Painted legionary helmets?

[Matt Lukes]

They certainly had all the ingredients, Basic oil paint holds on metal no problem. I just finished a few experiments in that direction and ended up with a painted 12th century nasal helmet in heraldic colours. The paint is pigment (aniline ersatz cinnabar, chomium oxide ersatz verdigris and red ochre) in bleached linseed oil, no siccatives or other additives. It takes a long time to dry, but holds very firmly. I painted a steel bowl for testing purposes, and the only way we managed to seriously damage the paint was with the pointy end of a 400-g hammer. It stood up to rattan sticks, mallets, the flat end of a carpenter's hammer, and repeatedly being stomped on.

Wonderful! I'd wondered if a straight pigment/linseed oil mixture would work- thanks