So, Sir Vitus.....

[Gregoire de Lyon]

There is just plain no such thing as an indestructable shield. I think that the original poster should understand that very clearly. Given the financial situation he describes, I would focus on making his guys cheap shields instead of dropping the cash on tougher shields.

Personally, I destroy shields at an alarming rate - wooden shields last me fewer than 6 fighting days (be that practice or tourney) and aluminum shields last maybe 6 months before they are flattened out, bent at the tip and corner, or in one instance, cracked.

All of the ideas I have come up with to increase the lifetime of my shields end up being too expensive. My plan: to find the cheapest shields possible and treat them as the disposable commodity that they are.

[Henry of Bexley]

Vitus-

You mentioned spray on truck liner as a candy coating method. I'm experimenting with a rolled edge on my aluminum heater, but the canvas is still ripping. Do you think the spray on liner would hold up better/ be repairable?

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Spray-on bedliner over aluminum shields and edging has been tried by Pol the Restless, one of my ex-squires. So far these shields have been seemingly 100% indestructable, but you have to make sure that they don't spray on too much of the candy-coating...this makes them heavy as hell. Like I said, more than three passes with the sprayer -WITHOUT THE SAND ADDED- will do it. Tiny shields can take more layers of candy without getting overly heavy.
He took an aluminum round with the eging already on it to them and they coated it...it has been beaten to hell and it looks like it may last for years.
-V

[Donal Mac Ruiseart]

Well, I assume if I leave my orange juice laying around, he [Sir Vitus]'ll drink it.....

I doubt that.

Knowing it belongs to someone, though he may not know who; Sir Vitus's sense of honour would prevent him from even so petty a theft.

[bkillian]

The OJ reference is in regards to a situation that involved Lemmy and Sir Vitus many moons ago.

[Donal Mac Ruiseart]

Hm, another case of being on the outside of an inside joke.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Yes, I did steal Lemmy's orange juice.

[Tom B.]

Yes, I did steal Lemmy's orange juice.

Yeah, but Lemmy didn't remember it 10 sec after it happened.

Tom

[Sean Powell]

Personally, I destroy shields at an alarming rate - aluminum shields last maybe 6 months before they are flattened out, bent at the tip and corner, or in one instance, cracked.

All of the ideas I have come up with to increase the lifetime of my shields end up being too expensive. My plan: to find the cheapest shields possible and treat them as the disposable commodity that they are.

Wow! that is FAST. I built a reinforced 24x36 heater close to 10 years ago. The cost was the cost of a 24x48 piece of aluminum and smart use of scrap material. Yearly I would stomp on it a few time to get some curve back in and every 2-3 years I would straighten the edges with a hammer while replacing the edging. On the day it died it had 6 fatigue cracks, an upper edge rippled like a pringle potato chip the lower section flattened, lower tip flared out and the handle having scraped deep furrows in the aluminum from when it was loose... but I could STILL fight with it.

A rough plan for what I did is included below incase it helps other people. The aluminum was easy to cut with a jig-saw and then rivet together with 8 penny nails and washers.

Sean

[Kel Rekuta]

Personally, I destroy shields at an alarming rate - wooden shields last me fewer than 6 fighting days (be that practice or tourney) and aluminum shields last maybe 6 months before they are flattened out, bent at the tip and corner, or in one instance, cracked.

All of the ideas I have come up with to increase the lifetime of my shields end up being too expensive. My plan: to find the cheapest shields possible and treat them as the disposable commodity that they are.

Apparently there is still a Heavy Cruiser Class in Northwoods. Wow!!! That just boggles my mind. Have you considered using your shield to deflect attacks?

[Kilkenny]

Somewhere over 20 years ago I cut out two heater blanks from half inch plywood. The first I edged with an aluminum U channel and covered that with glued on layers of some crappy crappy leather I had in about a 3 inch wide roll several yards long. Got it painted up and fought with it for years. The plywood eventually cracked clean through along the vertical axis in multiple places. The edge channel held it together, but when the whole thing would bow several inches if you tried to carry anything on the shield...well, it got retired.

The second one got faced with a piece of sign grade aluminum, nothing special, painted, edged with bike tire. I'm still using it.

Now... ask how often I fight with a shield....

[Broadway]

Now... ask how often I fight with a shield....

How often do you fight with a shield?

[mordreth]

Putting your money in the bank is a very flexible way of getting LOANS into the hands of those who WANT it and the banks approve of. The downside is that it won't solve any particular problem, but it does provide substantial benefits for society at large.

Sorry Atherbridge, I had to fix that for you.

I do understand how money in the bank clasicly generates more loans that the bank can give (since I believe they are still federally regulated to have a certain percentage in actual liquid assets and are federally limited in how much they can lend based on their assets if they want to be FDIC insured) but if the recent housing and credit-card loan fiasco has shown us, giving people a loan is not the same as giving them money.

And to stear back on topic. Sir Vitus has doen an exceptional amount of leg-work including personal investment in resources to develop a superior product that is above and beyond what most of us can achieve. But any of us can build the basic product using comonly available supplies. It becomes a tremendous disincentive to people to develop these technologies unless they can somehow recoup their costs. I for one would never ask Vitus for his 'secret recepie' but I might ask him for advice in laying up more conventional fiberglass reinforced wood shields. Who knows I might learn something and I might even find a new and better solution.

Sean

Sean

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind."
Gordon Gekko (Wall Street)

[Vermin]

" Yes, I did steal Lemmy's orange juice. "

What virtuous knight would steal god's OJ?!?!?!?

REPENT!

[Vermin]

[Baron Eirik]

[RoaK]

Pretty cool idea about the spray on liner Sir Vitus... I might give that a try some day.

Anybody know how good spray on liner holds paint? I suspect not very good but I thought I'd ask.

[Oswyn_de_Wulferton]

Any one else thinking the cans of Herculiner Blackoak mentioned dipping his Kongs in, and combined with a paint sprayer? Wonder how well that would work...