[Boris Bedrosov]

Many of the historical turban helmets show a hook, placed right at the nasal as a common feature. Traditionally, it's believed the purpose of this hook is to hold the aventail in upper position when not in use - for example during the marches.
As I already had the chance to have the helmet on my head, for various reasons I'm not fully convinced this was its main task.

Anyway, this feature had to be done also.
I started with 8 mm steel rod and some hot hammering until flattened some part of it.



With some grinding, filing, sanding, drilling and bending I got the shape of the hook



The shape and dimensions are not "invented" by me, instead they were directly taken from a relatively simple, but one the most beautiful (on my opinion) turban helmets, now in possession of the MetMuseum.



The hook was riveted to the helmet



In order to provide some free movement of the hook, during riveting it was separated from the surface of the helmet with a couple of pieces of cardboard. After riveting the cardboard was removed, the excessives (because there is always excessives) were literally blasted away with a propane torch - that's why the surface is blue around the hook.

[Kai Lawson]

That hook looks like it is fairly far over to the right side of the helmet (I think…). If you don't think that it's mainly for holding up the aventail, what do you think it was for, ad why is it so (seemingly?) off center? Is it maybe to help hold up a cloth wrapping around the middle of the helm? (Is that even actually done?)

[Aleksei Sosnovski]

[Boris Bedrosov]

# Kai

The hook indeed is a little bit over to the right - mainly because the specific shape of the etching. I was forced to mount the hook right in the middle between two half-ovals. As the first middle is extremely close to the nasal, I put the hook in the area of the second one. This really moved the hook to the right.
As for its purpose - well, it could hold the aventail, but not for long periods of time (as during march). In my humble experience, when the aventail is in upper position, the helmet is extremely off-balance and shows strong tendency to tilt back, the right eye is almost fully "blind" (the maille denies the sight very efficiently). Not sure, but I think it's tasked to hold the aventail for a relatively short period.
The cloth wrapping around the helmet is the other very controversial issue - not sure again (I should check all Ottoman miniatures I have stored on the other PC), but I think the Ottomans have done this in very rare occasions.


# Aleksei
Thanks for your kind words!
I'm familiar with the "fork method" also, it has its own good advantages. But as my helmet would be blackened (as the other parts of the harness), it's not a great issue that it went black when I blasted away the cardboard. As I hadn't need to send the piece again, burning was quite acceptable in this case.

And don't be afraid to show your pieces here - in the beginning I was quite afraid to do so, but nobody "bit" me. Instead, everyone was good enough to encourage me. In any case, this site here is a wonderful place for everyone of us to share his knowledge and experience.

[Boris Bedrosov]

Back in the game.... Time for the nasal.

Actually, I wish I made this one by forging instead of grinding, but.....maybe next time.
The blank with the contours of the future nasal



After cutting, grinding and some drilling that piece of steel was transformed to nearly completed nasal



Some more filing and grinding and it got its almost final shape





At this moment, the greatest difficult was the filing of three (two semi-oval and one oval) holes at the very top - indeed they are some 6 mm long and about 2.5-3 mm wide.

And finally - the result after sanding.



In order to provide some friction the nasal was slightly bent outwards. This also effectively would separate it from my nose after mounting.
Well, if someone finds the nasal very similar with one shown recently by Mr. Jeffrey Hildebrandt, there is no mistake. Just both of us used same artifact as an inspiration.

[Jeffrey Hildebrandt]

[Boris Bedrosov]

As the fitting of the spike was discussed previously, now I'll show it in short.

The spike after fitting



And from the inside



The fitting was done with bolt and big-diameter washer; the spike was threated for that purpose.
The washer is the anchor, that locks the whole assembly firmly. What is crucial are the diameter of the washer and the length of the bolt - you need to select them very carefully in order to achieve good results.
The assembly was quick and tight. As the blackening of the helmet includes a lot of heating, soldering (another plausible method) wouldn't be much appropriate in this case.

[Boris Bedrosov]

With the nasal completed and top spike in place, now it was time to attach the nasal to the helmet.
"How to do this?" was one particular question which troubles me from a long time. What was the exact, historically correct method, how the clip (or call it "staple" or "bracket" if you like) holding the nasal, was attached to the helmet itself? We are speaking about the helmets from the area of the Ottoman Empire and Western Persia, 15th - 16th C.

From the images of artifacts, I was able to define three possible methods



# 1 (with rivets) - may be with the highest level of security, but I've seen it on the historical pieces (and I've seen hundreds of them - on pictures or in museums) literally once or twice
# 2 (inward bend) - my vote is for it????? but who knows
or # 3 (outward bend)
In both # 2 and # 3 the ends of the clip are thrust into the inner volume of the helmet through a couple of narrow cuts made on its surface (I'm absolutely sure about this - I've personally seen several without the clips and cuts well visible, just like this one



from the "Askeri Muzesi" in Istanbul, Turkey).

As I was unable to decide for myself, I contacted Jeffrey Hildebrandt, who has some early experience with turban helmets.
Mr. Hildebrandt was extremely polite and kind to spend some of his free time, sharing his knowledge and experience with me. Except my three variants, he even suggested another, but as this is his "know-how", I would not share his picture here without his permission.
After some exchange of PMs, we both decided that most likely variant could be #2 - Thanks again Jeffrey, your help was priceless!!!

Well, the work began with cutting, shaping and filing of the brackets



followed by cutting and filing of the holes in the helmet



Some precise filing and test-fit of the brackets - now everything is ready for assembly



With the nasal in place, all legs of the brackets were hammered inwards, thus holding everything firmly.

[Boris Bedrosov]

Honestly, I am fascinated by the result - I didn't anticipated such secure, tight and easy-to-be-done assembly. This again proved my conclusions that simple descisions usually work very well.

The helmet before





and after blackening - the nasal is shown in its bottom- and upper-most positions.

[Radovan Geist]

Impressive... What did you use for blackening, Boris?

[Boris Bedrosov]

I use fine machine oil to do this.
And a propane torch, of course. I heat the surface till it goes blue (this is around 200 - 220 degrees centigrade), then cover it with the oil - this repeats until I get the colour I like.
If the detail is not big (for example when I blacken mace-heads), after heating I submerge the detail in a vessel full of oil.

I've tried with different types of oil, the best results are achieved with electric transformer oil. Instead machine oil, it's possible engine oil to be used instead.
I want to try the original 14th-15th C. mixture someday - linseed oil with some rosin (colophony) and turpentine.

[Jeffrey Hildebrandt]

That looks great, Boris! Using the springiness of the nasal for a friction fit is an elegant solution, isn't it?

[Boris Bedrosov]

Absolutely!
Yet another simple and clever idea

[William P]

[Boris Bedrosov]

Well, if I understood your question correctly, the nasal doesn't wobble around by the means of two staples I used.
Most of the original pieces usually have only one staple, but I used two (with some distance between them) on that purpose exactly - to deny the wobbling effect. Plus the staples themselves were fitted very carefully to the width of the nasal - the gap between is as minimal as possible.
This combined gave me very good "anti-wobble" result - not zero of course, but minimal.

Sliding up and down was countered by the gentle outwards bending of the nasal and using of the spring effect of such curved nasal.

[Boris Bedrosov]

In order to protect the inner surface of the helmet from rust, it was painted black.
To speed the process of drying I used my heat gun. This gave me a chance to covered the surface with two layers of paint in relatively short time.



Then the leather "crown" for the lining was made



and with help of four anchoring plates



was riveted inside the helmet

[Boris Bedrosov]

Next is the lining.....

Here, I want to stop for a while and explain some of my thoughts about it.
Generally, it's accepted that one of the widespread ideas about the name "turban helmet" derives from the fact, that this type of helmets usually were worn over a turban - a long strip of cloth, wrapped around the head (or at least - some sort of thick cap). Hence the idea, that the helmet itself is just a piece of steel WITHOUT any lining.
In my opinion these helmets had lining - at least many of them show four, six or even - eight, rivets running in a line, most suitable for the above-mentioned "crown" of the lining. Actually, I think that the "turban helmet" comes from the resemblance with the wrapped turban.

And the lining of mine



The "sandwich" includes one layer of linen on each outward surface (two in total) and 16 layers of some sort of loosely woven, but thick cotton. The resulting thickness is more than half-an-inch when compressed. Everything was sewn on hand.

The lining in "battle-ready" position



and sewn to the "crown" inside the helmet



Closer view to the seam

[Boris Bedrosov]

The aventail for the helmet was made sometime ago - during spring and summer.
Basically, it's assembled by differents parts, which left from the maille I bought for this project.







Now, I consider this zig-zag edge as a "fail", next time the aventail will be left with straight one. Also, as I understood later (on the helmet) it needs to be a little bit longer.

[Boris Bedrosov]

Finally, the helmet is completed.

Front view with the nasal down....



.... and with the nasal up.



Two (left and right) side views





On all images the heads of front rivets, holding the lining suspension are well-visible

[Kai Lawson]

Boris,

How far out from the face does the nasal/aventail sit? Does it squish you in a bit, or is it fairly roomy?