The Viking Helmet (part DONE)!

Best Viking Helmet EVER!.

OOOOHHH. . Shiny!

It's even cuddly!

My rivets aren't half bad!

Here you see where the horns connect. I just hid this with fur. 

Far. . FAR from perfect 

(but still awesome)

The liner. I cut the leather straps too short. . oh well, it still works. I'm gonna glue a thin strip of fur in there for comfort. 

So. .that was one heck of a project. I had NO IDEA it was going to be so difficult. or so much FUN! I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. I learned a TON about how metal works and even got to buy (and make) some new tools! I guess I'm going to need a new project now! (I'm open to ideas!). 

I will be posting one more video showing the rest of the parts of the costume and the final result! I might post one summarizing what I learned and what pitfalls to avoid too, in case anyone ever reads this blog. 

Ok. On to the video summary. 

This video is the last in the series and it's the one where I do the horns and the final polish. I bought the horns from Black Bear Haversack (http://www.black-bear-haversack.com/index.php/cow-horns/water-buffalo-horn/un-polished-water-buffalo-cow-horn-create-powder-horn-bulk-price.html). They are water buffalo horns. I was only buying two and they sell them in bulk, so I called them up to discuss my purchase. I told them what I was doing and they cheerfully agreed to personally find me two similar horns. It hadn't occurred to me until I received them that I needed a rightie and a leftie (I was just asking them to find me two of similar size). The horns are, of course, curved in three dimensions. . so two righties or two lefties would not have worked!. . Bottom line. . if you order horns, make sure you call up and tell them what you need!

To attach the horns to the helmet I simply inserted a piece of wood into each one with a bolt in it and bolted them to the helmet. Basically, just shape a piece of 2x4 for each horn using a sanding disk. Make sure  you insert the bolt before gluing it! I used a carriage bolt so that I wouldn't have to worry about a nut loosening up on the inside of the horn. 

If you want to shape the horn to fit the curve, you're on your own. I didn't do it. But,  I did think about it. I would probably shape JUST the horn and then insert the piece of wood a bit deeper into the horn above the concavity. That way you don't have to shape the wood too. I 'think' this will work, but I'm not sure. Give it a shot and let me know. Otherwise, you'll have to shape the wood before gluing it in b/c of the bolt sticking out. 

My solution for the fact that the horns didn't follow the curve of the helmet was to hide the joint with fur. It still looks cool and saved me a lot of work. . I was running low on time by then!

My horns!

Mark a piece of two-by

You end up with two wooden disks. Use a high-speed sander to shape the disks. I used a 60-grit sanding pad. 

Here's one of the disks after sanding it to fit. 

 And here it is inserted into the horn (before gluing). 

 . . and the final result. 

I used a 'fine' wire wheel brush to clean up the frame. 

Releasing my inner VIKING! RAAARRRGGHHH!

The Video

The Viking Helmet (Part 9)

PRETTY!

I FINALLY got it shiny!

The key was more pounding with a hammer. I finally figured out that I had to smooth the metal using a regular flat anvil, so I bought one online from Grizzly for $25 plus $10 shipping (http://www.grizzly.com/products/G7065). I also made a real planishing ball out of a shot-put. This was needed to back the steel rivets and for further metal smoothing. My wooden post was a good friend, but had to be retired.

This blog post is all about how I finally got the panels to shine!

Step one was to hammer it on the flat anvil with the flatter (but still rounded) side of the ball-peen hammer. The subtle curve of the hammer is important, as it reduces the surface are where the hammer makes contact with  the work piece, allowing a targeted strike that will take out a lump but not flatten the curve of the piece. This is the same principle for the flatness of the 'planishing' hammer. If you compare the two hammers, you'll see that the planishing hammer is very flat, whereas the ball-peen hammer has a subtle rounded curve. Use the flat plansishing hammer backed with the ball and the rounded ball-peen (NOT the peening end of the hammer, but the flatter end) backed by the flat anvil when working on curved metal. Feel the surface with your fingers to find areas that need more work.

Step two: Finishing Disk. I used my Angle Grinder with an ultra-power gator 4-1/2" fine finishing disk. This took the rust and the gunk off and smoothed the surface.

Step three: Wet sanding. I didn't do enough of this because I don't have the patience for it. I worked my way up to a 1000 grit, but I think I read online that 600 is enough. One good trick is to sand all one direction with each grit, that way you'll know when you've sanded away the previous grit when there's no more crosshatching on the surface of the metal.

Step four: Polishing: I found a three disk polishing kit and a three piece compound kit side by side in Home Depot. It's a lot of work, but in the end it was worth it considering how much time I had already put into this crazy helmet!

My planishing ball. I drilled a big hole in it with my drill press then stuck a piece of threaded rod in it. I stuck the other end longways in a piece of 2x6 then plopped it in my bench vise.

The right rivets!

Rust and dents

Use the Ball-Peen hammer on the inside

And the planishing hammer on the outside

My new anvil!

Hammering it smooth

Gator finishing disk (looks like a brillo pad)

Just lay it on a soft surface to do the grinding

Sandpaper

Polishing disk kit

 . . and it's companion compound kit

Polishing with the drill (use a plug-in drill for speed)

The Video

The Viking Helmet (Part 8)

Rivets are the bane of this project.

First of all, nobody sells any rivets except blind rivets, which are the ones you use with a rivet gun. Those are handy for attaching things together, but they look like crap and they simply are not cool enough for my helmet! What I need are solid rivets, which I refer to as 'peen' rivets in my videos. . I do this because it sounds funnier.

My dad had some solid rivets lying around (I mean. . who doesn't?), but they were the wrong diameter. They were also aluminum. I tried to make these work, but they were simply too narrow and so they had to be really mashed a lot to fill the hole and it just wasn't working. It was good that I was able to try these though, as I decided to go with steel after finding the aluminum simply too malleable. Aluminum is a much softer metal than steel. This makes it easy to mold, but also harder to control. I found the aluminum prone to pancaking . .or squashing down too flat and losing that cool rivety bulge that I was looking for.

Anyway. . I finally just ordered a box of 100 steel rivets online from Jay-Cee Sales & Rivet Inc.  (http://www.rivetsinstock.com/).  3/16" x 3/8" Pan-head steel solid rivets (Part #S0187P00375). These ended up working well, although they were still too long and I should have gone with 1/4" long.  However, if you take my advice and use thicker steel for the frame, you'll want these 3/8" ones.

Also. .I tried polishing a panel and it was no use. It seems I am stuck with a lumpy "authentic" looking helmet. . (or am I? check back later for surprising news!). .

Before Polishing

After Polishing! What a difference!

Me talking about how well things are going on the Helmet. 

I don't call it 'peening'. .I call it 'pancaking'

My attempt to make my wooden post work to back up my riveting. 

(I eventually waved an affectionate goodbye to my post and got myself a shotput)

A solid rivet. This is one of the ones my dad gave me. Too thin. and too long [insert joke here].

The video

I Make an Awesome Viking Shield

This was a much easier project than the helmet. I took a break from the helmet because of rivets! So. .in that time I made my shield. There were a few gotchas and pitfalls, though. .

It's pretty common to make these shields out of plywood, but I didn't really want to do that, as I like the more authentic look of laminated wood. So at first I though I was going to use tongue and groove siding but it turns out tongue-and-groove (at least the one example I could find a Lowes) had a look to it that didn't work so I ended up buying those planks of pre-laminated pine that they have wrapped in plastic. This ended up working well. they are fairly straight and it reduced the amount of gluing I had to do to just one piece. As for the Shield boss. .no I didn't make it . . I bought it from www.viking-shield.com. Here's the link:

http://www.viking-shield.com/p/126/economy-center-boss

The wood planks I bought at Lowes. 

If you have a workbench but don't have a bench vise, GET ONE! 

This is by far the most useful tool in my garage. I use this on virtually every 

project I undertake. ALSO. .don't get a little-bitty one. Get one that's big and

sturdy enough that you can pound on it with a hammer. 

Here. I use my 'bench dogs'. . which make my bench vise

into a large clamp. Here they are on the vise end.. . .

. . .and here they are on the bench end. I have pre-drilled holes in 

my work bench for these to fit in at various distances from the vise.

I used these to clamp and glue my two planks together. 

Here. I'm drawing my circle. I popped two lines corner-to-corner with 

my chalk-box to find the center. Then put a nail in the center. 

I then drilled holes in a yardstick, one for the nail and the other for my pencil. 

Here, I've used the ruler again to draw a curve for cutting the supports.

I did this because it looks better.  LEAVE SPACE between

your support and the edge of  your shield  . . . 

 . . . so that you can fit your jigsaw by the planks. . Otherwise you'll 

have to turn it over, redraw your circle and cut from the top. 

It's painted! I used wood stain. The brown is an oil base and the Red a 

regular water base. I just used the oil-base because it comes in a 

small can and it's cheap. For the colors you have to 

buy a quart and it ain't cheap!

I cut some of the metal I had leftover from my helmet for these 'spokes'. 

Cut a hole for  your shield boss. Be careful to mark off where

your shield boss is going to go before you cut the hole. Once you 

cut the hole, you no longer have an exact center 

reference point for drawing circles. 

Here I've made my 'handle' and attached my shield boss. 

For the handle I used harder wood than the pine I'd been using

for the rest of this project. I dadoed out the grooves for the

supports but this is not necessary. . 

Here it is! Shiny!

For the spokes I used furniture nails. They come in various decorative

heads. I used the 'nickel' heads. I drilled small holes in my metal

strips and just nailed them down. It looks great and is EASY!. .

 . . . and the inside. I swear the camera really does add 15 lbs!

 Attack of the DWARVES!

.. .AND the video!