Posts: 323 Location: Telemark, Norway
Wed 11 Jun, 2008 12:46 pm
sallet project............
Hi,
I have to agree with Bruno here, it is never going to make a particularly nice shaped sallet, and with all the work involved in cutting, drilling,
polishing etc. personally I do not think it is worth it. However, if you can find a paratroopers helmet, that
can be made into a form of sallet, again not too convincing, but passable.
The steel of these helmets is
very hard, even with annealing. In fact the last time I tried it some thirty years ago, the only way to 'drill' the holes effectively and easily was to blast them through with an arc welder! :eek:
The Swiss, and even better still, the American helmet would lend themselves much better to the Japanese kabuto, especially the overall shape of the
san mai bachi, than the sallet (BTW.
san mai bachi literally means three plate (helmet) bowl, but the overall shape is similar to the American helmet, especially at the peak ).
If you can find a paratropopers helmet (
NOTE: not a German or British WW II example, as both of these are worth a small fortune :!: ), you will get a better overall shape, but it is still a lot of work.
Why not try hammering one out from scratch, you will learn a lot and have a lot of fun on the way !
One final thing, for a sallet, the bottom edge of the visor is best cut slightly concave, not convex down to a point as you have in the photograph. I hope that you don't mind my saying that, just that over the years , I have made quite a lot of sallets !!
Good luck whatever you decide :)
Regards,
Russ