How to make a simple spangenhelm

and not mess it up

By Victor Connor

Introduction

Any dumb bastard can make a helmet. Some even work. To get the most from the effort you are about to invest I heartily recommend a bit of planning and research. You will have seen many helmets at training - most referred to as "just a simple spangen". These are generally the more boring, rusty and dented specimens and they still work! Some of these helmets are now in their second decade of violent abuse. This is quite an achievement. This remarkable feat was generally accomplished by either my good self (Sarah's black and brass Viking), Mr Mark Jamieson (Ben's Viking) or Mr Doug Taylor (Ben please put one of Doug's helms in here!!!)

Your helmet is not only a sconce box but also the primary way that other combatants will come to recognise you. A helm is probably the first piece of real fighting kit you will own, and represents an opportunity to really get into reconstructive archaeology and re-creation.

A quick note on safety and a disclaimer. If you hurt yourself doing this, don't tell anyone - least of all me. It's not my fault. If for some bizarre reason you follow all these instructions and still stuff it up, the only claim I made is "it works for me". If it works, tell me. Heck - tell everyone.

Always use appropriate safety gear. The author in no way supports or condones the use of power tools. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Bla bla bla. Yada yada yada.

History

To the best of my knowledge, the Romans were the first to construct a "spangen" helm. The factories producing these fell to German tribes around the fifth century, but kept producing and supplied much of Europe. The pattern changed to include the Rib and Brim later. It is interesting to note that many examples exist of very ornate helms - gilt, bronzed, silvered, even set with precious stones.

Terminology

If you look at a spangen helm, you will see at least seven pieces, or possibly more (not including rivets - we will get to them later).

The pieces are called:

• The Brim. This bit goes around the head, just above the eyes. All other bits rivet to it.
• The Spine. This bit goes from front to back and may project down at the front to form a Nasal.
• The Rib. This bit goes from above the ears to the top.
• The Plates. There are four of these - front left and right, and rear left and right.

Tools

Here's where things get fun. You will need to make or borrow quite a few of these, but the least you will need are:

Essential:

• Dishing stump/bowl
• Mushroom stake
• Goggles, gloves and ear muffs (really important!)
• Armouring hammer
• Jigsaw or metal shears
• Drill
• Vice
• Pair of pliers with cutters or bolt cutters
• Ball peen hammer
• Vice grip (two if possible)
• Felt tipped texta (green works best (it just does!))
• Centre punch or "clicky" punch
• Flexible tape measure
• File (second cut or bastard - at least 6")
• Goodly sized G or F clamp
• Singer oil (for sewing machines)

Optional:

• Big vice
• Rivet set
• Couple of old bits of leather
• Old rag

Preferred:

• Beverly shears
• Whitney punch
• Polished steel dish
• Thor/rawhide hammer (nicely rounded)
• 1/4" hemisphere headed solid rivets (1/2" shank length)
• 3/4" horse polishing mop setup
• Workshop
• Someone who has done it before

Materials

• About 75cm of 1 1/2" wide 1/8" strap (1" wide is OK but trickier)
• A bag of clouts (or real rivets)
• A piece of mild steel 25cm by 50cm
• A leather strap and fastener 1 inch by 3 feet

Tooling up

A couple of items in the Tools section deserve further mention. Here is how I made mine. The dish and stake are essential, the hammer almost so, and the rivet set nice to have, if you can get rivets.

The dish

The dishing stump is probably the most important tool in the shop. You must have this one, so this is how to make one. Get a good sized stump or bit of wood, and cut/grind/beat/burn/press/lathe a dish about 1/2" deep and 5" across. Make sure the edge gently slopes in.

The stake

The mushroom stake is the next most important tool. You must have one of these too. Get a bit of pipe 1" square and at least 18" long. Now get a 2" cube or sphere of steel and get it welded to the top. If it was a cube, grind/file the top so that all of the edges are gone and the top half looks very spheroid. It now occurs to me that a really BIG round headed bolt could be used if fitted into/onto something to give it the appropriate length.

Armouring hammer

This is just another name for a Really Big Hammer. I made my first one for about $6 out of an 18 inch length of inch square pipe and a tow ball. The pipe is drilled so that the tow ball can be fitted. It should be noted that there are several types of tow ball. Mine was of the sort with a bolt and shaft, and consequently needed to be welded, cleaned up and polished. It cracked anyway - welding hammers is a stopgap measure at best. However you do it and whatever you use, the main thing to look for is a large (two inch at least) face that has a consistent shallow curve. In probably the best piece of tool making the AAF has ever seen, Doug borrowed this hammer and placed some closed cell foam (hot water pipe insulation) around the handle so that almost no shock transferred. Brilliant.

Rivet set

I have a mild steel rivet set which I constructed from a one inch square by two inch length of solid steel bar. First secure the bar in the vice. Now file/grind/etc the corners off it, rounding them to about 1/4 inch. In the centre, punch a good centre and with a drill of the same width as your rivet shank, drill into the block to a depth just shy of the head depth. This next bit is a bit dangerous, and is not to be done by anyone, ever. You start to work the drill tip in a spiral (very gently and carefully) so that the centre is eventually almost flush with the surface. Polish the face and put a bit of abrasive (Jiff or Gumption work OK) into the hole. Now set a rivet in the chuck of your drill and "drill" the set again. Work in a spiral. One finished rivet set.

Construction

Rules

Read the bloody rules. All of them. I mean the "Weapon and Armour Standards". Your friendly Marshall will happily ignore all requests for a copy of this mythical beast but keep at him. Eventually if you persist it will be more bother not to give you one. Apparently it states the minimum distance between rivets, minimum plate thickness, padding thickness, etc.

Patterning

Right. Get the tape measure and put on your arming cap (What - no arming cap? See next year's Troubadour "Arming Caps Made Easy") and wrap the tape measure around your head above your eyes, ears, and over the lump at the back of your head. If you don't have an arming cap, substitute some fingers or whatever. Add the width of the frame for an overlap and write this number down. It is your Brim measurement. Now measure over your head to just above your ears (where the tape was). Write this down as your Rib measurement. Finally measure from the tip of your nose to the lump at the back of your head. This is your Spine measurement - write it down too.

Watch out - tricky bit. Most mistakes are made here. Take these measurements and add a padding allowance. Advice from Uncle Vic - if it's too small you'll have to give it to someone else. If it's too big, you'll have extra padding and be safe. Now you see why arming caps are so popular!

Polishing (optional)

If you can get access to a polishing setup, do so and get instructions. Otherwise buy some coarse (80ish grit) wet and dry sandpaper. Now add some detergent or soap to some water and give the plate a firm going over. Don't press too hard, as these marks will be deep. As the paper wears out it will effectively get finer. Once the black surface or all the rust has been removed replace the wet and dry with a medium grit and continue until a uniform polish is obtained. It is easiest to polish flat steel, but at this stage there is still a lot of excess steel, so don't go overboard.

Marking Out

Frame: Get the measurements, the tape measure and the strap. Now measure the length of the final Spine measurement. Mark it on the back face of the strap with the green texta (trust me, I know it sounds weird). Mark it straight across the strap. Do likewise with the other measurements (don�t forget the padding allowance).

Cutting

Frame: I'm going to assume that you can get access to a jigsaw. Shears are great but probably still unfindable. You need a suitable blade for your jigsaw - this being a fine metal cutting blade (24 teeth per inch) and some singer oil. Draw along the line with the oil bottle, leaving a thin coat of oil along said line. Now support the job (the thing you're working on) as close to where you're going to cut it. If you polished the frame, put a scrap of cloth under it and turn your job upside down, and cut from the unpolished face. This goes equally for the plates. Finally, secure both ends of the job and lubricate, or you will go through blades quickly (and at $3-4 each it's well worth it). Repeat for the Brim and the Rib.

Deburring

This is a fancy way of saying that once cut, the frame will have some ragged edges. These should be filed off and evened out as it's visible when finished. Secure the frame cut up in a vice and about 1/2 inch projecting, or clamped to a bench with the same overhang. Grasp the file firmly in the right hand, place the left on the end of the file and push the file over the face of the cut. Finish by adding a couple of passes at a slight angle.

Assembling the frame

Shaping the frame

This bit is a bastard. That said, there are one or two tricks. Draw up an egg shape - two pointy eggy arches on a bit of cardboard (I know it sounds technical). Use all your own head measurements (i.e., length plus padding, width plus padding, height plus padding and the Brim measurement minus the overlap). Now at least you have something to aim for. Bend the frame by placing it over a convenient cylindrical object (legs work) and press down on either side just past the object. Do this a lot and a little (force) to get a gentle curve. Keep in mind that if the angle between the strap and the object drifts off 90 degrees, the ends will drift away from one another and your frame will be twisted.

Riveting the frame

This bit is a genuine no-holds-barred bastard. Riveting sucks even with a really good setup. Practise this on an off-cut first. Get the centre punch, drill, oil, clouts/rivets, pliers/bolt cutters and the ball peen hammer. Punch a centre mark and drill it. This may seem overly cautious, but after doing 50 odd holes, some will "walk". If you frequently cease pushing, the burr will break off as it is quite sharp; this is a really good idea. Push a clout through from the inside and cut the shaft at about 6-7mm. Set the mushroom stake in the vice and support the clout head. Hit the shank with the ball peen. No need to use the round head yet - just squash it down a bit. Then using the round head, strike the forming rivet in a spiral pattern, circling out and in. It sounds easy, but your target is only 3mm across. See what I mean - this bit is tricky. Practise lots. There has evolved a convention where five rivets are used to secure the frame in a pattern with four corners and one in the centre. When the over lap is riveted, the centre is riveted first, and then as adjustments are still possible the frame is clamped and one of the lower rivets filled. If the overlap is on the side then the other lower hole may also carry the chinstrap. Both the upper holes will also have plates riveted to them. Try a couple of practise rivets before you have a go on your frame.

The plates

Marking out

Easy. Take your now assembled frame and place it on the (polished side down) plate so that where a plate will go is resting on the plate. Mark the three contact points between plate and frame. Press on one of the corners of that quarter and extend one of the lines into the corner as you press down (as there the frame is only in contact at the corner). Do the other two sides likewise and number the plate and the frame. On the plate should be a wobbly triangle. To this you need to add a riveting allowance and a dishing allowance. About 3/4" at the middle of said triangle and 1/2" in the corners (if you're making a 1" frame). Add half of any extra all over for larger frames. Frame and plate overlap is very important. It gives a great deal of strength, so don't be afraid to go for the wider frames. You will also have a greater margin for error when it comes to riveting.

Cutting and deburring the plates

Place the marked out (polished) plate on the rag on the bench. Now clamp so that the line closest to the edge only just projects over the bench. Go along the line with singer oil and cut it. This part will probably take at least 15 minutes per plate with no problems and a good jigsaw. Be warned it will also shake the bejesus out of everything on the desk - things will "walk", so clear it off first. It can do similar things to you so take a rest between each one - at least long enough to deburr the plate. There's no real need to clamp the plate as you only need to remove the burr - not even up to the cut - as it won't be seen when riveted. A couple of passes with the file at various angles should do it.

Second polish

Now is your last chance to polish the flat plates. If you don't do it now then the polish will be slightly wavy.

Dishing the plates

Take the dish, the rawhide hammer or large ball peen and texta. Mark a series of concentric triangles, spaced about the width of the hammer head from the edge. Hold the plate in your left hand, preferably with vice grips, and place it over the bowl. Strike a series of consistent blows. The first "ring" is your first target. Keep the blows even and progress around the first ring. Once finished, move on to the second ring. Heavy blows are not needed and will lead to an uneven plate. It is really hard to un-dish a plate, so keep an eye on it. When you have done all the rings, check the plate by placing it in the correct position in the frame. If one pass with the hammer does not sufficiently dish the plate (and it won't), repeat the process until the plate sits in the frame happily. When sufficiently dished, the plates are reasonably easy to adjust so that they fit in the frame. Just check the fit against the frame and if it needs more curve, place the edge over the bowl and lightly hammer. If it needs flattening, place on a block or the edge of the bowl, curve up, and gently tap along the top. The plate should fit with only a small gap of one or two millimetres. This will be taken up when riveted.

Riveting the plates

Marking out

Look at where the Rib and Spine cross. From the centre rivet, imagine a line running out to touch the corner of the intersection. Measure in about 1/4" along the line. Mark said point. Repeat for the other quarter sections and at the Brim. Now, having read the "Weapons and Armour Standards", you will know the minimum rivet spacing for your frame and rivet type. Measure at most this much from your top hole down and mark about 1/4" in. Make marks at these points all the way down and repeat for all four quarters. To make it look really good, do the measurements and divide it up so they work out both evenly spaces and happily safe. OK. Centre punch all the points. It's a good idea to place the frame on the mushroom stake for this, as striking an unsupported frame could result in bending, and it don�t work so good.

Drilling

Secure the frame by the nasal and drill the holes. See Assembling the frame.

Riveting

This bit will make riveting the frame look like a piece of cake. First, take the front left plate - this is the most often struck plate, so it needs the best fit. It will go in first. Take the vice grips and secure the plate into its proper location. Do this by attaching them and the plate to the spine past the middle of the frame. If the plate misses any holes, you will have to reduce the curve in the plate. This will slightly add to the area the plate occupies, but reduce the space for you head. If it's too bad, cut your losses and make a new plate. If there is too much plate, get the texta and mark the excess. Cut/grind/file/linish it off.

Now a friend is handy. Secure the frame. You will need to drill the plate through the hole in the frame - the one at the very top. This is important so that the "slack" in the plate is pushed down to the base of the helm. This shouldn't be a problem with any but the thinnest of frames (1 inch). Now take the clout and press it through from the plate so that it pokes out at the top. Cut it at around the 5-6mm level. Form the rivets as in Assembling the Frame. Aim for the hemispheres of fattish cones. Pyramids are cool but tricky. If you really have a problem with this, try filing the "pinch" off the clout - it helps. If you have real rivets, set up the rivet set and go nuts. Aim for flattish hemispheres on the inside - not more than about 2.5mm thick.

Work down both sides in parallel, using the vice grips to make sure the plate is firmly pressed up against the frame. When you get to about the two thirds level, vice grip the base of the plate and trill the centre hole, rivet it, then return to the sides. Keep alternating and repeat until finished.

Nasal

If you're happy with the extended spine nasal, then cool. If not, rivet a good chunk of brass, bronze, steel, or whatever over it. Whatever you decide, it's a good idea to design the helm so that the spine goes over the brim, and it's not a bad idea to have one under any other sort of nasal. It also makes a good vice securing point. If you have problems with the helm rivets making the nasal stand out or be crooked on the helmet, mark them, then on the back of the nasal. Then using a largish drill, drill a shallow depression. It should now sit flush. One last thing - slightly bend the nasal out from the frame.

Final polish

Any time is a good time to polish, and the shinier the better. If you have access to a buffing setup, go nuts. Brasso should be reserved for brass. Even I think that's a bit much.

Strapping

A simple chin strap works, but a split Y strap is both period and efficient. The simple chin strap should be one piece of leather about an inch wide running under the rib. The Y strap should be attached just forward of the rib and around halfway back. The reasoning being if one rivet fails, the helmet is still secured. The other major decision is whether to use a buckle or a double D ring. My spangen is a double D, as it is easier to do up with gauntlets on. These days though it doesn't get undone to be put on. No matter which system you use, it must be leather, and you should dubbin the shit out of it - you can't use too much dubbin.

Padding

I love closed cell foam. It is the best system we clever monkeys have worked out for absorbing an impact on a repeating basis. It has one or two problems though in that it also releases this energy and it doesn't absorb sweat - this may also be a point in its favour. Sheepskin is great too. It releases the energy over a longer period, and absorbs sweat, so sweat won't run into your eyes. I use both - about 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of medium density closed cell and an equal amount of trimmed sheepskin. The sheepskin needs to be replaced every couple of years, less if you have a weak stomach. A good source of medium density closed cell foam is a camping mat - you can pick one up from K-Mart or dollar shops for about $5. Only use contact adhesive - i.e., quik grip (buy at least a 250ml can).

Or you could use an arming cap. Just remember that you can�t leave your padding at home, but you only need one arming cap.

Care and feeding of your spangenhelm

A heavy canvas or Indian cotton bag is a joy to behold, and helps to prevent damage to your new handmade wonder - they are also bog simple. A circle bigger than your Brim and a rectangle as long as the circle�s circumference. Include a cord in the top help for a draw string bag. Done.

I recommend you invest in a can of clear spray enamel. Give your helm a light coat - it won't show and will prevent rusting. A period alternative is beeswax, although it has been known to attract bees. Car wax works but needs constant touchups. Or you could finish it with olive oil (or any other oil). Other than that, dubbin the straps before you rivet them on (dye them first) and twice after you make it. Thereafter several times each decade. Pay particular attention to the rivet. Congratulations - you are now the proud owner of a brand new Dark Age helmet.

Final notes

Here are some things that aren't directly relevant to any specific section. 3 ouches make it a day, i.e. if you hurt yourself too much, leave it for tomorrow. Measure twice, cut once. It always pays to double check before doing anything you can't undo. Don't smoke and armour - armouring is a three-handed job at the best of times. Wrapping all tool faces with leather stops them scratching. Not including measuring, padding or tooling up, you can expect to write off a whole very active blister forming day, or about 8-10 hours all up. Probably more.