perfect since the tips do not stretch the same way so the tips should only be 90degrees and this makes the tips too wide.

3) Establish vectors 45 degrees from the bisecting lines where they meet the triangle apex. Build a conic or parabola that is tangent to the previous vectors and still passes through the free ends of the bisecting lines. Even closer but still not perfect depending on your dishing technique.

4) Model the entire thing in a CAD station, import into a finite element package, convert to a fine triangular mesh, Set the menu to handle large deflections, apply an infinite load to flatten the piece, export the results at 1:1 scale, trace, shape and find it STILL isn't perfect.

5) Wing it with scrap-paper, tape or aluminum foil, leave it a little large and trip to fit. Winging it taught me the most about making paterns and taught me exactly how unreliable the math can be BUT up to step 2 it's fairly easy and a good aproximation.

Sean