Viking helmet
So, funny story.
Back in Belgrade, in another time, there were these hipster dudes who created a movement around growing, styling, and promoting long beards and mustaches. They posted a lot on social media, but mostly some funny beard memes and handsome male models who grew out their beards. It was a whole thing for a couple of years, they even held some beardness competitions, I heard.
Anyway, my friend Jovana and I saw that they were hosting a viking night! The promise was viking music, ambiance, food, and barrels of fine-quality mead! Or failing that at least heaps of rakija! Jovana is an accomplished artist—painter and a sculptor. She graduated from the School of applied arts with a degree in sculpting metal. Or something such, I am not well-versed in the ways of actual art.
But, as you can imagine, she uses MIG, TIG, oxy-acetylene welding, and is a flat-out blacksmith. Check out her Instagram profile.
She's also a viking enthusiast! So we thought—you know what would be funny? If we made viking helmets for the Viking night and dressed up and then let's go get hammered with a bunch of hulking, sexy, bearded dudes. :)
Idea​
The plan was not to be historically accurate, but dress up, completely over the top, and forge horned helmets like those cartoonish depictions of demonic viking figures conquering the new world.
We were alerady hanging out in her forge so we split the work—Jovana would make the helmets out of steel sheets and I would make the horns out of wood as we did not have any actual animal horns.
Challenge​
Multiple things. Jovana had to:
- Measure our beautiful skulls and tailor the steel to the shape.
- Decorate the helmets somehow so they look somewhat realistic.
I had to:
- Find some wood that could look like bone.
- Carve out 4 horn-looking pieces and attach them somehow.
Outcome​
Up to that point, Jovana had had a lot of practice tailoring steel to body shapes. She used the blow torch to heat up the metal sheets and hammered them into a battle-hewn look. She then welded on the lower part, cut the edge and curled it to decorate it. It was a simple technique but it covered the weld marks, gave it a worn out look, and added to the structural integrity.
As for me, she gave an discarded picture frame to destroy. It was not very big, so I had to plan where to cut so I end up with 4 similar pieces. The trick was to keep a corner in every piece so I could fashion them into a curved figure.
It took some angle grinder work and a lot of hand-filing, but I ended up with something pointier than previously and it did curve inwards.
We drilled the holes in the helmets, used self-drilling screws to attach the wood from the inside and—voila!
This of course was not enough for the viking night! We dressed up—Jovana found a traditional dress with viking motifs and I wore a kilt and a tunic. We were ready to drink with the gods!
Learnings​
Expecting mead, wild boar, and Wardruna playing in the background we charged into a cafe in downtown Belgrade where the event was held. To our disappointment, we were welcomed by pop music and some hipster dudes in skinny jeans and wax on their mustaches.
There was no mead, but instead cocktails with medovača. There were no wild boars, swords, or painted faces—certainly no kilts. It's a bit weird to be the only dude in a skirt in the middle of a culture where that is not a thing.
So we had a couple of beers and moved on with our lives.
As for the learnings, there weren't really any maker-specific ones. We had fun listening to the music we both liked making something together. And making up stuff together obviously since we totally misunderstood the Instagram invite. Or they lied.
If there are any learnings, it'd be this—do not expect hardcore viking, historical-reenactment events from a bunch of hipster beard enthusiasts. ;)