The helmet has been forged into shape but we still have work to do. In this part of the tutorial we clean the helmet up and assemble the parts together.

Part 1 of this tutorial is here

Ok, we have our three major parts of the helmet and they are freshly cooled from the forge. Now we need to clean them up.

A wire brush is good to start with just to get most of the big and loose stuff off.

And there are a few different things you can use to clean this thing off including emory paper, and attachments for a drill.

Here I am using 100 grit emory paper. A rough grit is needed so use something between 80 and 120. Notice I am wearing gloves for this. It is a really good idea for safety. And, you are going to make a pretty good mess. The gloves matter for that too.

There are various wire brush attachments for a drill that are helpful with this.

Now this helmet is almost cleaned. You have to get all the black off at this point. But how deeply and shiny you polish it is up to you. It is easier to polish and shine the helmet later when it is finished.

Next we are going to start assembling the helmet together. Before we do that we need to fold over the tabs on the top of the helmet. You can do this in the forge. I did this using a vise. I clamped each tab in the vise then folded over the helmet top.

Then I drilled holes in each of the tabs. These holes are how we will assemble this top piece to the helmet piece with the eye slots.

That hole looks great. Do all the tabs on the helmet top.

All the tabs are done. And I ran this piece on a belt sander a little bit to smooth out the cuves and distortions created by bending the tabs in a vise.

Ok, let's continue with the tutorial

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