Galea padding?

[Decimus Apollonius]

What padding are you guys using for you Galea. The padding that came with mine is way to thick and it comes down to low inside the helmet (lower than the eye brow area).
I won't need much I don't think as my Galea sits about right as it is. Any thoughts? Pics? Thanks!

[M. Demetrius]

No matter how you do it, you do need some padding. Consider a piece of steel touching your skull, then smacked hard with some solid object...it may not cut you, but your skull will take all the impact. The pad is essential to absorb sweat, and to absorb incoming kinetic energy.

Some people use felt, some layers of wool, some make a leather suspension rig, some use cotton or linen layer (not a bad idea), and there's a long thread on RAT on using natural sponge. AFAIK, there's no totally exclusive way that we believe the Ancients padded theirs, except to say they had to do something.

Imagine one of the Greek helmets, or a Scythian, where there could be three inches or more of space above the top of your head. They didn't (logic would say) haphazardly just stuff that space with rags, or anything else that moved around. They wore helmets to stay alive, not to fiddle with stuffing. Whatever they used was fixed in place, so they could put on their helmet on a moment's notice.

The short answer seems to be that we just don't know what they did. And there's no standard on what we do, either. On some of my helmets, I put a leather hangar, sort of like in a modern construction hat, in others, a layer of thick felt with a cotton liner. Getting things to stay put is the problem, though, nothing much sticks very well to the metal inside the helmet. Nothing I've found yet, that is, that is even remotely available to the Romans. Some ancient helmets have a series of holes, which may have been to sew some lining material in place.

[Tarbicus]

I use the bog standard liner that comes with the Deepeeka helms, a medieval padded linen arming cap that covers the neck and cheeks (excellent for added stability if the ties are threaded through the cheek piece tie rings), a phrygian cap, and a wool Dura cap. Different helmets seem to be better with different caps. Yet to find the right kind of sponge as described by Aristotle.
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=15354

[M. Demetrius]

Jim, just because we haven't found any Roman arming caps doesn't mean the Romans didn't wear them. Not a whole lot was invented during the Dark Ages, so it isn't a huge stretch of logic to think that they just copied the Roman style helmet liners...which would make the arming cap you use probably just perfect. We do know that they wore a wide array of headcovers, and a thickened one would be a good choice for helmet padding. Maybe with some soft rags inside the cap for extra pad and air space.

Don't know. I just use whatever works for me, and figure that if it's inside, it's ok. I do tend to stay away from Dayglo colors, though... :lol:

[Tarbicus]

David, here's an engraving by Strutt. I don't know where he got the design from, though:

[M. Demetrius]

Jim,
Makes perfect sense to me. And if you look at it, really, it's the same functional garment as the arming cap from 1100AD, more or less. The head is the same shape, the helmet is similar, so why not?

(*sounds in the background of marking, cutting, snipping, stitching, ouching from needles, etc.*)

[Decimus Apollonius]

Very cool! Easy pattern to find too ! A bit of linen and wool.

[Tarbicus]

here's the diagram I made for the Dura cap with measurements, if you fancy having a go. Adjust to your own head :wink:

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i311/ ... a_side.jpg

The angled rectangle at bottom right is where the felt underlining went to. I think it's important for the stitching to go at the back, as my phrygian hurts like hell with the stitching at the front after a while, getting compressed against the forehead down the seam.

[Decimus Apollonius]

Very informative read on the helmet sponges. Thanks for the link. I haven't yet begun to think about the padding itself HA!

[Robert Vermaat]

Cezary made us a nice thick cap from felt.

[Decimus Apollonius]

Do you have any pictures of it Valerius?

[Robert Vermaat]

Do you have any pictures of it Valerius?

Not a good one - Cezary is holding it here (I mean in his RIGHT hand):

[M. Demetrius]

Jim, I'm supposing that the front of the cap is on the left, as you view the sketch, am I right?

And thanks for taking the time out to post for us ignorami. :?

[Tarbicus]

Jim, I'm supposing that the front of the cap is on the left, as you view the sketch, am I right? :?

Yes, that's right. It's traced over a photo of the Dura cap which was flattened out for the pic in the James catalogue ...... at least I think it was.... :?

[A_Volpe]

It will come down to personal comfort for a good fit.

You can take the deepeeka liner and roll up the bottom edge to where it will clear the edges of the helmet, and then either sew that roll over onto the cap, giving added padding, or sew it as a hem line and trim off that extra material - you could even transplant that material to the top of the cap, like cross-bracing, for added cushion on the top of the head.

You could also put a "tape" of leather around the cap, and glue that to the inside of the helmet with hide glue, so you can easily pull out the cap if needed (to clean it), you could also put some "crossbraces" of leather over the top of the cap as mentioned above.

Another thing you could try is the put the cap on, and then pinch/gather the material up from the very top/center of your head, until the lower edge is where you want it to be, and then stitch that little clump on the top up. It might even provide a little airspace as well (kind of like a hairbun)

Yet another option is to sew a drawstring to either the lower edge or near the top of the cap, so you can zip/tie it tight around your head.

You really do need the airspace ontop of the head as best you can, as Demetrius mentioned - it serves a specific function. So try to keep that in mind when making/modifying the liner. I think the best results is when the helmet is sitting on the head so the bottom edge of the bowl is just above your eyebrows, and obviously with enough space to clear you ears on the earguards/flanges, if your helmet has that.

I think these DPK liners are a great start and look pretty easy to modify to suit one's needs. It will work better I hope than the wool stocking cap I've been using for some time now :oops:

On a side note, I've been having real trouble with the cheekguard padding falling off, esspecially when the helmet gets warm (hide glue gets melty/goopy with heat) - I think I'll try taking some thread and tying it around the cheekpiece plates. Perhaps leather will stick better to the metal so I might also try stitching a leather piece to the (linen) padding and glue the leather to the helmet and see if that sticks.