Courtesy on altering a helm?

[Ironbadger]

A question I felt I should ask before I attempt anything on the helm I just received.

I'll see about posting a pic later- but the guess earlier was it was an old Clang bascinet.

The existing bargrill is really, really long and pointy.
So much so that I have some concerns over how it will balance when I wear it.

I'm also a 22 inch head or so- this helm was made for a 24 inch.
However, the existing padding- which is going away as I plan to strip and prime the interior for rust prevention- is so thick that it grips my head too tight.

It has all the clearance I need for my glasses...
Thats been tested already, and theres plenty of room.

While it will likely be a bit oversized, it will actually fit with my glasses in place.
It will do as a placeholder until I get around to making my permanent kit.


Now the question on ethics and courtesy.
The maker is uncertain- this may be an early Clang, but so far that is not certain.

I assume its a courtesy to try to contact the maker to ask before performing a major rework of a helm or other pieces of armour?

If the maker cannot be determined for sure, is it a breach of etiquette of the community to just tear into it and replace the grill?

Helms seem to be a bit more of an issue in terms of altering someone else's work, as theres more personal involvement than something like say, a set of cops..

I would also like to pierce it for vervailles and add an aventail.
(I assume so common a modification is not a permission issue?)

I'd prefer to be polite and have a word with the maker before I rip up something he had made- but am I being too concerned over it?
Is it that big an issue?

I place great value on manners and courtesy in a community like this.
Maybe more than is always necessary- but to me, its an important part of an interest in chivalry and the era we re-create.

-Badger-

[Ironbadger]

The helm in question-



The sneck hook for the visor might be an issue with the vervailes and aventail..
Its set mighty low.

-Badger-

[Keegan Ingrassia]

You could always take out the sneck hook, and put a spring push-pin up at the brow. Wouldn't be in the way of the vervailes or aventail, and it would be easily gotten to by a gauntleted hand. If you're worried about a random blow managing to hit it and pop open the visor, install two.

[Samuel]

you purchased it.. its yours to do as you please.

I went through a phase making loads of simple bascinets I did grills and sized small med and large.. a few people added klapvisors etc. its kind of flattering to have your work embellished and emulated so by all means.. do as you will and post before/after photos.

[The Iron Dwarf]

dont know about armourers but if I make something and you buy it and can then improve on it I am happy about that

[AaronCarter]

I think you're putting too mutch thought into this. Once you buy the helmet it belongs to you, and you may do with it as you please. The only time I think the courtesy issue comes into play is when you are comissioning the work it is polite to give the origional maker a chance to bid on the work(especialy if it is brand new).

[Sasha_Khan]

It's YOUR helmet. Add vervelles, an aventail - hell, turn it into a flowerpot - it's yours to do with it what you will...

[Ironbadger]

Thanks guys.

I had some vague memory of it being an unspoken sin of sorts to alter a helmet without talking to the maker...

I couldn't remember what I had read on the subject- so I figured it was simple enough to toss it out for discussion and get more solid info.

The sneck hook is awfully low on the side...
I had thought about removing it completely to clear room for vervailes, but I may experiment a bit first.

The helm is HUGE.
Its way larger than my head- I'm not quite concerned that its too large for me- but even putting the vervaile line below the hook, theres still something like an inch and a half from the edge to where I think they should go.

Clearing out the padding and cleaning things up is the first priority.
I do not have a welder- but I could get one, and the grill I am thinking of doing is the old standby of 1/8" thick, 1/2 or 3/4 inch wide steel barstock, drilled for quarter inch rods and the ends flattened and riveted to the edges of the visor.

I actually thought I might try making a pigface for this helm, but I need a bit more practice before I am willing to devote the time to something like that.

I had some vague, weird idea of a cutout, pigface frame with perf panels in the cutouts...But that seems just a little silly, now that I have the helm in hand.
(Could you even make something like that? What was I thinking?)

I do get these wild creative urges from time to time....
Sometimes its best I slap them down- But a few do take hold and things..grow.

I should be careful.
I do not have a creek to throw the failed experiments in to quietly drown.

-Badger-

[Konstantin the Red]

The existing bargrill is really, really long and pointy.
So much so that I have some concerns over how it will balance when I wear it.

I'm also a 22 inch head or so- this helm was made for a 24 inch.
However, the existing padding- which is going away as I plan to strip and prime the interior for rust prevention- is so thick that it grips my head too tight.

It has all the clearance I need for my glasses...
Thats been tested already, and theres plenty of room.

While it will likely be a bit oversized, it will actually fit with my glasses in place.
It will do as a placeholder until I get around to making my permanent kit.

Pad, chinstrap, and attach camail and see what the balance for the whole thing is really like before you go nuts chopping things up with an angle-grinder cutoff wheel. Room for glasses or athletic specs is a crucial design consideration here. You said built for a 24"-circumference head, and pretty huge at that, but circumference of the helmet, measuring tape under the visor, visor lifted, will clue us more quantitatively about how much padding the maker thought the customer should have. Bascinets fitting glasses under the grill need some room there at the corners of things. You have there a 1390s type back-point, and had I such a hat I wouldn't change its profile for the world, not even Were diu Welt alle min... Such extremes of pointiness were a late form of the 14th-c. bascinet. The visor is not too sharp to be legal. You'll want a full rig with globose breast to team with this one.

Sounds like the previous wearer had a smaller head than yours; re-do and re-stuff this basc as required, and I'd break out the Dremel and drill bit (or the R-W #5 jr. @ 1/16" punch & die) for making the authentic little stitch holes around its bottom edges and face edges for stitching in a period, quilted bascinet-stuffing -- this is a chance for a major upgrade to a fine old hat! A simple one, too! Does it get any better?! Marshallate-pacifying skeletonized squidgey-foam may be framed within the hat, hidden by the stuffed hood, as a last ditch stopper. Easiest source of squidgey foam is to cut up a gardeners' kneel pad -- those things that look like soft cutting boards.

I assume it's a courtesy to try to contact the maker to ask before performing a major rework of a helm or other pieces of armour?

If the maker cannot be determined for sure, is it a breach of etiquette of the community to just tear into it and replace the grill?

The assumption does you credit for your great courtoisie, but frankly, makers don't worry hardly at all about somebody succeeding at making the hat they built into something undeniably even better. My two florins here is "Good man; now calm down already." This is after all quite an old helmet. It's in nice shape for an oldster too. Leave that grill alone; you may desire it as a change-out optional visor for a hounskull visor, using the demounting charnel-hinges up there at the pivots.

Helms seem to be a bit more of an issue in terms of altering someone else's work, as theres more personal involvement than something like say, a set of cops..

I would also like to pierce it for vervailles and add an aventail.
(I assume so common a modification is not a permission issue?)

Exactly. It never would be. Ever. It's making a nice helm nicer yet. And is not this making long and long overdue? What do you figure you're doing for vervelles -- post? Tunnel? Custom built, handmade by you, or quick & dirty? You will likely want to flare out the sides of the visor to give space for the camail's temple triangles to fit in there. This will not be extreme -- rawhide-mallet stuff. Use a camail strap that rides a little above the bottom of the helmet, right around and paralleling the bottom edge, and the temple doglegs rising diagonally up the sides of the helmet, the vervelle line of the temple triangles slanting above the sneck. Get the doglegs tall enough that your temple triangles be tall enough to really hold the camail's chin area well upon your own chin, and line it in there for comfort too. Have a slightly padded liner to the camail also, for right shape. You can hide ventilation eyelets in there if you want (that's SCA-Engineered school of armor design right there), and that will wholly conceal any safety gorget you use. Watch that you may have quite a space between bottom front of bargrill and where your chin and face actually begin. You may desire to insert a welded-in crossbar there to bar any freak thrust shots coming inside and up your face, relocating your nose.

And that sneck hook: it's fairly big. It's also fitted so close and neat that it just might hide underneath your camail (even a liner, if you attach it the unproven way at the vervelles, under the camail strap) and you'll still be able to get at it from beneath the camail, by feel.

I salute and understand your care.

{edited a lot}

[Swamp Stick]

I agree with all of the above. The only time I would consult with the maker is if it is a really high end or intricate helmet. I'm not sure I would be willing to work on a top end helm myself anyway, I'd rather have the maker do it (if possible). Can you imagine making changes to one of Ugo's helms?

Bjorn

[wcallen]

We used to sell a lot of stuff.

Once it left our shop, it was the property of the owner. They can do what they want.

Now - if you make enough modifications you probably don't want to keep attributing it to the originator exclusively. Now it is "early Clang with modifications by xxxxx".

That doesn't mean that if we knew the guy who butchered one of our pieces we didn't reserve the right to pick on him/her in a good natured way. But we did the same thing when someone let something rust up that we had spent hours polishing. All part of the game.

If you want to make sure something isn't modified, don't sell it or give it away.

Wade

[Count Johnathan]

It's your hat, do what you will with it.

My standard for people who own my helms is that if it ever needs repair of any kind I will fix it for free however, if you go and attack the helm with power tools or altar it in any way (other than holes for strapping) the "lifetime warranty" is void.

Also dents are not considered "damage" that needs repair. If it gets a dent then hammer it out.

[Ironbadger]

Something like this is probably what I was thinking, and garbled it in memory.

Thank you for the clarification.

-Badger-

My standard for people who own my helms is that if it ever needs repair of any kind I will fix it for free however, if you go and attack the helm with power tools or altar it in any way (other than holes for strapping) the "lifetime warranty" is void.

[Ironbadger]

Such extremes of pointiness were a late form of the 14th-c. bascinet. The visor is not too sharp to be legal. You'll want a full rig with globose breast to team with this one.

I wasn't thinking in terms of globose- more like a large-plate brigandine.

Though that is a good suggestion.
My preferred kit is actually a sallet and plackart, but its looking like I'll be making an entire 14th century rig for this helm.

Sounds like the previous wearer had a smaller head than yours; re-do and re-stuff this basc as required, and I'd break out the Dremel and drill bit (or the R-W #5 jr. @ 1/16" punch & die) for making the authentic little stitch holes around its bottom edges and face edges for stitching in a period, quilted bascinet-stuffing -- this is a chance for a major upgrade to a fine old hat! A simple one, too! Does it get any better?! Marshallate-pacifying skeletonized squidgey-foam may be framed within the hat, hidden by the stuffed hood, as a last ditch stopper. Easiest source of squidgey foam is to cut up a gardeners' kneel pad -- those things that look like soft cutting boards.

I did think about a linen pad liner.
I'm not sure whether I'll be keeping this as a long term kit though.
For now, I'm having fun playing with ideas and designs.
(An advantage of being an artist is that I can draw elaborate design studies while I mess with concepts.)
I can get EVA foam locally, cut to whatever size I need for cheap.
I used to use it to make foam weapons for Dagorhir, and the folks at Anaheim foam and fabric will cut me whatever I need, in any thickness they stock.
(Its actually cheaper than salvaging pads or the like.)
better stuff than camping pad, and really tough as well as squishy.
I've used it a long time, in both foam weapons and armour padding.
Great stuff.

Not sure what style vervailes I'll be doing yet.
I may buy a set from Windrose-though the large brass cotter pin idea has merit.
I could make my own too- But time is more of an issue for me than the money is once I hit the summer, as thats usually my busiest season for contract work.

I'm not fond of the tunnel style made from bent over flat stock though, so I won't be using that one for certain.
(I just don't like the look.)

-Badger-

[Konstantin the Red]

And tunnels wouldn't be right for a late-model backpoint anyway. Posts were in long before then.

Even large-plate brigs would be next-century. Some variant of late-fourteenth globose would be ultra-correct. Or a circa-1400 corrazina -- same chest profile, plus fauld lames.

[CiaranBlackrune]

IB, my shop and services are available if you need them. While I am FAR from being an armourer, I do make most of my own helms and all my own bar grills. I recently made a bar grill for a GDFB bascinet I recently aquired. (I'll post photos later when I get home) I can also assist you with padding it, polishing it, mounting the chinstrap and vervielles. I have very limited experience mounting aventails though. (I am also a marshal so we'll make sure your 100% legal before your first inspection)

Refurbishing that helm will be easy peasy lemon squeezy.

If you need any assistance don't hesitate to contact me. If I can't do it I'll help you find someone local who can.

[Kilkenny]

I suspect that you may be remembering some discussion among the "professional armourers" regarding the propriety of altering another "professional's" work. It's a bit different than when the end user start in with alterations.

some of which can be embarrassing, he says, guiltily.

[Frederich Von Teufel]

I've made a lot of armour over the years. I've never lost a moments sleep worrying about it being altered by someone else after it left my hands, nor will I ever.

This can be answered on two different levels though.

I've spoken about the three personalities of an armourer: the artist, the craftsman, and the businessman. The businessman doesn't care about the armour once it's been sold, so we can ignore him for the sake of the argument. The craftsman is more concerned with the performance of the armour, therefore altering the armour he made to suit the needs of the customer is a perfectly reasonable decision.

The artist is where this whole argument lies. To the artist, the completed work is an object that holds a certain amount of reverance. To alter that finished work is to deface the peice of art. There is a certain amount of validity to that argument. Except...most armourer aren't big on the artist side of their personality. I know that there are only a couple of peices I have ever made that have explored the artist side of my personality, and those peices are obvious that they were intended to be art peices, not using peices.

For me, my craftsman side fully supports the tenet that armour should serve it's function. I support altering to make that happen.

[PartsAndTechnical]

As a word of caution (believe me I know), whatever modification you intend on doing for a customer:

--get it ALL done in sketches AND in writing

--realize that modifications sometimes take longer than original work; your balancing multiple issues from technical realities to desires

--and be very clear with them about realistic expectations (modifications dont always turn out as ideally as we might like)

--And while I dont usually suggest this, in the case of a modification, I suggest taking 35% up front, non refundable.

--Lastly, avoid complex modifications unless youve done it before and/or are confident you can do it quickly.

[Ironbadger]

Cleanup has begun.
I made a separate post for the pics and commentary.

Konstantin-
I think I was thinking corazina when I said large plate brig..
Just got the wrong terminology.
My bad.

In any case, rehab has begun on the old bucket.

-Badger-

[Konstantin the Red]

They are more or less cousins -- they function on the same principle of hard pieces secured inside a shell.

Though if anyone's proven the covered breast to be a direct ancestor of the 15th-c. brig, I haven't heard. It's tempting, it's plausible... it's unattested. And it would be contemporary with a back-point bascinet. One like your'n.

If you go with extensive redesign of the demountable visor ref'd and shown in your other thread about this helmet, do you think there is much scope for wider peripheral vision? There's a pretty big face opening under the broad margin of the current visor, and the bargrill seems almost narrow. If you build another visor, you're going to want some soft-mallet time on it to get it smoothly curving like the current visor, which blends so nicely with the hat.

[Huh. System's not saying "Post edited," but this post has been! Made it twice as long.]

[Hee hee! Much much later, it's the new software -- "post edited, edited X times in total" only kicks in if somebody posted after the edited post. Well, just how about that...]