Lacquered felt helmet

[Robert]

By the way Robert, those marks on the front visor were made by the foot of the sewing machine as it passed along the visor securing it to the shell. Very unusal for these to appear on the outside when 99.9% of the time the marks are on the inside of the shell rim and hidden by the liner. I do not see any marks along your rear visor.

Some marks are present on the rear visor too, but quite faint. Do you know how exactly these marks are made? In a normal sewing maching the foot is smooth and should not cause marks. But I could imagine that the transportation on the reverse side may cause marks to a smooth surface. Maybe felt helmets had to be sewn in a different way for some reason?

Joe, thats an interesting remark! Did they use felt helmets for security reasons? I remember reading of felt shoes for soldiers in a warship's ammunition storage.

 

[joerookery]

Sorry Robert just back from another trip.

Joe, thats an interesting remark! Did they use felt helmets for security reasons? I remember reading of felt shoes for soldiers in a warship's ammunition storage.

The original order really doesn't give a reason why. It becomes obvious by the way it's written however that was not for security purposes but rather they needed the shellac for some other purpose and apparently there were a lot of these available. It was a resource thing -- they needed the shellac. This was done in 1917.

 

[Tony without Kaiser]

Same with all the Landsturm Wachstuch (oilcloth) Mütze. They were all recalled once the boys were issued Pickelhauben and disassembled to remove the laquer for munitions (I believe). Which is why I have never been able to find one.

 

[Robert]

So they needed the lacquer, not the felt! Scraping off the outer layer must have more or less ruined the helmets appearance, therefore I assume they were completely scrapped in the process.

Luckily we did not need to do that here in Bavaria. Stripping off the blue and white maypoles provided enough old paint resources.