This is a project ive been on with over the last few weeks,Replica Fallschirmjager Helmet that i have aged up ,
It started off as one that had already had the shell aged and rusty (no paint) the liner was as new (see photos)
I stripped the helm down to shell and lightly sprayed field grey inside and out ,when dry i affixed the decals .To fix the decals i lightly painted them with a matt varnish.
The next step was refitting the liner and aging
I used a wood stain to darken the liner then blow torched it,this made the leather go hard and shrink ,i cant really go into detail on the rest of the leather aging as i just tried different stuff as i went along,i used coloured furniture waxes ,oily rags,,paint,dubbing ,cigarrette ash even soy sauce just anything that eventually helped to build up the effect of years of age and use.
next was aging the paint work and decals,first i wire brushed the whole shell then lightly sanded it been carefull to avoid the deacls at this stage.I then dropped the helmet onto a gravel surface and kicked it around a bit,smacked it with the hammer a few times .I then went at the decals ,the tri colour was way off line so i removed most of it just leaving traces of where it had been then chipped a few bits of transfer from the eagle and carefully ? hit across part of the eagle and helmet to give the impression of damage ,the decal remains still looked new so i brushed on some dark wood wax and rubbed it off after a few minutes with fine wire wool.next i sanded away some of the paint around the helmet rim and on the top of the dome where it would naturally get worn,then the whole helmet was rubbed over with fine wire wool,which because of the thinness of the paint exposed the previously faked rust,still looked a bit new so i sat it in a wet sandbag overnight ,this caused the exposed metal to rust ,then i gave the helmet a good rubbing over with wet soil and ciggarette ash which got into all the small scratches ,finally it was given a rub over with an old rag and a false name painted inside
