Dead Camera

Despite the lack of recent posts, I wanted to let y'all know that work is going very well and three helms have been completed and shipped.

However, it's time to buy a new camera, as my old one has finally died. All is gives me is a, 'No Memory Stick' error message. Not good. And that means no pictures of those helms unless the clients send me some. Oh, well. Anyone recommend a good camera?

There are another three helms on the bench at the moment. Maybe I can borrow a camera before shipping them :)

The skull helm that I made last ended up a tad bit small. My fault - wasn't paying sufficient attention and cut it too fine. Fortunately, it's only a bit too small so could be stretched to fit. Pictured here is me using a small 'jaws of life' to stretch it out. Worked like a charm. I'm a volunteer firefighter and needed extra training on that tool anyway :)



And here's a side view of the Valsgarde 6

Finished pictures. The first one is just after firing and oiling - still smoking a bit and quite greasy.



At first, I was going to darken the face and leave the helm relatively shiny, but that ended up looking kind of goofy, so I darkened the helm to a dark straw color - almost a bronze. The rest of the pictures are after wiping the excess oil off and touching it up with steel wool.



Being stainless, the bronze tint won't last forever - any serious polishing or scrubbing knocks it off - but it looks nice now. The steel blends in well with the cast pieces.

Just about done - needs face blackening and a bit of cleanup. Better pics tomorrow.




Fits me quite well. Too bad I can't afford my own work :)

We've had a huge wildfire near my town this week. My volunteer fire department was on it the first day - then spent the next several days waiting for the forestry guys to call us out again - which they haven't yet. It's off in the woods mostly and our trucks are not wildland vehicles - 'pavement queens' is the charmingly pejorative term used by wildland firefighters. We'll see who's laughing when their houses catch on fire - let's see 'em put that out with a shovel. Not that I'm bitter. It's just very frustrating to have a lovely gigantic fire just a few miles away, and not be able to play. Playing with fire is the whole point of being a firefighter, after all. Especially when you're volunteering. Sigh...

Anyway, I finally got back into the shop yesterday and today. Here's the results.




The crest is just balanced on, and the face obviously needs to be better attached - clamps get in the way when you try to put it on :)

Note to those trying this at home. The Zweihammer kit has a very tall skull - an inch or more taller than I usually build - and taller than the helms that Raymond's Quiet Press bases their cast helm pieces around. The head of the (bird? dragon? I don't remember!) on the crest should rest betwixt the wings of the eyebrows, but it can't in this case, so created this as a workaround. I think it looks good - we'll see what the client thinks.

Made some decent progress, but not done yet. The cheek pieces just weren't working, and after a few hours of messing around with different designs, I decided to forgo them and go with slats all around.



The studly temporary rivet things are called "Clecos" - wonderful invention for temporarily holding sheet metal panel together - developed for aircraft fabrication, I believe. The face is just balanced in there right now. Should be wrapping it up tomorrow.

This first shot looks a little bit like Nixon. I was going for the 'broken nose' look. Not too worried about it - the nasal will cover most of the nose :)



Closeup of broken nose action

Valsgarde 6

This is a stainless Valsgarde 6 based helm being built from a kit available from Zweihammer Armoury - http://www.zweihammer.com - that a client sent it to me along with some brasses from Raymond's Quiet Press. I'll be adding a face to it tomorrow.



It's a great kit. Considering what you get - beautifully laser cut steel (your choice of mild or stainless), rivets, very thorough instructions - it's a steal. You can even pay an extra $10 and have them shape the pieces for you. I highly recommend them.