Adam Savage Learns Ancient Helmet Hammering Techniques!

At the at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Arms and Armor conservation lab, Associate Conservator Sean Belair shows Adam how he uses the same pitch bowl that armorers of classical antiquity would have used to hammer, shape, and form bronze helmet parts!

Shot and edited by Joey Fameli
Music by Jinglepunks

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Intro bumper by Abe Dieckman

Thanks for watching!

#adamsavage #armor #restoration

[markthomas]

Adam's face when he learns the helmet is nearly 2500 years old! Priceless!

[christopherdurham]

"I never thought I would see such a wonderful large bucket of pitch."
"This is our SMALL bucket of pitch."

[hobbitdude]

Adam's face at 0:47 is great as he realizes just HOW old the helmet before him is

[fifty]

I love these short pieces to camera from the Met, focusing on just one thing and its process, and I love seeing Adam tell the stories of HIS endeavors as a maker of prop replicas, and the official professional peeps being totally in tune with what he's saying! These always leave a smile on my face :)

[ingelri]

One of the things I had to accept when making armour reproductions was that I was never going to get a piece absolutely perfect, and even the masters of armouring made mistakes. For many artists, that's a hard pill to swallow. Then you start studying original pieces up close and realize how many imperfections there really are.

[altiramoongara]

Very cool.
Some things don't change. Pitch bowls are used in jewelry making for this sort of thing to this day.

The bit about rivet holes not being spaced perfectly sounds so familiar. Even when using multi-hole punches, somehow I can never get the holes for stitching a leather piece exactly even. I agree with Adam, knowing that professionals had issues with similar things makes me feel better about my own work.

[rodsprague]

I ran into the same being able to understand something about a previous maker phenomenon when I looked at an ancient North American arrowhead. It was symmetrical, but had a subtle spiral to its shape. I told the person who handed it to me "This person had a dominant hand." I can make completely flat versions of similar styles of arrowhead because I am so dyslexic, I am completely ambidextrous and can switch hands before it gets a subtle spiral.

[-UseSoap_]

This series has been wonderful, thus far. I hope there is more to come!

[abbofun]

This Met series is truly your best ever.

[bunhelsingslegacy]

I've really been enjoying this series, my armourmaster made a pitch bowl, we took over his shop after he passed. And now I finally have a name for all the tools we use for repoussé work: chasing tools! A lot of ours are modified drill bits. We do all cold work though. HE did a lot of backroom looking at extand armour pieces and the stories he'd tell about what things looked like on the inside made us feel better about our misplaced hammer marks. And I miss him with every single one of these, he would have loved watching them.

[thegodofhellfire]

These MET armor vids keep getting better and better!

[anonuser]

Having watched a lot of this series, I wondered who was enjoying it the most. At first I thought it was Adam with his frequent expressions of delight upon each new discovery. Then I thought it was us viewers delighting ourselves in Adams reactions. Then I realised its neither- it's these true craftsmen that are making direct connections with so many others- in ways that the result of their hard work placed in a display case never could. Top content all round.

[a_ham]

I love the picture of the Emperor Maximilian with his armorers in the background. It feels right at home in the armor conservation department at the MET!

[Walsfeo]

This is a great series. Thanks for sharing!

[shadbanta]

im loving the historical arms and armor videos because ive been looking for this exact type of content

[paullambert]

I did chasing, repousse, and planishing in college. Nice to see a pitch pot again. Thanks Adam.

[PostalTwinkie]

1:09 is pure, uncontrollable, Adam excitement! My son does this EXACT same thing with his hands when he can't control his excitement! It is so damn cute at any age it seems!

Biggest Tell in the World when playing cards with him.

[RoelfvanderMerwe]

This series is absolutely incredible. Please don't stop!

[PontusWelin]

I love that idea at the end there. We’re all just walking in the footsteps of those that went before us. I am going to try to change my own mindset more towards that in my work as a programmer. So when I see old code that looks strange or even bad, I’m gonna remember this. So lovely.

[damianlz]

Absolutely thank you for covering etruscan/ancient helmets!