Vintage firefighter helmet is a steampunk inspiration

Posted by Cory Doctorow, January 6, 2009 10:10 PM |

Scuba_SM sez, "I found this site about early firefighter's respirators. The embellishments like the decorative plaque and beveled glass on the air gauge show the craftsmanship that went into it. I think it's pieces like this that really capture the steampunk fan's imagination."

Vajen Mask (Thanks, Scuba_SM!)

posted in: Gadgets ,  Steampunk
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#1 posted by blackhound , January 6, 2009 10:50 PM

Beautiful, and a perfect example of the pivot point between simple VICTORIANA and something genuinely STEAMPUNK.

Am I the only one bothered when the two get confused?

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#2 posted by disambiguated , January 6, 2009 11:08 PM

This one appears to be more steamgimp than steampunk, IMHO.

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#4 posted by mr_josh , January 6, 2009 11:37 PM

Wait, that can't be steampunk, because it actually does something.

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#5 posted by Anonymous , January 7, 2009 12:01 AM

That bulb hanging in front is for sounding the horn/whistle above it. It would have been difficult to make one's voice heard under that thing so they'd beep to get attention.

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#6 posted by bprisk , January 7, 2009 4:33 AM

If there were a heaven and hell, this looks like what someone in heaven would put on to 'break-out' someone from hell.

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#7 posted by Anonymous , January 7, 2009 4:58 AM

Note too, the large standing seams on the crown, similar to a traditional firefighters helmet to provide some protection from fallind debris.

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#10 posted by orinos73 , January 7, 2009 6:05 AM

I gotta agree with MR_JOSH, this thing is built for function. I think that is what bores me so much about steampunk, gluing or welding a bunch of pressure gauges to something makes it look cool, but I really want to see function.

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#11 posted by freshyill , January 7, 2009 6:17 AM

gh, stmpnk. Anyway, I should point out that the "decorative plaque" is neither. It's there to denote the manufacturer and patent number. Lots of old stuff have little badges like that. You see it fairly often on old furniture too.

nlk stmpnk crp, they weren't doing stuff just to do it.

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#12 posted by Bender , January 7, 2009 6:36 AM

#5- "That bulb hanging in front is for sounding the horn/whistle above it. It would have been difficult to make one's voice heard under that thing so they'd beep to get attention."

I imagine a bunch of firemen in a burning building, all honking at each other like Harpo Marx.

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#13 posted by Cory Doctorow , January 7, 2009 8:33 AM

Right you are, octopussoup!

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#14 posted by mr_josh , January 7, 2009 9:50 AM

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of steampunk, and some of it is very clever.

It's hard for me to explain how I feel... I understand that it could be treated like art, and that it's not how some person who's nuts over industrial design (i.e. me), but the emotion and thought invoked and provoked by something.

At the same time, the very concept of steampunk is what engineers and tech-savvy people of the steam era could have come up with given the right circumstances. That seems a compelling reason to not just weld / glue / otherwise attach things together randomly, but to actually try to make things look as though they could work, or -gasp- make them actually function.

Does that make any sense?

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#15 posted by NidSquid , January 7, 2009 10:54 AM

Mr Josh, I know exactly what you mean and you put my thoughts into words way better than I could ever have. Steam punk annoys me. At first it seemed kind of cool but after a while it all felt the same to me, it's all superficial and there's nothing really under the surface.

I understand that it could be construed as art, as could anything. But it's too fake and too copied. It has nothing of it's own. It's just something copied from an age past and turned into a style which is so jarring to me because in that age past, it looked the way it did for a reason, for a function and to simply imitate the way it looks today so superficially is to take away from the effort of those engineers and craftsman of that age, who laboured with what they had to build and innovate.

I apologize if I'm being overly sensitive. :-)

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#16 posted by manicbassman , January 7, 2009 10:57 AM

I can't get over how completely useless to the wearer the location of the contents gauge and valve are...

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#17 posted by Takuan , January 7, 2009 10:58 AM

then scour the net and post here some examples of what you find good.

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#18 posted by Takuan , January 7, 2009 11:05 AM

@14: partners.

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#19 posted by ThreeFJeff , January 7, 2009 11:13 AM

Also on the museum page, they have a "Tank Mask". This was worn with a helmet by WWI tank drivers. It would protect them from flying iron shrapnel--when a shell would hit the outside of the tank, it would throw chunks of the iron at the drivers even if the shell didn't penetrate. This represents the last time chainmail was used by a modern army.

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#20 posted by Takuan , January 7, 2009 11:20 AM

an amazing collection!

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#21 posted by blackhound , January 7, 2009 12:52 PM

See, that is exactly why I dislike confusion between VICTORIANA and STEAMPUNK. Gluing a bunch of old crap to a box in order to mod your PC doesn't make something steampunk. Now, building a PC that runs on steam... the very DEFINITION OF STEAMPUNK.

True steampunk, imo, is all about FUNCTION. Elaborate function achieved via obsolete technological development pathways. Beautiful.

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#22 posted by kaosmonkey , January 7, 2009 3:35 PM

@6 - after reading that, I can't help but see Gaiman's Sandman helm. Excellent.

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