pickelhaube

[volkssturm]

Hi again, this is a piece that has been a long time with me, I took it in an exchange I had with a guy I know, I had an old non-functioning hand watch without glass and he had this pickelhaube, it looked like whe where even, my clock all broken and his helmet so smashed and destroyed (and shrinked too), like if a truck rolled it over; I restored it as I could because in this country where I live there are no people who can do that

What can I do to make a better restoration to this piece?

By the way; am I in the correct section??

[volkssturm]

the other side

[volkssturm]

inside, if you like I can post more pictures with no problem

[lach470]

Nice Haube! I have one just like it - I'll post some pics for comparison! It won't be easy to fix up this example....but I think that it deserves a shot! It's a true piece of history!

Cheers and good luck!

Rob

[lach470]

.....

[lach470]

Any date stamps in your example? Mine is dated 1916....one of the last to be made as the M16 helmet was introduced the same year!

Cheers!

Rob

[lach470]

....

[volkssturm]

nice one :D mine doesn?t have any stamp good you have a good and hard to find piece of history, that?s why I quickly accept the exchange, since that time, I never saw another one avaible

here is a front pic

[lach470]

I can imagine there aren't too many of these in Venezuela!! Not a big deal that yours isn't stamped....I was just curious. Yes, yours must be pretty rare over there!

Cheers!

Rob

[volkssturm]

....

you have it in great shape, good to know you are taking good care of it excelent piece

[volkssturm]

I can imagine there aren't too many of these in Venezuela!! Not a big deal that yours isn't stamped....I was just curious. Yes, yours must be pretty rare over there!

Cheers!

Rob

yes, it is very hard to find anything of military (except venezuelan), there are many pieces but collectors doesn?t want to get out of them. and with dollars restrained it is getting very hard to import them

[leigh kitchen]

I would simply glue the edges of the broken leather together, perhaps tack in a stitch here & there through existing stitch holes, & if you plug the hole in the back of the helmet simply use black painted car body filler - I've never used body filler myself, but I did buy a helmet that had two bullet holes plugged in this way - you can just pop the filler back out again without leaving any mark, if you want to (as I did).

Use boot polish to smooth over cracks & holes, & to polish up to a smoothish shiny surface, buy a couple of reproduction cockades to slip on the side posts (the missing leather around the left hand post will be covered by a cockade), & buy a reproduction chinstrap or just the metal fittings & make up your own chinstrap from scrap leather.

As the helmet has grey painted steel fittings, I'd buy steel fittings for the chinstrap rather than brass, but it does'nt really matter.

A display head wouold be good, to keep the shape of the glued together helmet.

I have a couple of less than perfect helmets myself, I either leave them alone or, in the case of one I will restore it, but that's a matter of redoing a bit of broken solder & buying reproduction fittings such as I've described - until the great day when they can be replaced by genuine fittings.

[volkssturm]

I would simply glue the edges of the broken leather together, perhaps tack in a stitch here & there through existing stitch holes, & if you plug the hole in the back of the helmet simply use black painted car body filler - I've never used body filler myself, but I did buy a helmet that had two bullet holes plugged in this way - you can just pop the filler back out again without leaving any mark, if you want to (as I did).

Use boot polish to smooth over cracks & holes, & to polish up to a smoothish shiny surface, buy a couple of reproduction cockades to slip on the side posts (the missing leather around the left hand post will be covered by a cockade), & buy a reproduction chinstrap or just the metal fittings & make up your own chinstrap from scrap leather.

As the helmet has grey painted steel fittings, I'd buy steel fittings for the chinstrap rather than brass, but it does'nt really matter.

A display head wouold be good, to keep the shape of the glued together helmet.

I have a couple of less than perfect helmets myself, I either leave them alone or, in the case of one I will restore it, but that's a matter of redoing a bit of broken solder & buying reproduction fittings such as I've described - until the great day when they can be replaced by genuine fittings.

Hey thanks for the answer, you gave me good ideas to use. As what you told me about using glue, well it was all deformed, I put it together basically by patching it inside with help of glue. what can I do with the interior?? it is extremely fragile, and I would like to reinforce that leather. And by the way, how could a pickelhaube to be on that state? even the spike base was twisted when I got it

[joerookery]

Always love to see helmets! I'm afraid this one is in really sorry shape, but I don't imagine you get a lot of them in your country. The lack of markings, should not get you excited. This is from my website.

Why would my helmet have no marks? There are several reasons and one could buy a Diensthelme that looked an awful lot like an issue helmet but as a private purchase item there would be no marks. Helmets not issued out to units would also bear no marks. As the war went on I think standards in BKA's slipped to keep pace with the volume so war time helmets are less likely to have marks. As Pickelhaube were phased out in favor of steel helmets inflowing inventory would be stockpiled. Manufacturers were completing contracts and units were being issued steel helmets. Helmets that were stockpiled and not issued would not have a marking. In the same vein many of these stockpiled helmets were supposedly the supply for the thousands of war bond helmets found in the USA. So thousands of good unmarked helmets found their way into family hands.

Rob,

While your comments about the date makes immense sense. I have found significant use of the picklehaube inside Germany through 1918. I guess it was using obsolete equipment in rear areas. Here is a helmet repair Mark from 1918.

[lach470]

Hi! Yes....that does make sense....I never thought of the areas in the rear! Wild that they were still date stamping them that late into the war!! Very cool!

Thanks for giving me that extra perspective!

Cheers!

Rob

[leigh kitchen]

Hey thanks for the answer, you gave me good ideas to use. As what you told me about using glue, well it was all deformed, I put it together basically by patching it inside with help of glue. what can I do with the interior?? it is extremely fragile, and I would like to reinforce that leather. And by the way, how could a pickelhaube to be on that state? even the spike base was twisted when I got it

If you rest a pikelhaube on it's front & rear peaks for years, the weight resting on the front & rear peaks it will stretch the helmet so that it's grown longer from front to back & drawn in at the sides, the spike weighs down on the top of the helmet, causing a dent in the top, the leather shrinks with age, tearing stitching apart, the helmets get crushed or dropped, they're nowhere near as robust now as they were when they were first made.

Cut an oval of thick leather, foam or card to place inside the helmet, perhaps with a central hole to slide down over a vertical pole as in photos 4 & 5, so that it's out of sight inside the helmet but stopping the remains of the leather liner from dropping down into view.Or use the top of a polystyrene head cut off so that it's hidden from view inside the helmet, sitting on top of such a stand (cover the polystyrene in a cotton sock or similar to prevent direct contact with the helmet).

Or wedge pieces of card under the split pins holding the spikes in position, so that they support the pieces of the lining.

Rather than patch, I'd try to stick the edges of the broken leather together.

Some years ago I saw an 1847 (or whatever year they adopted the pikelhaube) Hanoverian helmet for sale at auction, it was clearly (from the damge it had) the helmet that I'd seen in photographs in books, belonging to a collector named Norm Hodgson, I think the name was?

Apart from other aspects that made me immediately lose any interest in bidding for it, it had been crushed & split from top to bottom, & a large hole caused by a missing section of the shell "repaired" - by sticking a large patch of new leather to the insoide & putting filler or building up boot polish on the outside & paintng or polishing it - truly horrible.

I have a couple of pikelhauben (a Prussian pionier or railway troops one & a Baden infantry one) with the remains of their leather linings glued to the inside of the shell, very untidily by somebody with far too much glue at his disposal. They It look terrible, but there's not much I can do about it now it's been done.

[volkssturm]

If you rest a pikelhaube on it's front & rear peaks for years, the weight resting on the front & rear peaks it will stretch the helmet so that it's grown longer from front to back & drawn in at the sides, the spike weighs down on the top of the helmet, causing a dent in the top, the leather shrinks with age, tearing stitching apart, the helmets get crushed or dropped, they're nowhere near as robust now as they were when they were first made.

Cut an oval of thick leather, foam or card to place inside the helmet, perhaps with a central hole to slide down over a vertical pole as in photos 4 & 5, so that it's out of sight inside the helmet but stopping the remains of the leather liner from dropping down into view.Or use the top of a polystyrene head cut off so that it's hidden from view inside the helmet, sitting on top of such a stand (cover the polystyrene in a cotton sock or similar to prevent direct contact with the helmet).

Or wedge pieces of card under the split pins holding the spikes in position, so that they support the pieces of the lining.

Rather than patch, I'd try to stick the edges of the broken leather together.

Some years ago I saw an 1847 (or whatever year they adopted the pikelhaube) Hanoverian helmet for sale at auction, it was clearly (from the damge it had) the helmet that I'd seen in photographs in books, belonging to a collector named Norm Hodgson, I think the name was?

Apart from other aspects that made me immediately lose any interest in bidding for it, it had been crushed & split from top to bottom, & a large hole caused by a missing section of the shell "repaired" - by sticking a large patch of new leather to the insoide & putting filler or building up boot polish on the outside & paintng or polishing it - truly horrible.

I have a couple of pikelhauben (a Prussian pionier or railway troops one & a Baden infantry one) with the remains of their leather linings glued to the inside of the shell, very untidily by somebody with far too much glue at his disposal. They It look terrible, but there's not much I can do about it now it's been done.

I tried to glue it together before putting the patches, but it didn?t work and didn?t tryed anymore, I will try a 2nd chance, what glue can you recomend for this one??

[volkssturm]

Always love to see helmets! I'm afraid this one is in really sorry shape, but I don't imagine you get a lot of them in your country. The lack of markings, should not get you excited. This is from my website.

Rob,

While your comments about the date makes immense sense. I have found significant use of the picklehaube inside Germany through 1918. I guess it was using obsolete equipment in rear areas. Here is a helmet repair Mark from 1918.

thanks for the answer it teachs more about history of those helmets, I didn?t knew neither that they where repaired even in the late part of the war, in fact it left me surprised that where still in used up to that date, in rear areas, but in use anyway

[joerookery]

I didn?t knew neither that they where repaired

If you really want to know more :rolleyes:

http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/DepotMarks_5_09.html