How were Shako feldzeichen made? Seems time consuming

O

orwilliams

New member
I don't have one for a reference, but have looked at picture after picture on the web. I understand it was a wool over a wood structure. Some of them seem to show the small center oval stitched to the larger one, and then the back piece stitched to the front piece. I am trying to make one of my own, and it seems very time consuming. I wonder if the pieces were just glued onto the wood? It seems I have read the wire piece was sandwiched between two layers of the wood. I am just wondering how they did all this meticulous
work, piece after piece for all the shako's. I have the wood done, but having a lot of trouble finding the right weight of 100 percent wool. ( Prussian, black and white). Thanks for any thoughts on this.
 
I have 1 complete, except waiting for wool material, and 3 lined up to do next. They are 2 layers of wood, with wire sandwiched in between. It takes a long time to form the wood to the proper shape. Wire is .060 steel, and looks right, but pretty hard to bend. I still can't imagine going through all this to supply troops with these, but that was all they knew how to do then I guess. When I figure out how to put a picture up, I will do it.
 
orwilliams said:
I have 1 complete, except waiting for wool material, and 3 lined up to do next. They are 2 layers of wood, with wire sandwiched in between. It takes a long time to form the wood to the proper shape. Wire is .060 steel, and looks right, but pretty hard to bend. I still can't imagine going through all this to supply troops with these, but that was all they knew how to do then I guess. When I figure out how to put a picture up, I will do it.
Click to expand...

A Polish couple has them for sale, but theirs appear to be felt; Age of Kings in Texas also has them from time to time. Theirs are of nicer quality. There was a guy selling them on eBay a year or so ago, too, but his wire loops seemed rather thick and appeared to have the slight greenish color of coat hangers.

I've also made replacement field badges myself. I used an original wood form to make a mold, then poured casting resin into it.
The resin can be mixed with wood flour/pecan shell dust to simulate the appearance of wood, but it doesn't seem to be a big deal as the wool will cover the form anyway. The wire loop is mounted in two holes drilled at an angle into the body. Taking the temper out of the wire helps when bending it.

The wood forms used in originals might have been cut to shape on a band saw and sanded on a wheel to shape---unless they had some sort of shaping machine that did it automatically like turning a chair leg.

The oval opening in the white cloth is turned under in such a way that the black oval's edge is concealed, presenting a smooth appearance. I'd imagine the Prussians had some sort of jig for holding the cloth in the right place while sewing it. The black backing piece is whip stitched onto the white front section.

Hundreds of seamstresses in cottage industries probably worked on these parts as piece work.
 
I appreciate all the information. I have one done. Actually it took 3 to get what I wanted. I don't know why I obsessed on these, but I tend to do that with stuff.I have seen the Polish feldzeichen on Ebay, Germany. It looked like the center piece was glued on top of the main fabric body, but hard to tell. I locked the steel wire in between two wood pieces so it can't pull out. Finally figured out how to make a rough fixture to get a good bend in the wire on the radius at the bottom for the next ones. The 100% wool came yesterday so that was the last thing I needed. I have 3 more to finish, and thought I might list them as replicas on Ebay to see if I can get some of the cost back. I got back into Webshots after a couple of years to try to show some pictures. (pickelhaube are two old pics I left there). Thanks

http://news.webshots.com/album/577077812ogorXt" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
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