Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Not that you would not be welcomed with open arms, we even have room for you and the family should you ever choose to make the pilgrimage, But you are doing a great job! Keep it up I want to see how this one goes!

I on the other hand finally tried some the casting in place you showed us, on a seax handle boltster and pommel around a bone grip, then mounted a carved ashwood hedgehog pummel at the end. I will put it up very soon.

It wasn't too hot for the bone? That's good! I'm afraid to try it with antler.

Pretty much I need to practice my tooling skills on some scrap leather. It's going to take a while to get to the point that I'm happy with it.

I'll probably hold off on finishing the leather until after I get everything put together. I'm waiting on a new grinder to help me finish the sanding on the helm. Then it's ON!!!

Well now! I've run into a snag on this project. It seems that though the steel is thin - about 18 gauge - it is very hard. I only managed to put one rivet hole in it. I bent a punch trying to drive a pilot hole through it and no drill bit went through it easily. So I may have to see what I can do to anneal the helm before I proceed. Kind of irritates me as I have it sanded to 180 grit now.

I've drilled holes in converted Civil Defense Helmets and while the bit tends to slide a little they went through. Use one of your taps to score the helm so the drill bit doesn't dance and just apply a little pressure. It will take a while but it should work.

I had the same problem years ago.
I solved it by marking my rivet holes then having a friend heat that spot with a torch. When cherry-red, he touched it with a nail-set and the hole went through. Then to the next spot.

All I had to do was to grind the spots flat and round out the holes with a router bit.

Yes, it ruined the temper but then, I wasn't planning to stop a bullet with it.
And once covered with bars (I went for the Norman look with bars crossed over the helmet) the soft-weak points were reinforced so no problem.

RikJohnson wrote:I had the same problem years ago.
I solved it by marking my rivet holes then having a friend heat that spot with a torch. When cherry-red, he touched it with a nail-set and the hole went through. Then to the next spot.

All I had to do was to grind the spots flat and round out the holes with a router bit.

Yes, it ruined the temper but then, I wasn't planning to stop a bullet with it.
And once covered with bars (I went for the Norman look with bars crossed over the helmet) the soft-weak points were reinforced so no problem.

I'll most likely end up doing something like this. I suppose I could retemper it, but I'm seriously hoping this helm will never see actual combat, so what's the use? I'll probably just shine it up after all the work's done.

So today I did a minimum amount of work on this project. If I didn't anneal it, I certainly ruined the temper.

Let it cool down before checking the size !







Although it would be a really cool effect.

Peter Remling wrote:Let it cool down before checking the size !







Although it would be a really cool effect.

Um, well, the selfies aren't coming out that great and the wife REFUSES to post pics of this one.

Now that I have finished a couple of outstanding projects, I can get back to the helm. If we don't get any thunderstorms tomorrow, I hope to get out and try to drill this after work. Looking forward to moving on with this one. The next major thing is to come up with a nasal.

Okay, so I annealed most of the helmet in the forge as seen in the last pics. But the part of the band that was not over the fire did not anneal. So I had to hit it with my propane torch to finish it up. But I got the holes for the leather panels drilled. Now I need to work up a design for the nasal and get it forged to shape. Then I'll have to work on drilling holes for it.

Anyway, here are a few pics of how it looks at the moment:







So this one is underway once again. I'm hoping to do a little work on it each time I get to work on a knife project.

Looking good, Eric!

Ksn

Great work and attention to detail!

Hoping to get back to this project after the first of the year. Some things are beginning to get out of the way of productivity....... I think.

Yay!