Show off your reenactment helmets!

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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

GraemeMac wrote:Anodising is a treatment for alluminium. If you're going to waffle,atleast know what you're on about. I'm certain Erik knows what he's on about, have you seen the man's collection of original kit?!?
Basically whatever it is called when metal is
coated to stop it going rusty, apparantly this
process wasn't used back then

However as far as the style of netting I used it is
period correct, when I get home from work I will try
and find the web site where I copied the style of wire
as I did these lids at the beginning of last yr

As for Erik's fine collection of helmets nobody is
disputing that, the topic wasn't even discussed
so there was no need to mention it ??, the discussion
was about whether the wire I used was period correct

Cheers Peiper

Ps: Galvanised I think is the process I was
referring to :wink:
Last edited by peiper1944 on Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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GraemeMac
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by GraemeMac »

Correct, zinc plating or galvanising as it is known. Whether or not it was used to treat fencing wire back then I couldnt tell you though. You can remove the zinc using caustic, if you're competant and have the necessary PPE.
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erikbozwo2 wrote: Pyotr, please don't take any advice from peiper.
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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

GraemeMac wrote:Correct, zinc plating or galvanising as it is known. Whether or not it was used to treat fencing wire back then I couldnt tell you though. You can remove the zinc using caustic, if you're competant and have the necessary PPE.

As far as I can remember from the website zinc plated wire
was around but apparantly at the time was expensive because
of the early process they used unlike today so would not be
the sort of thing you find lying around on some farm or other
hence me using the cheaper steel variety which would be
easier to find

Can't find the website now but there is another website called
"German helmets . com" which has some information, also
apparantly these wire nets were only used in the French/ Italian
campaigns not Russia as the chicken wire was not found there in
vast quantities at the time

Cheers Peiper
Last edited by peiper1944 on Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

Anyway to continue the helmet wire net saga, here's a pic of the wire i used, i borrowed
this pic from the German helmet site, it is the European five twist wire i used, as i said
i aged the net too not just to make it look "salty" but to give it a bit of characture like
it had been picked up from some abandoned French farmhouse or such like which was
usually the case with this wire, they had been found then utillized into helmet nets

There is not a lot seen in original pics so it is not the usual type of helmet accessory and
according to ref books wasn't used that often but basically i thought it would make a couple
of my lids look a bit different from the others ive got tbh, hope this explains it all :wink:

[attachment=0]five twist wire close

Regards Peiper
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Last edited by peiper1944 on Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ***

Post by Peterth PK »

M35 (59/66 shell) with double-decals and remains of winter camo. Runes decal looks bit big, but it´s by a photo. It has AL liner and metals on chinstrap.
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Wort und Bild sind unsere Waffen !
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by Konzert-Meister »

Me in my field grey, original shell, no decal M42. With helmet net taken yesterday practicing camouflage techniques.
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

POA1944 wrote:Here's my original M40 Q66 Single Decal Army stahlhelm I use in my reenacting impression.It has been painted in the correct feldgrau color and real aluminum oxide powder texture,"Bigfoot" style Heer decal (very common on Quist made helmets).Original WWII German metal liner band (DRP 1943),Exact reproduction leather liner and chinstrap.

Is it me or does the decal look crooked/off centre on this one? :?
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by PaulW »

"Is it me or does the decal look crooked/off centre on this one?
Peiper"

If you look at original helmets, you'll see lots of crooked/ off centre decals. Here is a link to a newsreel showing German helmets being produced, about 3'30" in a girl is hand applying a decal:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOpgKZZ6SUU

You can imagine that, let's say on a 10/ 12 hour shift, she'll be applying a lot of decals. Every now and then (after about the first hundred of the shift...) one is applied less than perfectly. With originals (I've viewed a lot, at least online) you find most are neatly applied, but there is a significant small percentage (maybe 10% ??) that are crooked or have a tilt. On the Ruptured Duck website right now there is a Luftwaffe helmet in excellent condition that has a slightly twisted swastika, not the first I've seen. So all in all I think the occasional tilt etc on a decal is 100% authentic as long as it doesn't become 'Kool' and everyone starts doing it! :lol:

Cheers, Paul
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by SplinterA »

There is a perverse opinion that everything made and issued by the Reich was stitch and screw perfect.
That may have been the case in the very early days and pre war but even a cursory examination of mid/late war kit shows that not to be.
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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

SplinterA wrote:There is a perverse opinion that everything made and issued by the Reich was stitch and screw perfect.
That may have been the case in the very early days and pre war but even a cursory examination of mid/late war kit shows that not to be.
All this has been discussed before tbh but personally I like to
portray the "norm" rather than things what you only see
infrequently otherwise it stops being items you see only rarely
because everybody is wearing it :|
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by Halle »

It looks pretty straight to me anyway .. :?:
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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

Just to add thing is when portraying infront of the public
if it is something they dont understand they point the finger
especially if wearing "purposely" crooked decals, I remember
when I first started using the StG-44 at events there were cries
of "why is he using a Russian AK47" :roll: so now I just stick
to the "norm" that way you get no stupid comments
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by SchutzeHagemann »

Q66 Shell and liner painted "afrika mustard" for an upcoming Tobruk event in Texas.

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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by Pz Gren Hoffmann »

Nothing wrong with slightly crooked decals, can be seen on plenty of original helmets.

When applying the decals with the type of glue used back then, you can't adjust them much when putting them on, so that sort of things happened.

Also i don't really get your argument about portraying the norm in this case. you seem to come up with all sorts of exotic helmet configurations yourself that's hardly the norm, yet you complain about something so insignificant as a slightly crooked decal.

Here are some that i have restored to stay on topic :)

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peiper1944
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Re: Show off your reenactment helmets!

Post by peiper1944 »

Pz Gren Hoffmann wrote:
Also i don't really get your argument about portraying the norm in this case. you seem to come up with all sorts of exotic helmet configurations yourself that's hardly the norm, yet you complain about something so insignificant as a slightly crooked decal.
No mate you've got it wrong, I don't wear my camoflauged
helmets at events as they are just for display, besides they
are hardly what I would call "exotic" as if you read any ref books
you would see them in use by the Wehrmacht especially not
the SS that's why I don't wear them at events, as for wearing
"crooked decals" all im saying is if everybody wore them they
would stop being something we would see only rarely but
people can do as they please it was just an observation :roll:
Back to "topic"
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