How To Make Leather Fire Helmet Shields

I get this email quite a bit.  Some firefighters like the idea of making their own helmet shield, but aren’t quite sure how to go about it.  Yeah, I am in the business of making shields, but let’s be honest, I stay pretty busy as it is anyway so it’s not going to hurt me to help others who want to make their own shield.  Below is a short introductory post about how to make leather fire helmet shields.

Tools You Will Need

The tools that you will need to make your own helmet front will vary some depending on what you want to do with your shield.  Below are some of the basic tools to get you started.

• Leather – Obviously to make a leather shield you are going to need leather.  My shields are made out of 8oz vegetable tanned leather.  They are two pieces sewn together to make a very strong shield.
• Razor Knife –  You probably already have a couple of these laying around the house but they can be invaluable when working leather.
• Basic Leather Working Kit –  There are a lot of places where you can pick up a basic kit with the beginning tools for leather working.  Places like Amazon and Tandy carry them.  Buying a kit like this will save you money over buying the pieces individually.
• Saddle Stitching Needles and Thread –  You will need these to sew your shield together.
• Leather Dye –  Depending on what color you want your shield to be, you will need to pick up some leather dye.  I like Fiebrings but there are other good ones out there.
• Awl –  You will need a leather working awl to poke your holes for stitching.  This could even be a filed down screwdriver so you may not need to purchase this.

That list should get you started.  Obviously there are many, many, many more tools out there, but for the time being this will be enough to get your feet wet.

Making Your First Shield

If you go to a leather store or order your leather online, I would suggest you get 7-9 ounce vegetable tanned leather to make your shield out of.

The first thing you will need to do after purchasing your leather is draw out your shield design.  Or if you don’t want to go buy leather and come up with your own shield design, you could purchase fire helmet shield blanks from our store.

Once you have your shield design drawn out on your leather, you need to cut it out.  You can do this with your razor knife, but make sure to take your time and cut on something like a cutting board.  Also, make sure to cut your second piece the same as the first or you will have problems putting the shield together.

Now comes the design part.  This will be totally up to you and depends on  what you want your shield to look like.  If you want cutouts in it or a one piece design.  Take a stylus or something that won’t mark or scratch the leather.  Draw out your design with it or trace the design from paper on to the leather.  If you trace straight on a piece of paper, on to the leather, your design will be on the leather when you are done.

Now you will need to wet the leather, cut out your design with a swivel knife, shade and bevel the design and let it dry when done.  Once you have all of this done and the leather is dry, you need to dye and paint your shield.

For browns and black you can use leather dye like I mentioned above.  For brighter colors you will need to  pick up some acrylic leather paint.  You can use regular acrylic paint but it will need to be thinned down a little and applied in thin coats.

Now that you have your shield dyed and painted, you need to glue the two pieces together before stitching.  You can use a clear contact cement or leather bond to do this.  Just use as the container directs, this is really only to hold it in to place until the stitching is done.

Next you need to take your awl and punch holes for your stitches.  If so inclined you could pick up a stitching wheel to help you mark the holes but this isn’t necessary.  Just plan out where you want your holes to be before you start poking and go to town.

After all of this is done you will need to stitch it.  You can use a stitching awl or needle and thread to saddle stitch.

If you are interested in learning how to make leather fire helmet shields I hope this has helped some.  There are a lot of great tutorials on youtube that can help you in many aspects of leather working.  If you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments below and I will answer them as soon as possible.

Also, if you purchase our fire helmet shield blanks, it comes with some scrap leather for you to practice on before you start in on your shield.

Brian