Two Helmets From Singapore

b.loree

Administrator
Staff member
Over the years, Amy has sent me several helmets to work on. Here are the latest...Garde M15 tschako and a Prussian Feld Artillery helmet. Both of these helmets need some refinish work.
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This situation with most of the finish on the front visor missing is very unusual, I have not seen this before.
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A nice M15 chin strap, in excellent condition! All of these bald areas will be lightly sanded in order to roughen up the surface before applying new finish.
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A typical Feld Artillery officer helmet, with kugel and proper convex chin scales.
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All of these areas will be filled in with new finish.
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All of this deep crazing on both sides of the shell, will be fixed as well.
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There is lots of work here and I have told Amy...4-6 months to put things right. The first layers on both helmets will be put on today.
 
It's always nice to see helmets come back to life. Looking forward to see the finished helmets :)
 
These two pieces are not quite finished yet but here is what they look like today:
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The "shine" on the new shellac makes it hard to see but the darker areas are those which still need more filling in. The white areas are original flakes from a tschapka. These are unusual as when sanded they show "white" instead of black like most finish. These will be further blackened in when I am done.
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This area was all crazed but is being filled in.
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The new finish is "puddled" into the dents. Basically, as you can see, this is a long boring process :) BUT it does produce excellent results! As I have said before....the shine will be reduced with ooo steel wool and then the entire helmet will have 2 applications of black shoe polish to get a universal colour to the outside of the helmet.
 
I cannot wait to see the final products, Brian! Seeing these beauties brought back to life brings joy to my heart.
 
Hey Amy,

I've been out to Singapore with the Marines a bunch of times.

Are you an American expat working for the government or a local?

Bryan.
 
A series of photos showing where we are in the restoration of Amy's Artillery Officer helmet. The intro photos showed that this one needed quite a bit of refinishing/adding finish to the helmet which is in great shape. This plus the Garde shako was sent to me near the end of June and I am still not quite done. The shako visor is finished but work continues on the Arty helmet......we are close but not quite there! :) I warned Amy that this was a long process at least 6 months. These photos were taken this week:
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I am at the stage now where I need to put the wappen back on to see the dents which still need further "filling". I have added a lot of finish behind the wappen but I am not going to completely fill in these as they are covered. That beak "divot" will be left as is...to me it is natural to the helmet, whereas large "bald patches" on the shell are not.
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The easiest way to take photos is after sanding, the dark spots on the left are where we need to keep filling in. The "shellac dust" is melted back into the surface with a thinner soaked cotton ball.
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I told you in the beginning that I was going to deal with the crazing on the rest of the helmet, most of it is gone now but still not quite perfect. :)
I will post photos of the Garde shako shortly.
 
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That's quite a transformation!
May I ask what pound cut you are using for your shellac, I've been working on a lid with similar loss of finish and have been using 2 lb cut but it doesn't " puddle up" like yours.
Looking forward to seeing more updates on your projects .

Kevin
 
Apologies Kevin, I don’t know what “cut” I use. I simply order the flakes from a dealer here in Canada and follow the 1877 German shellac recipe discovered by one of our members. The recipe produces a very thin consistency so sometimes, I add more flakes to thicken it up. One other addition, again thanks to another member, is the addition of Japan Drier which does speed up drying. The “77” recipe is posted in the haube restoration section here on the forum.
 
I'll have a look at that post. The drying time was my only concern with mixing it too thick.
Thanks for the info!
 
Hey Amy,

I've been out to Singapore with the Marines a bunch of times.

Are you an American expat working for the government or a local?

Bryan.
Sorry Bryan
I have missed your post.

I am a local Chinese and I married an Australian. He has passed on so I am back in Singapore. My hubby collected ww1 and ww2 guns, tanks, swords, helmets etc. I was being influenced by him but somehow I only like the ww1 helmets depth

Merry Xmas and Happy New year to u
 
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