Mother of all noobs.

[wurzul]

Hi all,
I have been dabbling a toe into the C12th, and have got as far as a yard of books and a few pieces of kit. Showing my new spangenhelm to a friend yesterday I donned padded cap, mail coif and helm and invited him to boff the helm. Instant tapped claret as the nasal piece rapped my nose. I experimented a bit, but it seems that if you take a downwards blow to the forward half of the helmet your nose takes the pain. The helmet fits quite snugly, and I can't see a chin strap making much of a difference. Am I missing something obvious here, or do all you medieval types have noses smeared across your faces?
Cheers, Ben

[guthrie]

Do you have a photo of this helmet? I don't wear one but am wondering what shape it is etc.

[Colin MacDonald]

Gently bend the nasal outwards away from your face. Job's a good 'un.

[wurzul]

I would describe it as a conical helmet, rising to a peak, sits just above the ears. 4 applied steel bands rising to the peak from a reinforced bottom band. Nasal is flared at the bottom and impacts the nose quite high on the bridge. Bought second hand from a chap at TORM. I was quite relieved to find a big one as my previous purchase, a gdfb one, was much too small.

[Vermin]

Can you put it further down your head - loosen the spider, assuming there is one, so the brim is lower, which should support it and stop it moving around so much

You could also increase the padding around the rim, either your padding, or tuck a roll of cloth behind the spider (if there's one) so the brim stays in place

And what Colin said

[Glorfindle]

or you can go "aufentic" and just nail it to the back of your head, that way its not going to move....

[wurzul]

Padding and nasal bending it is. Thanks guys.

[The Iron Dwarf]

or have your nose removed

[Marcus Woodhouse]

it sounds as if his helmet is already trying to do that for him.

[Sir_John_Thomas]

Try hammering you nose flat with 16 oz hammer, that should solve the problem

no seriously, I think the padding/nasal bar bending would work best

[Chris, yclept John Barber]

A chin strap will make a big difference. Even if the helm is quite tight-fitting, when struck on the front it will try to rotate around whichever part of the helm is in firmest contact with the side of the head. That's why the nasal comes inwards and strikes the nose - it's rotating, rather than going down. Especially as you're wearing it over a mail coif, which is a low-friction surface, so it can slide relatively freely.

Once you have a chinstrap fastened tightly, the helm can no longer rotate. Imagine that the point of rotation is an inch above your ear, and the chinstrap is attached to the helm an inch in front of the top of your ear. Rather than one point of rotation, you have two 'fixed' points a couple of inches apart. The impact will try to rotate the helm around the point above your ear, but the strap attachment point can't move backwards because there's a throat in the way.

Result: a more secure helm. But bend the nasal out slightly anyway, because it tends to get pushed in every time you put it in a case with the mail and start throwing it around.

[Allan Harley]

I need to check out - but dragging from my memory it was common for most knights to have broken noses around the time-frame so you are working on being fully "aufentic"

[Marcus Woodhouse]

There's an Italian captain who had anotoriuosly big hooter and chopped the end of it off when he slamed down the visor of his armet and forgot to wind his head in.

[GuyDeDinan]

Cyrano di Benghazi?

[Marcus Woodhouse]

It's either that one whose statue is in Venice or the one whose statue is in Milan. I'm at work and have no way of checking until i get home.