straightening the strips "would have the effect of allowing the ornamental strips to fan out naturally, leaving evenly-expanding wedges of plain surface between them." Finally, the neck guard hangs lower on the current reconstruction than it would have when made, for the top of the neck guard originally fitted inside the cap. This leaves the abutting edges of the dexter cheek and neck guards at different levels, and was corrected on the Royal Armouries replica. Royal Armouries replica In 1973 the Royal Armouries collaborated with the British Museum to create a replica of the newly restored Sutton Hoo helmet. The museum provided a general blueprint of the design along with electrotypes of the decorative elements—nose and mouth piece, eyebrows, dragon heads, and pressblech foils—leaving the Master of the Armouries A. R. Duffy, along with his assistant H. Russell Robinson and senior conservation officer armourers E. H. Smith and A. Davis to complete the task. A number of differences in construction were observed, such as a solid crest, lead solder used to back the decorative effects, and the technique employed to inlay the silver, although the helmet hewed closely to the original design. The differences led to the replica's weight of , or heavier than the estimated weight of the original. The finished replica was unveiled before an address at the Sachsensymposion in September 1973 with theatrical flair: the lights were dimmed; down the aisle came Nigel Williams holding a replica of the Sutton Hoo whetstone; and behind him followed Rupert Bruce-Mitford, wearing a carriage rug and with hands hieratically crossed, wearing the Royal Armouries helmet and reciting the opening lines of Beowulf. The Royal Armouries replica clarified a number of details of the original helmet, and provided an example of what it looked like when new. It could also be worn and subjected to experimentation in a way the original could not. In particular the reproduction showed that the neck guard would have originally been set inside the cap, allowing it to move with more freedom and ride up, and thereby demonstrated an inaccuracy in the 1971 reconstruction, where the neck guard and the dexter cheek guard are misaligned. The replica also corrected a second error in the reconstruction of the neck guard by affording an equal length to both the lower and upper instances of design 5, although it probably introduced an error by placing a visible billeted border