The Armour Archive

I've decided I want to make some curved wooden heaters, so I built a shield press this weekend. It's a bit of a mix between different instructions.

http://hightowercrossbows.com/shieldhowto.htm (I really like the tear drop kite idea this guy has)

and

http://www.yeoldegaffers.com/project_shieldpress.asp (Ratchet tie downs seem easier to handle)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100393109@N07/10233457254/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100393109@N07/10233556526/

Over-engineered? Probably.

Heavy? Yep.

Huge? You betcha! Final dimensions are 6'x27". Give me a week and I could turn out shield blanks for the entire Barony.

No shots of it in action yet as I seem to have run out of money building the darn thing.

Ask somebody else in the Barony to buy himself some plywood and the two of you can baptize the little monster.

I'll just leave this here
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/scupress.html

http://www.legiodraconis.com/modules.ph ... 266&page=1

nuff said

I should change my post to say over-engineered for my purposes. Those are crazy.

After years of making shields in a press just like that, my strongest recommendation to you is to use 100% Baltic birch plywood from a good supplier. The crap you're going to get from a DIY store is not worth the effort.

I would also agree with Sir Bart. I use good quality Birch or I have also started using Apple ply. Save yourself the heartache and start off with good quality materials. I assure you it will turn out far better. Look forward to seeing some pics of your shields.

Syr Kazimir

How about marine-grade, with such veneers as larch?

I have a specialty wood supplier relatively nearby that I use when I need shields. My center grip round is the high quality birch and it's held up over a year despite being only 1/4 of an inch thick. I'm guessing it's due more to the fact it has no corners that can become hinged.

Very useful thread -- pictures of presses, and links to other pages w/pix, on thread's Page Two. Tips for shield making with them, too.

Like something I wish I'd thought of: double-length eight foot long (six- or seven-footer could get it done too) shield press that makes shields two at a time, after making one lengthwise halving cut down the 4x8 sheet of 1/4" ply, glue and press the entire sheet at once, making two blanks at any one time. All easy PC lemming squeezy.

Presses of this open ended description can press out ply blanks that lap out at each end if they must, perhaps with some use of clamps at the ends of the blanks to make sure of the glue bond out there. A press that pushes ribs into a quadrangular frame would require the ends of the frame to be built to give room to any over-length blanks -- not have those ends just straight across on the same plane as the sides. They need to be cut out into an arc, from bigger lumber, or otherwise displaced downward to give room. This doesn't become a problem for presses with nothing but arched former-ribs pressing into the negative cutouts that are the other halves of the planks these ribs were cut from. These presses' ends are just a couple more of these formers and cutouts and thus the overlength blank is free to stick out and still become formed.