 Hey everyone, Dylan Chumacher, Citadel Defense, and today we're gonna talk about putting the scrim on the helmet. So I don't know what part we're on in this series about American Minuteman gear, but here we are, and we were talking about scrimming the helmet. So the scrim on the helmet, a couple things. The object of putting all this silly confetti string stuff on your helmet is to break up the outline of the helmet, to break up the outline of your head. The outline of the helmet is actually a very recognizable feature. We talked about this when we talked about hat coverings and PPE gear in general earlier in the series, and we talked about breaking up the outline of our head, and that's why you should wear a hat or a helmet. Well, the helmet itself is kind of still a problem. It's better than just your bare head, don't get me wrong, but you still wanna try to break up that outline if you can. This is common why snipers wear the full ghillie suits and stuff like that. We're not talking about that, of course, because we're just kind of everyday guys with rifles that are running and gunning and doing stuff, and we're not necessarily just trying to be a master of concealment. However, we wanna take what advantages we can get, and so that's why a scrimmed helmet breaks up much better than a non-scrimmed helmet. I mean, even here when I hold these two next to each other, you can see the difference. You can see how your eye struggles to find the shape of this versus this. This is readily recognizable, right? And this is just harder to see. So the scrim, as far as I know, isn't really an American thing. I always think of it more as a British thing and an Asian thing, kind of like Vietnam or Japanese during World War II kind of thing. That's typically what I think about when I think about the scrim and maybe the British developed it from their time in Asia. I don't know, but I kind of think of it as more of a British-style thing to scrim your helmet. So we're gonna talk about how to do this. Like I said, the Y is very straightforward. It's about breaking up that recognizable outline of the helmet. That's why we put it on there. So let's talk about how to scrim your helmet. Okay, so when it comes to putting the scrim on the actual helmets, you can go from this to this. What you're gonna do is you're gonna take some kind of material. Now, you could get this material. This is a big piece of nylon that I bought from Rip Stop by The Roll. I did have to spray paint the backside of it here. This is actually spray-painted. This came all white. So you can see why that would be a problem, right? But I did spray paint that. Or these are some scraps that I was able to get of different camouflage patterns and colors. I like trying to use different materials or different colors and patterns, rather, because I think it makes for a better breakup. On this one specifically, I used some multi-cam material here. And I also had some woodland camo material here. This is a woodland pattern. And then I had some just like play-plane tan pattern. And then I also had a little bit of this pattern here. I had some on the back here. So I had some different colors and things going on here, because I just think that helps kind of break it up. And all of those patterns are generally kind of the same family of regions and stuff like that. If that makes any sense. So that was my thought when I scrimmed at that specific helmet. So again, if you can get some scraps or cut up an old shirt or buy some new nylon or whatever, but preferably something that's light and something that has a little bit of strength to it so that it stands up on its own, right? Like if I kind of dress this a little bit, some of these will stand up on their own and it's not all just flomping over. And that's gonna help give you that breakup. So some kind of material like that, again that's where we go to like the nylon, the 500D nylon, maybe 1000D nylon kind of thing because it's gonna have a little bit of support and strength to it. But it's not gonna be so heavy that it just flomps over, okay? The other thing I like about scrimming the actual helmet cover itself is that then when it comes time to winterize your helmet and you wanna put a white cover over it or whatever, all of the scrim is attached to the actual helmet cover and not the helmet so it's easily changeable. If you have an older style kind of all metal helmet and you're gonna put a net over it and tape the net to it and then scrim the net, that's totally fine and it works. It's just not easily removable, right? Cause then you got that net taped to it and it's all kind of weighed down. But when you scrim it just to this cover like that, it's a lot easier to change out. If you so decide to do that for the winter and you wanna put a white cover on or whatever, maybe you're changing environments and you're really concerned about going from more of like a greenish fabric to, you know, you want a true like tan or something, I don't know. I just like being able to change it out when I want. So we're gonna take whatever your material is and I cut that sucker about a quarter inch wide, give or take, a little bit bigger, a little bit more narrow, something like that. Don't go bigger than a half inch, that's really gonna become difficult to do. But long enough so that you're able to run it through and knot it, okay? But not so long, obviously that, you know, it's draping over. Now, as you get more towards the top of the helmet, if you wanna make longer ones, they're gonna run down the whole side of the helmet, that's fine. But I try to vary my lengths of the scrim material. So again, you're trying to break up the outline, right? You don't want it to be all the same length and uniform, you want it to be different lengths and patterns and colors so that it continues to do that break-up thing. That's why using different materials helps, or at least different camouflage patterns. So once you have your piece of scrim that you're gonna run, you're gonna stick it through. Now, I used the same helmet cover, this is from Hardhead Veterans. This is the same helmet cover I have under this, okay? And I ended up tying scrim to every elastic band on the outside of the helmet and to the entire middle on the shock cord that they have running up the middle. So every place I could find, I ended up tying a scrim piece to, it ended up taking me about three hours, okay? But you're gonna take your camouflage pattern, you're gonna run the camouflage pattern facing down and away from you, actually. And then when you knot it, you're just gonna try to knot it so that the pattern comes and turns up to you. Try that one more time. Sometimes it's gonna be difficult, your hands might cramp a little bit, okay? And then snug it up and then pull it tight. And that is a piece of scrim. If you can, you wanna try to get this one so that it ends up knotting with the pattern facing up, right? So here's the pattern facing up rather than showing the underside. And some of these, like this can be kind of tough to tell what side's the upside, right? This is technically the clean side, this is technically the less clean side, but ideally get something like this that kind of shows pattern on both sides that way you don't have to be super concerned about it. But that is really what you're trying to do. Again, you're just trying to take about a quarter inch wide of material, cut them to varying lengths. I'm gonna find where that elastic loop is. I'm gonna loop it through. I'm gonna try to get the knot through. This is the aggravating part. There we go. Ideally, again, so I have both sides of the pattern facing up, snug up that knot nice and tight. And that's it. So you're gonna do that for about three hours, do it while you're binge watching a show or something, cut your material, and then again, just tie it up. And eventually, you're gonna go from this to this. And your helmet will hopefully help hide you a little bit better. Hope that was helpful. Do brave deeds and endure.