Recent content by b.loree

Beautiful examples with a great History! My mother was an Edinburgh war bride, she met my father who served as mid upper Lancaster gunner (RAF/RCAF) at a dance in Princess Street Gardens in 44.

Rob, you are right on that comment. After I screwed up spacing, I had to remove all scales back to the first 3, then plug/glue to fill in the wrong holes and begin again from scale 13. Live and learn!

I do not know where the helmet was purchased. I am just assigned the job of fixing the visor stitching.

Yes Ron, that is my impression as well and I would appreciate any advice/alternate methods that you may have to contribute. The idea behind all of these detailed restoration posts is that there will come a time when I can not physically work on these helmets. We all have an expiry date! As a...

Thanks guys, sometimes I worry that you all get bored with these posts. I do get to handle some rare helmets and show how certain challenges can be fixed.

Sooooo many played with by kids and teenagers, worn for Halloween!! Scary to think, of how many rare pieces were destroyed as a result!

Yes Pete, perhaps never worn??

My next project is a Saxe Leib Garde officer helmet which needs both visors restitched. I won't bother to post the usual "progress photos" as you have all seen these previously. Some "before" shots of this beautiful rare helmet: Excellent condition! The Saxe officer kokarde is classic and we...

I finished this scale last night. After gluing and left over night to dry. One must always check carefully that the thin backing leather is wide enough to overlap before being glued. You have to be really careful about the proper spacing of the scales during reassembly. I was careless about...

William G. thank you for your donation, enjoy your membership here on the forum.

Today: Backing was dyed, cut out and glued. One has to be careful lining up each scale, you use the "shadow" of each scale to line things up. Punching each set of holes is a slow process.

Amazing historic photos which obviously explain why there are so many pickelhauben in the US!

Thanks for this post Ron....I should have tried a heat gun. It makes total sense now that you have described the process. (y)

The rebuild proceeds: Staple strip cut out and the template for the thin leather backing. I have it taped down so that anyone wanting to make one of these has the proper measurements. Everything shown is in cm. metric. I had a hard time with fractions as a kid and metric is so much easier. :)...

Eric B. thank you for your recent donation to help support this forum. (y)