Ugly helms

What follows is a stream of consiousness....feel free to click "next blog"....

Here are a couple of the "ugly" helms I made this week. Why are they ugly? Well, the welding is technically excellent (I didn't do it...grin!), the helms are fairly plain, but those big grills out in front just make a nice looking helmet fugly. I don't normally make grill faced helms...guess this is why! However, the customer is always right, and knows what he wants....and ugly takes a back seat to function, visibility, breathing (always handy, that!) and winning the battle. The old saying....Good Fast or Cheap, pick any two. I think I can now add "Pretty" to that list. But you still only get to pick two! This fellow clearly picked "functional and cheap", and will win all his upcoming battles. Ah well, at least if he loses them, he can't blame me for making him a helm he can't fight in!
Compare to the barrel helms in the January archives....I think I prefer the closed in barrel helm to this wide open bar face.
The other helm is a round top grill face. It is the "alpha" version, and so needs some tweaking. However, there are some different things about it....it is basically a good looking helm which has been covered with a face grill. The grill is built upon a cut out plate, which although 12 gauge, is pretty light since most of it is cut away. I had 20 of them plasma-cut to a template I built (rebuilt, and built again until I got it right!) Now I just have to make a LOT of face bars! This should be the new "hot seller". They don't take all that long to make....just requires a lot of waiting time for the stages....usually it takes a couple of weeks to get into the welding shop, but only 2 hours to cut out the plates! Then another two weeks to get the welding done later!
The tops are spun bowls which have had a half inch taken out of them and then welded together. Another 2 weeks...Hey, I think I know why this project is taking all this time!!