Monday, October 14, 2013

The Viking Helmet (Part 5)

This is PART 5 of my Viking Helmet blog.

In this part I finally start trying to make the panels. I have carved a hole in my 'Dishing Stump' and laid a towel down on it and just basically started pounding on a metal plate with a ball-peen hammer. In my next segment I go into more detail about how I cut the piece and marked it and show some video of myself pounding it. .In this video I concentrate more on the 'planishing'. . which is the step where I pound the bumps out using my "planishing post" (which I've been calling a 'dishing post' in my videos). .

It went better than I'd expected and about as well as I'd hoped. It shaped nicely and the metal was not too thin as I had feared. I'll mention again that it would have been better if the frame were heavier metal. The frame was flexible enough to bend with the plates and so the whole hat got a little twisted and bent. Had the frame been rigid, the plates could have been flexed to the frame without changing the shape of the helmet.


Make sure you use a center-punch before drilling your holes!


The helmet frame is assembled! 


At this point I just cut out a piece of metal, sat down at my stump and started banging away with my ball-peen hammer. The next chapter will have more detail on how I did this part. 
Here's the result of about 5 minutes of pounding with the hammer.  


Pound and fit.. pound and fit.. pound and fit. . 


Here's my dishing stump. . I drilled a bunch of big holes with 
a spade-bit then chipped out the debris with a large wood chisel
I lay a towel on it when I'm pounding. 


Here it is. . Now it needs to be cut down to size and shaped 
a little more. . At this point, I'll mark where the
frame is (see next image). 



Marked the triangle where the frame is and then 
measure out to the center of the frame (3/4-inch in my case)


Now, grab your planishing hammer and . . . 


. . .bang away on those bulgy dents against your planishing anvil. 


here's the video




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