Recreating the Fiber liner

[Gear Fanatic]

Hey all, to start, over the years I’ve tried to come up with many, many different ways to create an accurate Fiber liner. Or at least one that looks fairly close. Mainly for use in reenacting and displays, but still keeps the right look. I’ve tried making cardboard compression molds, I’ve tried paper mache, I’ve tried cardboard pulp, I’ve tried 3D printing, everything. But making it how everyone else makes it IE

(using a post war high pressure mold and making a mock up). And today I finally gave up trying to make one how it should be and resorted to creating a mock up. So today I brainstormed the process and came up with a full proof plan. I got this post war Norwegian liner that is plastic with mostly accurate cotton webbing and I started fiddling with it. My idea for the brim was to cut a large electrical board and epoxy it to the brim which is what I started doing. After it’s firmly in place I plan to wrap the bin thickly in white masking tape to give I the paper look for when it inevitably wears down along the brim. After that I plan to find an accurate fabric and somehow get that completely confirmed with no fold to the liner from there I will tack in mock rivets above the old ones under the fabric since I don’t have money to buy the tools to take them out and remove them through the fabric. After that I will paint the inside to correct green and create an accurate fiber liner stamp for the side. Then for the weebizbh depending on what version I do I will bleach and dye the webbing to correct shade and create a mostly accurate sweat band from the existing one which is fairly close to the originals. Then I need to buy/ replicate a liner chinstaro and voila a semi accurate mostly working fiber liner. Here are some pictures below of the current prices. Stay tuned for more! 

[Gear Fanatic]

Alright all, this morning the glue dried and I taped the brim and then coated it in a 40/60 solution of water and PVA glue. This will hold it together and “impregnate” it in a harder protective layer. After that dries today it’s time to start working on the inside.

[Gear Fanatic]

The brim has come out very nice and defined. Given it is a little bit shorter than an original, but the pint is to get the signature appearance of the brim poking out from the shell. Which it definetly has. Looking for suggestions on what pattern of fiber liner to do on the inside. Type 1,2, or 3? Let me know if anyone has any ideas.

[Gear Fanatic]

Started stretching the fabric over the helmet which is by far the hardest part. Cut up and old faded OD T shirt since it’s made of stretchy material. I’m going to try to glue it slowly in multiple stretched sections so that it conforms better. I’m also fine if there are some folds as I can literally iron the out hopefully. Will also try to shrink it to the liner by soaking it in water and then drying it outside super fast. Do that multiple times and it should conform.

[Gear Fanatic]

The top is done, now onto the brim, the one part I can’t mess up. I’m honestly really worried that there are going to be wrinkles, so hopefully it turns out okay!

[Gear Fanatic]

[Gear Fanatic]

Working in the brim some more. I will definetly have some folds, but I hope to minimize this when I’m done. So I plan on washing the fabric in warm water then putting it in the oven at about 100 degrees so it can dry at a hot heat which will shrink it to the helmet. Hopefully…

[Gear Fanatic]

Any input, opinions, or ideas are all welcome!

[Gear Fanatic]

Alright all, finally finished the hard part of gluing in the fabric. There was a lot of cursing in the process of making this…

So today I woke up and found that all the clips on the back popped off so the back was sorta messed up as you can see and there was bunch of extra material I had to cut off and then lay over so there are 2 minor folds in the back, but there are as few wrinkles as I could get. Today I’m going to try to finish cutting the excess material around the brim and gluing it down. Then I meet do a thin over paint of the fabric because of all those glue patches. Then I need to install the mock rivets which I using thumbtacks for that I’d rolled through the center of the right and glued which really just strengthens it more. After that I need to paint the rivets a dark grayish green color similar to original ale. After that if I have time today I will try to paint the inside and make a replica ink stamp for the G at the crown and the Liner Fiber M1 stamp for ten store if the helmet. Still undecided on which model I intend to make it into, so we’ll see. Wish me luck!

[Gear Fanatic]

Also, is anyone even Intersted in this? Haven’t gotten one reply sadly. I know it happens, but I was hoping this would garner more attention? Maybe people are just waiting for me to finish?  Jsut hope this can possibly be used as resource in the future. If it turns out okay.

[Gear Fanatic]

alright all, the brim has now finally been put mostly in to shape as I still have to cut off some excess fabric on the inside brim. But otherwise the outside is down. I may end up stenciling my name around the bad bad ear to help “cover it up” if that’s even possible. The liner definitely has its faults, but I don’t think it looks absolutely terrible. Now the outside is basically finished. Now onto the inside!

[Gear Fanatic]

One last photo of the brim profile which is a bit more bulky than it should be, but I’m glad it’s fairly visible.

[Gear Fanatic]

[Manky bandage]

I’m watching, a good effort. I’m looking at doing the same at some point, I’m considering a different material for the fabric though. I’m thinking along the lines of buckrum as it can be steamed together all of the wrinkles out. 

[Gear Fanatic]

Thanks manky for the comment, Gives me a little hope 😂

 

buckrum? What is that? I’ve tried steaming it out with an iron which sorta worked, I used mod podge because it was Matt and not rubbery plus it dried quickly. The plus is when you ironed it, it kind melted into the fabric and helped to get some of those wrinkles out. I’m not really happy with the wrinkles, but it’s going to happen, if I ever attempt it again I’ll do some stuff different, but for now it’s good enough. I’m thinking of trying to hide them with my name stenciled on the back.

[Gear Fanatic]

Fully done 3rd pattern fiber liner is now complete. Bleached the webbing from OD7 to OD3 ish. Added a post war sweat band because I’m going to be using this a lot. Then I painted the inside, finished up the edges, added a liner chisel tarp and voila and decent standin Hawley. Turned out better than expected and super excited to show it off at my next event. Hopefully someone was at least semi interested in this and maybe this gives someone the inspiration to try it out for themselves. Hope you enjoyed the process!

[mikie]

On 6/17/2025 at 10:47 AM, Gear Fanatic said:

Also, is anyone even Intersted in this? Haven’t gotten one reply sadly. I know it happens, but I was hoping this would garner more attention? Maybe people are just waiting for me to finish?  Jsut hope this can possibly be used as resource in the future. If it turns out okay.

I’m interested in your project too. I’ve been following your progress from the start. I’ve never personally handled or even seen one of these liners so can’t really comment on this much. Despite not having any useful advice, I should have posted some encouragement. Your efforts here deserve it!  I’ll do better here on out. 
I do wish the forum could bring back the little views counter on posts. 
mikie

[Gear Fanatic]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. Accuracy wise it’s okay, it’s really more of a stand in prop rather than a reproduction 

[iron bender]

We made south of 10 fake fiber liners 20 years back. Of course we destroyed original gear and liners getting cloth etc. I'll see if any of these still exist to get some pics. Webbing was removed, interiors of liners were hand painted with some shade of Tamiya paint then webbing reattached. We used rubber window trim from Auto Zone to get the right 'look' for the rim, with the cloth from a 1935 clothing bag as the sacrificial lamb, tucked into the window trim then slipped over the rim of the hp liners. Visually they were identical to an original, but once removed from a steel shell it's obviously not the real deal

[Gear Fanatic]

Tagt’s pretty cool. My next endeavor will be designing. 3D printable one. I plan on scanning an original then dropping the scan in solid works and modeling and smoothing out the shape then I’ll turn it into an DTL file ready for printing. Plan to experiment with not covering them in fabric and working on nail lay just making a full plastic one Tagt’s more durable.

[Ronnie]

What did you use as a base liner? Post war US?  Or maybe even Belgian liner.

[Gear Fanatic]

Yah, it’s a Norwegian post war liner, used an electrical cord coated in glue and then wrapped in masking tape for the brim. Definitely a hack job, but it gets the job done.

[Ronnie]

There is your problem. You need to start with a helmet liner that is shaped as close as possible to a Hawley as you can get. And a European clone ain’t it. The Hawley liner was shaped almost identical to the McCord pots. However I admire your effort and have enjoyed watching the progress. You are to be commended for your efforts. 

[mikie]

It would be a pity to ruin a good liner, so sacrificing a euro clone would be preferable if just a passable “don’t look too close” liner impression is what you want. 
mikie

[Gear Fanatic]

Yah, it wasn’t meant to be as close as possible, and trust me when I say I know the shape isn’t there. Like I said above. I plan on scanning an original and touching it up with a software to create a virtual model which I can then turn into a virtual STL file and 3D print it. That is the goals for the next iteration. This was really a test for myself to see if I even had the capability to do it myself. And yes, I agree with Mickey, I wasn’t about to go ruining a nice ww2 era high pressure liner, or even a decent post war one. It’s just not worth it in that sense.this is just the beginning of this thread. There will likely be pages and pages full of work and research and trials and errors out into this till I get something that can be turned into a solid replica Tagt is also still usable and durable for field use. My next idea is to do one like the ww2 gear ones. If you look Tagt up and read about it you will see that there’s are quite honestly some of the best looking ones, but they are completely made of plastic and have no fabric. They also made a mold if an original and use a high pressure plastic mold to create there’s and they dye the plastic to look the correct color so if it was painted the paint wouldn’t chip off and reveal the plastic. Plus 3D printing has gotten good enough to this point that it can create solid structures and even mimic the fabric texture. Okise K’ll be able to scan it to get the rough shape and texture so that I can put it into a software, smooth out the rough edges and modify the shape slightly since the scan only gets a rough idea of the object. Anyways sorry to ramble. Hopefully ya’ll will stick around and check in every once in a while. And hopefully down the road I can start to market these as an alternate to more expensive replicas. Thanks all for the comments I really appreciate it!