A Bi--h of a Stitch!

b.loree

b.loree

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Recently finished this 1896 dated officer helmet. I believe that this is the finest stitching that I have encountered in all these years of doing this.
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I am guessing 1mm between each hole. Naturally, this lack of distance between holes leads to breaks along the stitch line which had to be fixed.
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The rear visor was a bit easier as the stitch line was complete.
 
Whomever originally stitched this helmet had one steady hand and incredible hand-eye coordination.

When your done that will be one sturdy helmet and should last another 100+ years, Incredible work. (y)
 
Visors were machine stitched originally. It had to be a special machine purpose built for the application. If you look inside the shell, you can usually see the scuffs where the machine foot tracked. On officer grade haubes, the liners were typically sewn by hand. The number of stitches per given length can be adjusted on a machine. Good job Brian. I bet it took twice the time to sew this one!
Ron
 
My thanks for the comments. Yes Ron, most all OR’s show the track marks of the sewing machine on the inside and yes at least twice the time on this piece. You can see the stitching on the front visor has been caved in by the wappen and this area had split and a reinforcement was glued in place on the back side. I can not see officer’s helmets being done by hand however. Perhaps a different type of machine was used? We also have to remember how supple leather is when new and these shells were quickly stitched up. Throughout my life I have heard the term “fine stitching “ used in describing leather goods and this helmet demonstrates this! I am starting work on a Wurttemberg officer and will post a couple of photos here of it’s stitching for comparison. Thankfully, it is not as finely stitched.
 
Those machines must have had a guide because that stitch looks perfectly spaced and even from the edge all the way around. Impressive to at least me anyway.

I did a little sewing back in the old days in home economics class in school, that's were all the girls were.;) One of my buddies turned me onto that one it was a great way to meet all the pretty girls the odds were incredible like 40 to 1. (y)

I can tell ya none of my machine stitches ever came close to that quality. :oops:

To be able to replicate that by hand very impressive. (y)
 
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