Continuing on with my series of posts intended to educate new pickelhaube collectors. Our helmets for the most part, were made from leather coated in a shellac water proofing layer. Both of these materials came from "natural" sources and as such reacted to environmental conditions, especially heat/cold and dry/humid. Consequently, we see the effects of this on our helmets and their metal fittings. Here are a couple of photos illustrating the effects of leather "shrinkage" on brass fittings.
First, a rather radical example of the effects of helmet shrink on a brass rear spine. What we have hear, is a spine from a Feld Artillery helmet (no slider vent). The dent/flattening of the upper part of the spine is common but the deformation of the middle is rare in my experience. However, the reason for this is that there is no soldered reinforcing strip on the underside of this spine.
Normally, the prongs shown here would be missing but for some reason the old solder has held. To be continued.
A comparison photo....on top a typical M95 brass spine missing it's prongs but which shows the normal soldered re enforcement strip. On the bottom, our subject spine which has no strip and a such has been severely deformed by "shell shrink". These deformities can be fixed using some curved nosed pliers, a piece of cardboard and the end of a kitchen wooden spoon!
Our last photo shows another typical "shrink issue", a cracked front visor trim. This in my experience, is the most common problem that we see on our helmets. In this case, I got off lucky with only this split on the underside. In worse cases the trim is completely split with both pieces hanging or totally missing. I welcome any questions from collectors about this post.
First, a rather radical example of the effects of helmet shrink on a brass rear spine. What we have hear, is a spine from a Feld Artillery helmet (no slider vent). The dent/flattening of the upper part of the spine is common but the deformation of the middle is rare in my experience. However, the reason for this is that there is no soldered reinforcing strip on the underside of this spine.
Normally, the prongs shown here would be missing but for some reason the old solder has held. To be continued.
A comparison photo....on top a typical M95 brass spine missing it's prongs but which shows the normal soldered re enforcement strip. On the bottom, our subject spine which has no strip and a such has been severely deformed by "shell shrink". These deformities can be fixed using some curved nosed pliers, a piece of cardboard and the end of a kitchen wooden spoon!
Our last photo shows another typical "shrink issue", a cracked front visor trim. This in my experience, is the most common problem that we see on our helmets. In this case, I got off lucky with only this split on the underside. In worse cases the trim is completely split with both pieces hanging or totally missing. I welcome any questions from collectors about this post.
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