After reading Brian's comment on glued visors in http://www.pickelhaubes.com/bb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7753 I thought it could be interesting to show some visors that were quite obviously glued, and the glue was then covered in black lacquer for good measure :lol:
View attachment 2
The top of the visors had also been lacquered on the outside, this time transparent.
View attachment 1
I had bought the Pickelhaube (fortunately quite cheap) for its regimental association (I.R. 13), but this turned out to be I.R. 131. The condition of the helmet was rather poor, so it made a great subject to try some cleaning/repairing methods on.
The glue turned out to be a gooey rubber-like substance, impervious to most house-hold solvents so I had to remove it mechanically. It came off ok from the visors, but took the top layer of the liner leather. I performed small staining tests on the leather skull with the solvents before trying it on the black lacquer, and none of the non-staining solvents worked so I removed that mechanically too, with good success. The transparent lacquer had already loosened from the skull in most places and removed a bit of the shellac.
For the re-stitching I've used modern black cotton thread, of the available yarns this looked the most like the thread that came off the visors (what I would have liked was a dark brown non-stretching cotton, but no shop in town had it ). After placing the visor on the skull correctly I put the thread through one set of corresponding original holes, and simply counted all the other holes to make sure the other threads were going through correctly. Not all holes were usable, and the edges of the visor were very hard and brittle so I didn't want to put any strain on that (the skull however is amazingly resilient). The threads weren't tightened very much, as I still want to block the helmet into shape so I want the visors to be able to move a little bit.
The Wappen I plan to use on this helmet was purchased seperately, it was missing the loops on the backside and had big blobs of glue on the back. After removing the glue with solvent almost all the lacquer had disappeared from both sides of the Wappen and the bright Aluminiumbronze colour came through. I soldered on new loops, and now have a Wappen that looks very bright and new
View attachment 2
The top of the visors had also been lacquered on the outside, this time transparent.
View attachment 1
I had bought the Pickelhaube (fortunately quite cheap) for its regimental association (I.R. 13), but this turned out to be I.R. 131. The condition of the helmet was rather poor, so it made a great subject to try some cleaning/repairing methods on.
The glue turned out to be a gooey rubber-like substance, impervious to most house-hold solvents so I had to remove it mechanically. It came off ok from the visors, but took the top layer of the liner leather. I performed small staining tests on the leather skull with the solvents before trying it on the black lacquer, and none of the non-staining solvents worked so I removed that mechanically too, with good success. The transparent lacquer had already loosened from the skull in most places and removed a bit of the shellac.
For the re-stitching I've used modern black cotton thread, of the available yarns this looked the most like the thread that came off the visors (what I would have liked was a dark brown non-stretching cotton, but no shop in town had it ). After placing the visor on the skull correctly I put the thread through one set of corresponding original holes, and simply counted all the other holes to make sure the other threads were going through correctly. Not all holes were usable, and the edges of the visor were very hard and brittle so I didn't want to put any strain on that (the skull however is amazingly resilient). The threads weren't tightened very much, as I still want to block the helmet into shape so I want the visors to be able to move a little bit.
The Wappen I plan to use on this helmet was purchased seperately, it was missing the loops on the backside and had big blobs of glue on the back. After removing the glue with solvent almost all the lacquer had disappeared from both sides of the Wappen and the bright Aluminiumbronze colour came through. I soldered on new loops, and now have a Wappen that looks very bright and new