Seeing another Armet WIP on here pushed me to finally type this up. I've made four of these now and the first two nearly ended up as wall hangers, so here's the stuff I wish someone had told me before I started. The biggest one is the skull. Don't raise the two halves freehand over a stump and hope for the best. Carve a hardwood block to the profile, or make a negative stake if you've got the steel spare, and form over that. My third helmet took half the time of the second and the symmetry was night and day. Also keep the halves thicker than feels right, because you'll lose material cleaning up the lumps later. On the visor, get the pivots sorted before you do any final fitting. Drill the pivot holes in the cheek plates while everything is still fairly flat, then shape the visor to match them. Trying to line up pivots on a fully formed visor is pure misery, trust me. For the fantasy touches, keep any scrollwork or fluting away from the central crease. Anything worked into the ridge weakens the line and you'll fight it the whole way thru. Put the decoration on the flank plates instead, it reads better from a distance anyway.
Tips for your first Armet helmet build, from someone who scrapped two of them
Oct 11, 2026
Last reply: 15 hours ago
3 Replies
I'm on my second armet right now and the pivot advice hits home hard. I did mine backwards on the first one, formed the visor fully, then spent two weekends filing the pivot holes to line up. Ended up with about a sixteenth of an inch of slop in one side and it shows every time the visor swings. This time around I drilled the cheek plates first thing after flattening them and the visor just dropped into place. Should have done that from the start.
One thing that helped me with the skull was leaving a generous flange around the bottom edge of each half while raising. Gave me extra grip in the tongs and extra metal to trim when the two halves didn't quite agree on thier profile. I also traced the finished first half onto paper and used it as a rough template for the second, which got them closer than my eyeballing ever did.
On decoration, I'd add that shallow chisel work on the flank plates is forgiving, but if you plan to planish anything afterward, keep it even shallower. My fluting on the pauldron of an earlier project nearly vanished under the planishing hammer because I got ambitious with depth.
Mostly lurk here since I mostly do knives and the odd hook, so helmets are way outside my lane, but reading this makes me want to try one eventually. Question on the hardwood block, when you say carve to the profile do you mean the outside shape of the half skull, or a full head form split down the middle? I've got a chunk of beech from an old workbench leg sitting in the shed and I'm wondering if that's even worth trying or if softer wood just dents up after a few heats.
On the halves, I welded mine up the seam instead of riveting and I'm never going back. Cleaned the bevels with an angle grinder, tacked the inside on a backing plate, then dressed the joint till you can't find it under the polish. Only catch is you have to work fast before the whole skull pulls heat and everything shifts on you. Curious how you're doing the visor opening on yours. I cut the sight after forming and it warped the whole thing, had to re-flatten the bottom edge twice. Next one I'm punching the slot while the plate is still flat and hoping the shape holds.
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