Prussian General Officer Helmet #2

You are welcome Keith. A picture is worth a thousand words so here is one which links to my previous post here:

An OR rear visor..wet and then blocked. This one comes from a Prussian helme in similar condition to Andrew's...collapsed like a deflated football. The rim of the shell was soaked using strips of paper towel and H2O, plastic was placed behind the liner fingers and an antique hat stretcher was placed inside the shell to block it back into shape. It is still drying as we speak.
 
Rear visor pinned into place...again, those lines must match up! Note as well this is a good place to start pinning from. This visor is now finished, more pics to come once everything is done.



The rear visor is done, front visor pinned before stitching. This was the first one I have done with brass trim left on. The trim is on very tight and I did not want to risk damage. The wappen obviously has warped the visor. Quite often, the finish will melt down over the stitch line in sections and you can see here where holes have been drilled up through a melted spot.
 
I assume in this case where the visor has shrunk so much that there is a gap between it and the visor trim there is nothing you can do?
 
Glenn, in this case the visor has not shrunk as much as it looks in the picture. I have the trim unpinned and pulled away from the visor in order to access the first stitch hole. It is not as bad as it looks. In the case of bad OR/officer front visor shrinkage, you can cut one end of the trim and drill a new hole but you have to be very careful. You only have one chance to get it right. Usually, the amount to be cut off will be to the edge of the original hole.....cut there and then use a dremel tool to drill a new one for the domed brad.
Of course, if you didn't care, you could simply pull the trim back into position and punch a new hole for the brad! Obviously, I have never done that :)
 
A few pictures of the completed von Plessen helmet:



The white specs, are flakes of snow.

 
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