Next foray into tin bashing. Corinthian Helmet

[Tangledfeet]

Great work! You're being more imaginative than I was a few years ago when I had an attempt at making a Mandalorain helmet; I cheated and used a pattern I bought from Etsy - designed for modelling foam. I also used, if I recall 2.4mm cold rolled steel; the 1.6mm you're using far more sensible!

Stuff you have made today

Habemus Lithos. Ejected a kidney stone

www.mig-welding.co.uk

 

[Richiew]

I've found it a bit frustrating searching for patterns as most of them are for kids, cosplayers and the like and designed for foam, paper and card. It's all cut, glue and sellotape together which uses different shapes compared to dishing steel from a flat piece

This site is the best I've found.

Armour Archive Pattern Index

 

[Richiew]

FYI Material Thickness. Nugent Marathon Helmet

Bronze not steel though.

Weapon Wednesday: The Nugent Marathon Corinthian Helmet

The Corinthian helmet type is one of the most immediately recognisable types of helmet, romantically associated with the great heroes of Ancient Greece, even by the Ancient Greeks themselves who rapidly moved to helmet types with better visibility...

www.rom.on.ca

Rotted areas are thinner. I wonder what they were originally? Were they thin to begin with, hence corroding away, or did the corrosion cause the thinning? Usually the answer to this sort of question is a bit of both.

 

[selectedgrub]

Interesting, Cast and formed.
Maybe the corrosion was around how it was found.

 

[Richiew]

Always face the enemy, so thickest armour at the front perhaps? A bit like tanks?

edit

I should have really read the article....

 

[Richiew]

Time to have a go then.

The second video I featured shows a very shallow dishing stump being used. It looks like a flat stump having being worn in the middle over time. I had a spare lump of tree so I gave it a very flat dish. It's pretty much like a wooden anvil. It will save my nicer stump from being knocked about too much

First run around the edge with the smoothest ball pein hammer of the bunch

2nd run around. Dish is forming already

Onto the dishing stumps and the nylon hammer to further develop and flatten the lumps and bumps. Both stumps got used, starting with the little deep one to get some more dish.

Plenty of beating later.

To continue. Lots more to tell.

 

[Richiew]

Second half.

I thought the ball pein hammer had made some nasty bumps in the material, so I experimented using only the little end of the nylon hammer instead to see what the difference would be.

Inside.

I was a bit less of a fanny hitting the thing this time.

I was using the fat end of the hammer from this point on.
This half was developing creases like the bloke's workpiece in the second video so I knew I was somewhere close to where I needed to be in the violence stakes.

Like the fella mentioned in the video, it is easy to create a curve along the long side, from front to back. I am struggling a little to develop the curve along the short dimension running from base to top. This is giving a rather pointy appearance. More bashing required.

Thor's handle is looking a bit scratched already.

Hammer faces have held up well. I am very pleased that my dishing stump is made out of hardwood. I think it is Oak. 1.6mm steel needs a good old beating. Softwood might have suffered a bit. I may need to use slightly enlarged pattern for the top of the helmet. Will see how this develops. This is only a first go which isn't even finished yet. I'm just feeling this out.

The timestamps on these photos ran from 14.39 to 15.31 so less than an hour to do all this
I'm off to annoy the neighbours again.

 

[Porkypine]

Going well !.. It looks like a very respectable 1066 norman helmet at the mo.

 

[Richiew]

Yeah I thought Norman too. I've got it flatter/rounder now but the edges fall away at the base when the top is touching. There is enough excess material to trim away and straighten up but I don't have the experience to know if I'm there yet or not. Needs planishing too. This could take a few attempts. I didn't expect to get it the first time anyway.

 

[Richiew]

This confusing pics shows the interior of the two halves. The two sides of the base are touching in the centre. There's a pointy bit in the middle of the base on both sides.

The pointy and uneven bases make the two halves lean towards each other as pictured below. I'm thinking of using a belt sander to flatten the bases of both halves. This should straighten things up.

I hope this will leave me with fairly close fitting halves like this. A bit more linishing on the two facing edges should straighten things up more. As a bonus, any material removed from the middle would flatten the peak. I think I will give this a go to see where this leaves me. It's all good data for subsequent attempts if nothing else. It will be interesting to find out how big the remaining helmet will be. I don't need to remove much material. Opinions on this guess work are very welcome.

As an aside. I picked up this Cobbler's last from my Mam's garage last week. My dad had accumulated all sorts of rubbish over the years. It might make a good little anvil although. The shape is a bit particular though. There's a regular curve on the heel at least.

 

[Richiew]

Today I linished the bases flat. This got me to here. The bases lined up and fitted together really well. I did spend a few minutes wondering if I should just join the base edges together instead and be done with it. It seemed a bit of a defeat for a first go, so I abandoned the idea and carried on properly.

You can see I still need to remove material at the peak for the two sides to close up on each other. Both sides are uneven along the mating edges so they need tidying up too.

I used this beast to flatten things off and straighten the edges. It has a locking switch so it can be laid on its back and used like a linisher. This allows me to keep two hands on the workpiece most of the time.

After a lot of hammering, hand bending, linshing and a little slice on the bandsaw I have got to here. Yay! That's a heat tint right at the front from the belt sander, it's not a dark shadowy gap. I like the pointy top. It's not as pronounced as before and I didn't want a boring WW2 paratrooper bowl type shape anyway. Once the two sides are together I can always attempt to round off the top slightly if that is still possible. There will be less "give" in the workpiece once it is welded together.

I think I am definitely in "Tack it!" territory.

The material is 1.6mm thick so it's not like rusty thin car bodywork. With a bit of practice first I'm sure it will weld OK. I'll be pleased when the two halves are together. It will make planishing a bit awkward but I can take my time over that.

Working on two separate pieces with compound curves that must fit together like this can send you mad. There was a lot of the following :

Linish a little bit off one side, offer them up, tap an edge down a bit, offer them up, linish a little bit more, offer them up, throw one half across the garage floor when the linisher grabs, offer them up, discover one half has bent out of shape, bang it back to roughly where I started, offer them up.....

Rivets and joining plates were seriously considered for a little while but I've got there in the end. It's quite an education moving the metal around and trying to get it to bend to your will.

For a different sense of scale, below is a "one size fits all" baseball cap. I have a big head and the cap is a bit of a rubbish fit even on the largest adjustable setting. I'm in the right ball park for a helmet but usually there would be padding to go inside as well. It's only going to be garage ornament so fitment doesn't really matter in this case. I think the pattern is a bit on the small side as not much material was removed at all. I noticed the that the fella in the second video was using a pattern which, although it was the same shape, looked bigger. He did remark that his pattern was on the large side. Something to consider next time. I can always print the pattern slightly larger in future.

 

[bourbon]

You are right in saying that most helmets were raised in one piece, worked hot, Very skilled job. Most of ours are now stamped in two pieces and welded together, then ground back.

 

[Richiew]

@bourbon Is that in regard to re-enactment pieces?

 

[bourbon]

@bourbon Is that in regard to re-enactment pieces?

Yes, We couldn't afford the real ones, Are you going to the Meet up? I'll throw a Salet in the back to show you.

 

[Richiew]

Meet up? Where's that taking place?

I sort of slid down this rabbit hole sideways. It only started through watching a hotrodding Youtuber a few weeks ago and I've ended up trying armory! It's nice to learn a little and make something as I go along. I've just had to google what a salet is.

Salet: Business at the front, party at the back. Mullet in steel.

 

[bourbon]

https://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/forum-get-together.119164/page-22#post-2010870

You will have a long read ahead of you

 

[Richiew]

Aah, that one. I'm a bit slow this evening, sorry.


I'm not attending Parm's do. Sounds fun but it's a long trip and I'm a bit rubbish socially too.

 

[bourbon]

So am I, But I thought I would give it a go. Meet new people and all that.

 

[Porkypine]

This pic from above is brilliant ! ... I confess i've done literally this on more than one occasion

 

[Richiew]

A bit more done tonight. I've learned lots today. This is really just code for "I've realised I've done it wrong and could do better".

It absolutely is the best way to learn. The examples always stick with me when I've learned first hand


First off. These are the two halves of the helmet. They are pleasingly round to my eye.

It's very important that the edges match up. Next time I'd like to make a former like the cardboard shape below but out of wood about an inch thick. I could then knock the sheet to shape and get the two curves to mirror each other. Incidentally, the helmet half showing below is actually rounder than the cardboard template used to illustrate the point.

I'd need to know the correct size and shape to make the former first. I'm sure the work becomes more efficient the more formers and bucks that are employed but it probably takes the fun out of it. It could get a bit like knocking out car body panels in a factory. There's a middle ground somewhere I suppose.

Welding time. The welder was set up at 16.9volts and 6 metres per minute. Practice on a couple of offcuts.

Reverse side. Penetration all the way through.

I did try some short runs but the metal blew through too easy.

Tacks

I think my mistake was too many spaced tacks. I ended up welding tacks all over and trying to fill all the little gaps between them which was quite hard. A better way would be to do a few tacks just to keep the halves together and then shortish continuous run of tacks and melt each one into the last to create a continuous seam. I'll know better next time.

If you can't be an example, be a warning. I went over the welds a second time to make sure everything was covered. This contributed to the peaky looking welds.