Ok so I'm a little bit obsessed with the Lord of the rings and I eventually plan on forging many replicas from the films . One project I have in the works is to turn an old army surplus helmet in to a helmet of the fighting uruk hai. It seems pretty straight forward but I need help figuring out how to put a Ridge down the center of the helmet. It's a raised part that goes almost all of the way to the top of the helm. I'll post refrence pics of what I'm starting with and what i want to achieve any help would be great

I used to make armor for the SCA and had excellent results making my combination of a salet & bastinet fighting helm. I picked up a bunch of Belgium army helmets for blanks. Reversing them and tilting them back made for nice cheeks and the long bill made a near perfect transition for the beaver. Single, lorica (loricum?) lobster tail beaver.

What I based on the bastinet was the hinged the face shield. No, not like the woody the wood pecker pointy jousting helms. Mine were 1/4" rd horizontal bars with 1/2" spacing that wrapped almost all the way to the cheeks. There were 3 vertical 1/4" rods to tie the horizontals together and the chin was 14ga. that was compound curved to overlap the gorget.  The horizontal bars in the grill made for much better vision and if a fellow wanted to spend some time I custom fitted the helm and the gaps in the grill so there were on obstructions to vision.

If you're going to flute the crown on an army helm you'll need to anneal it and make a DEEP spring die something like a snarling iron with the female on the outside. It's doable but after annealing army helmets will NOT meet basic SCA safety rules.

For a decorative helm take a look around for Belgium or Austrian army helmets, they almost fit better backwards. Of course maybe my head is just a funny shape. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Thanks for the advice Frosty

55 minutes ago, Matt Smith said:

Thanks for the advice Frosty

My pleasure, brought back some good memories. Use nails for rivets, making "real" rivets isn't worth the effort.

Frosty The Lucky.

May I strongly commend taking this question over to the armourarchive.org a series of forums dedicated to armor making and yse they do use the british spelling armour in the name.

If you are planning on armoring, I would recommend 'Techniques of medieval Armour reproduction' by Brian R. Price. It is a truly excellent read.
Though the armor specified focuses on the 14th century (from memory) however it gives great elaboration of general armoring techniques and tools also.

What material are those helmets made from, is it still Hadfield steel?

Two round bars with a gap between?

mark on inside of helmet line of ridge lay upside down on the bars the use a long chisel with rounded end to push metal between the bars.

12 hours ago, Frosty said:

Of course maybe my head is just a funny shape. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Pre-birch, or post-birch? 

*yes*

4 hours ago, Smoggy said:

What material are those helmets made from, is it still Hadfield steel?

It's steel but  I don't know exactly what type.

6 hours ago, Wayne said:

Two round bars with a gap between?

mark on inside of helmet line of ridge lay upside down on the bars the use a long chisel with rounded end to push metal between the bars.

Oops, I completely misread your perfectly good suggestion.    I withdraw my totally off target reply.

Frosty The Lucky.