Halloween is Over

All right, not really, but our crazy Halloween season is just about. Besides my wife's and my regular business of resin casting, we have been selling leather masks on Etsy, and these last three months have been inordinately busy. And while I'm grateful for the income, I am so ready to slow down and and take it easy. You may have noticed my lack of posts lately, which is totally due to my having very little time to work on new projects.








My skull respirator, for instance, has been almost complete for about two months, but is still unfinished. I expect to proceed with it soon. I have decided to pair it with a blue fire helmet that I made long ago, but never made a plate for (the decorative piece on the front).






For the red Firemaster helmet I made the plate out of leather that was embossed and gold leafed.

For the blue fire helmet I plan on making it out of cold cast aluminum, the same material I used for the Sentinel plate, shown above.

The helmet and respirator together will be the official gear of an elite cadre of firefighters: The Death Defiers. Their motto is "Death to fires!" This is of course a play on words, as the two sound almost identical when spoken. My plan for the plate is a smaller, flatter version of the skull on the respirator (shown above), surrounded by the name on top and the slogan underneath. I am excited about seeing it done.

Defender: Helm with Plate

Today I attached the plate onto the front of the steampunk Defender helm. Not a lot left to do now. Mostly things that don't show.

Defender: The Aether Collector

Here is the working part of the Defender helmet: The luminiferous aether collection device. The neckguard will have a bank of ten of these little beauties.



Luminiferous aether is the substance which fills the upper regions of space beyond the clouds. It is the medium which allows light to travel. The luminiferous aether collection device was designed to gather the energy from the aether and convert it for personal use.

Defender: Starting the Mask

With the helmet nearing completion, I have begun on the mask. These two parts—the helmet and mask—could be worn alone, but they are designed to be worn together.



This is a variation of the gas mask, with two respirators on the sides of the snout replacing the single central one, which gives it an eerie alien look.



Each of the two eyepieces will be different. One of them will resemble a camera lens, and the other a porthole.



Here is a photo of the mask after the major leather pieces have all been stitched together.

Defender: Antiquing the Helm

I went ahead and riveted the crest to the helm, and then antiqued it all black. The purple and red now remain only as highlights, just the look I was after.



I've been building the luminiferous aether collection devices that fit into the neckguard trim, and I can't assemble that until they are all cast.



Meanwhile, I have started on the headlamp. Here is a photo of the lamp as I found it at a yard sale. I will break it apart, and then the lamp will attach to the front of the helm.

Defender: The Neckguard Trim

I will be adding a second layer of leather over the bottom edge of the neckguard, in order to reinforce it and make it lay smoother. If I make the trim the same size as the neckguard, and stitch them together, the resulting piece will want to lay flat, which I don't want. The neckguard should roughly form a half circle. In order to get it to readily make that shape I will make the trim piece longer than the base piece.

If you take two pieces of paper—one slightly shorter than the other—and fasten the ends together, it will bend into a curve. If you wrap tape around a tube, and keep adding it on over itself, the tape will build up in thickness, with the circumference of each turn being slightly larger than the previous one. Drafting a pattern for the neckguard uses the same principle.


I can make the patterns in paper, and bend and measure them to find the right size differential, but that won't be accurate for cutting it in leather because the leather is thicker than paper, and thus needs a larger differential. Add to that the fact that vegetable tanned leather—which I cut and stitch while damp—will shrink while drying, and I can only guess at how long the trim should be.



Here is the neckguard trim piece after cutting and dying.



And here it is tacked into position. The oblong openings will hold luminiferous aether collection devices.

Underground Explorer: Oxygen Canister

I have had a good response to my writing competition. Seems like there are a lot of writers happy for an excuse to create a short steampunk story.

The final piece of the undeground explorer helmet is the oxygen canister which connects to the leather snout. Pictured below is the antiqued canister with rubber tubing and the connection at the other end.


Still to construct is the leather strapping which will allow the canister to be worn on the back or over the shoulder. Brownie points to anyone who can identify the original item from which the canister was made.

I leave for Maker Faire in San Mateo, CA exactly one week from today, and the finished helmet will be the centerpiece of my display.

Underground Explorer: Designing the Goggles

These giant sized paper glasses are my beginning attempt to work out the pattern for the goggles. This is going to take a lot of trial and error to get it right.

Underground Explorer: Lamp Comb is Finished

After focusing on the whale tooth for awhile I have returned my attentions to the Underground Explorer's helmet. Yesterday I reworked the comb pattern and remade it to fit properly, then I cut out the leather and hand-stitched it over the acrylic comb form. Today I painted it black, and antiqued it brown to give it that old look. After drying, I bolted and riveted the comb to the leather helm, and attached the lamp to the front.



I have decided on all of the design elements of the helmet, and have just two more to complete: The eyecover/goggles, and the oxygen canister which will hook up to the snout. With this equipment our intrepid explorer will be protected from extremes in pressure and temperature, as well as falling rocks. They will also have a bright light to see what lies before them, and have a fresh supply of oxygen to weather the pockets of foul air. Hopefully this will protect them from all unforseen dangers that might lurk ahead.

Underground: First Comb Attempt

I constructed the helmet comb out of leather and it has some problems, the major one being it is too small once the wet leather shrank.


Although I will have to remake it this picture gives a pretty good idea of how it will look. Of course once the lamp is mounted onto the front it will change again.

Space Helmet: The Eyehole Trim

I'm pretty much making up the design of this piece as I go along. When I found the helmet at the yard sale, I knew I wanted to copy the basic shape in leather, but beyond that I had no plans. Once I had stitched the leather pieces together and removed them from the helmet, I knew that I would have to reinforce all raw edges to keep it from being too floppy.

So today—besides antiquing the helmet and snout, and adding the required snaps—I made a trim piece to go around the eye opening. I gussied it up a bit to make it interesting, adding some cut outs, dyed it black and riveted it onto the helm. Sure enough, it reduces the flop factor.

When I add on the collar it should significantly help the helmet hold its shape.

Designing a Steampunk Spaceman's Helmet

Today, Sunday, my wife and I went to some yard sales. Now sometimes you find nothing, and other times you find one gem. Just as we were about to leave one sale emptyhanded, I spotted a plastic astronaut's helmet. When I inquired about the price, the seller said $1--uh, 50¢--fearing I wouldn't cough up a whole dollar for this plastic helmet that was missing the visor. Of course, I saw much more in it. I knew I could pull a pattern off of it and remake it as a steampunk leather helmet!

Here is the plastic helmet as I bought it.

After thinking about how to break it up into separate leather pieces, I taped it all over with duct tape to make the patterns, and marked the divisions.

Here I've cut off the duct tape using an Xacto knife, and laid it down on heavy paper.

Next I've smoothed out the lines, removed the duct tape, and cut out the heavy paper patterns.

Next using the patterns I cut out the leather pieces, and punched the stitching holes, along with snap and buckle holes. I am leaving the front piece that covers the mouth removable so that the wearer can take it off for eating, etc.

Here I've stitched together the left center piece and the left side piece to see if it will work. I used a seam that exposes the edges, but after seeing it I think I'll remove the thread and do it over with an overlapping seam so that it will lie flat.

I will post more later as I progress on this project.

Steampunk Doodling

Some steampunk mask and helmet ideas from the old sketchbook.

American Dragoon helmet tutorial

Here is a tutorial on my website on making this American dragoon leather helmet.

http://www.tombanwell.com/how_to_dragoon_helmet.html