The Armour Archive

I saw a guy sparring with Duke Timothy recently and the guy had a beautiful stainless norman helm. Tim was using a trashed pell sword and placed four flat snaps in a row to the guys head. As each shot landed it left a serious dent(almost creased). I watched this thinking "wow Tim's using a shit sword and not really hitting all that hard, why is this happening?". After the fight I inspected the helm. Yup, four near creases and some other smaller dents. I asked him how long he had been wearing the helm. He said "since June of this year" roughly six months, what gauge is the steel? " 14 I think", who made it? "Windrose"

I am in no way trying to slam the guys at Windrose. I am a big admirer of their work and their stuff has always been top notch. I was just a bit dumbfounded cause I have seen "lesser" quality helms(even mild) survive decades of abuse and not come out looking like this. I told the guy he should call them and discuss the matter. I really cant imagine one of their pieces failing like this and I thought they would be concerned about it as well. At this point I don't know if he has tried to communicate with them or not. I only know that if I were in his shoes and had made such an investment I would like to know what's going on.

Again I am not trying slam Windrose. It's just an observation that I made.

Cheers,
Andreas

this sounds to me like there are some people getting a softer stainless alloy out there.


You have to sand _a lot_ to reduce that much material off a helm.

Now it might be over grinding at the wields but this sounds like it's just a softer alloy

AndreasMorgan wrote:I saw a guy sparring with Duke Timothy recently and the guy had a beautiful stainless norman helm. Tim was using a trashed pell sword and placed four flat snaps in a row to the guys head. As each shot landed it left a serious dent(almost creased). I watched this thinking "wow Tim's using a shit sword and not really hitting all that hard, why is this happening?". After the fight I inspected the helm. Yup, four near creases and some other smaller dents. I asked him how long he had been wearing the helm. He said "since June of this year" roughly six months, what gauge is the steel? " 14 I think", who made it? "Windrose"

I am in no way trying to slam the guys at Windrose. I am a big admirer of their work and their stuff has always been top notch. I was just a bit dumbfounded cause I have seen "lesser" quality helms(even mild) survive decades of abuse and not come out looking like this. I told the guy he should call them and discuss the matter. I really cant imagine one of their pieces failing like this and I thought they would be concerned about it as well. At this point I don't know if he has tried to communicate with them or not. I only know that if I were in his shoes and had made such an investment I would like to know what's going on.

Again I am not trying slam Windrose. It's just an observation that I made.

Cheers,
Andreas

That sounds really odd about Windrose, especially knowing where they get some of their tops from. I've never heard of an issue with their gear like that before.

g-

Sean Powell wrote:
We could really use a re-visit of the Peter van Dorn bowling ball experiments but find some way to look at kinetic energy as well as momentum and try to emprically establish a 'good' shot. Then we can look into developing a helm standard that meets the functional requirements.

Sean

There have to be better ways to perform a kinetic energy test than this one. Depending on where you hit the ball with your stick, and where on the stick you hit it, you can significantly alter how far you launch the ball. For instance, by stepping in tight and short sticking the ball you can launch it much farther than by throwing something closer to the end.

g-

I have a Hammerbreaker helm and I find new dents after most practices and events. I would like to harden the helm a bit and was thinking of case hardening.

My tentative plan is:
1) Get loads of crushed charcoal
2) Get large airtight metal container
3) Pack helm in charcoal in airtight metal container
4) Place said container containing helm and charcoal on fire
5) Bake until done (5 to 6 hours)
6) Empty container
7) Exclaim with wonder at new dent resistant helm

Am I out of my mind or is this something, that with a lot more research, that has a chance of working?

I think you might find the price cheaper, and the results better, to use a professional hardening company.

Payn makes a good point, another possibility is using a modern compound for doing it yourself. If you still want to do it the old fashioned way, I'd suggest adding some leather trimmings and ground bone to the mix. I'm not sure why, but that's supposed to work better. Maybe as the charcoal smoulders it leaves air pockets next to the steel?

Mondor wrote:I have a Hammerbreaker helm and I find new dents after most practices and events. I would like to harden the helm a bit and was thinking of case hardening.

My tentative plan is:
1) Get loads of crushed charcoal
2) Get large airtight metal container
3) Pack helm in charcoal in airtight metal container
4) Place said container containing helm and charcoal on fire
5) Bake until done (5 to 6 hours)
6) Empty container
7) Exclaim with wonder at new dent resistant helm

Am I out of my mind or is this something, that with a lot more research, that has a chance of working?

a) Look into a material called Kasenit. It's esentially charcoal powder and some catalysts.
b) Airtight is a bomb. You need ways to vent the pressure without causing flare-ups. A pin hole or two should do.
c) Kasenit is expensive so use something to displace volume inside the helm.
d) check the Kasenit label but I think you want to go for 1600F or low red. That probably means kiln rather then fire or oven. It's governed by the Arhenious equation so for every 20deg less then 1600 double your time. 1500F is therefore 2^5=64 times longer. 1 hour at 1600F vs 2.5 days at 1500F.
e) you will not have an annealed carbon steel layer over mild. You still need to quench and then temper. You can quench dirctly from the 1600F if you want to pour the Kasenit into the quench tank... you still want an ~600F temper.
f) exclaim in wonder at the cost, complication and the fact that you F***ed up the polish badly because of Kasenit inconsistancy.

...or you can track down a company that does it profesionally that has the kilns and uses arsinic gas and other things that you and I can't even dream of. This is my plan. I spent WAY too much on a GB from Maxim and the steel just feels thin in my hands. I can afford to drop the cost of a mid-grade helm on top of what I've already spent to make myself more confident about dent resistance.

Good Luck!
Sean

DukeAlaric (George S.) wrote:

Sean Powell wrote:
We could really use a re-visit of the Peter van Dorn bowling ball experiments but find some way to look at kinetic energy as well as momentum and try to emprically establish a 'good' shot. Then we can look into developing a helm standard that meets the functional requirements.

Sean

There have to be better ways to perform a kinetic energy test than this one. Depending on where you hit the ball with your stick, and where on the stick you hit it, you can significantly alter how far you launch the ball. For instance, by stepping in tight and short sticking the ball you can launch it much farther than by throwing something closer to the end.

g-

Sorry that I didn't see this back in November. Actually the owling ball test is a basic conservation of momentum test and doesn't tell us squat about kinetic energy or impact energy. To do that requires electronics and high-speed g-force sensors... or a karate board-breaking experiment. You can get a reasonable measure of KE by drilling holes in 2 boards and having a mess-load of pencils or oak dowels spanning the gap.

While I would love to set up a KE impact test, I don't own the correct equipment to do so.

Sean

I have an old great helm that I use for rebated steel and as a loaner. Someone gave it to me in 1980 or so. I wore it quite a bit for about 5 yrs.
Until I started using it as a loaner, it had one dent from a year that it was loaned to Sir Allesander when someone stole his armor. It is 14 ga mild at most.

Allowing it to be used as a loaner has really beat it up though. Lots of low grade dents in it now. But there is a lot of padding in it.

My primary helm is a bassinet made by Black Hand of An Tir in like 1978 or so. I bought it from Master Nicholas Worthington (who was one of James Greyhelm's Squires) in about 1986. It was then undented, but now has had a single light dent in the back for about 5 yrs. Not enough for me to bother pounding out. It might be 13 ga at most and its mild. I also have a lot of padding in it. I wonder if the padding makes any difference. In those old helms we almost always have at a minimum 3/4" - 1 1/4" of padding, and often more on the crown.

I have a sallet I am afraid to try out, because it would be so tight there is very little room for padding and I'm not sure how thick it is.

I sold an old Kirby greathelm to a friend. It was made about 1978 or so with 12 ga sides and a 10 ga top. It was so huge I had to put about 1.5" of padding around the sides and about 2+ in the top. It was a tank. I used it for a few years when I was a new fighter. No dents.

Who makes the windrose helms? I've got a fluted conical and it's pretty stout, though I wish the grill would've been made of stainless because it's rusting pretty crazy even with my maintenance regime.

My original dented 14 ga SS helmet was replaced with a 14 ga Spring Steel helmet. It is rock solid.