Making an edgeless shield- Tutorial

[owen matthew]

The one Vitus-shield I painted, for a customer, was not that heavy at all, no more than a dressed aluminum shield. Probably a bit more than that when you got all the straps on, but having no edge really cut down weight, and in the end the 1/2'' of wood felt so much more sturdy and "right"!

[Keegan Ingrassia]

1/2'' of wood felt so much more sturdy and "right"!

Isn't that the truth!

[Christophe de Frisselle]

I must find real birch plywood at some point and try this.

[RenJunkie]

Christophe, it's not cheap, but it can be had at your local Woodcraft store. Ok, local is a relative term, as my two nearest are both some 60 miles away, but still.

It can also be purchased online. If you got a place to put it when it shows up...lol

Thanks!
Christopher

[Vitus von Atzinger]

Hey! I didn't finish this tutorial! What a dick!

[Gamgan]

Is it anything like this shield press?

http://www.yeoldegaffers.com/project_shieldpress.asp

I enjoyed reading what you had done so far ( back in 2011) Hope you get a chance to finish the tutorial.

I would like to hear more about the quality of wood found on home depo as its what I have locally.

[Michael Cartwright]

Hey! I didn't finish this tutorial! What a dick!

Typical, gets us all excited and then leaves us dangling....

[Konstantin the Red]

Gamgan, Yeoldegaffers is a good workable design. There are also other designs that work as well. Where the ribs-and-ratchetstrap designs mostly vary seems to be for how much you, the user, need compact storage. If you pare things down to former-ribs and straps only, you could stow four forming ribs in between a couple studs in an unfinished-interior garage.

You could bend a plywood sandwich with ratchet straps alone, but the parabolic-like bend it gives from having its greatest bending leverage exerted on the middle of the boards isn't perfect. There are better ways.

Next up in complexity from ribs-only is to give the ribs a demountable "spine" that fits with notches in the ribs to give the whole an arrangement like -|-|-|-|-. No difficulty with the ribs wobbling side to side with this setup. Uses ratchet straps. Also stows compactly when you take the ribs off the spine. Maybe you're using the two spaces between three studs now.

The Yeoldegaffers isn't one designed to break down, and generally stows by leaning it against a wall. Though if you ain't careful, you might end up storing small items on the shelves those formers make! With a bit of care for the spacing between the formers, the press can still stow very compactly with its ribs put between the studs of that unfinished garage wall and its back to the world. Sticks out an inch or so at the worst, as the ribs might be deeper than a 2x4. But it's still easy to get the car in and out.

Back when the Fighters' Handbook was new, some press designs had, like, stringers running parallel to the length of the shield as the working surface that contacted the shield sandwich, the stringers held up by arcing ribs quite like forming ribs and the stringers let into these. That works too. That original wasn't demountable into flat components, but was a somewhat bulky framework. One of their methods in making shields was to temporarily nail the plywood blank into place while the glue cured. This worked, I guess, but was soon abandoned. Removing the nails must have been rather tedious.

After that, we're stepping up into screw presses, using upper and lower frames like tools and dies, tightened down with at least two lengths of all-thread, plus nuts and washers. Four pieces of all-thread, one at each corner of the press, would work as well.

Even an extra tall kiteshield for a great big guy (if your Kingdom allows) can fit in a press with all-thread rods at the corners, sticking out some inches at the top and bottom.

Presses of that type can handily work with shield shapes that have been cut out before bending, though the usual habit is to bend a rectangular blank and then saber-saw the shield shape. Precut shapes with the formers-only types may call for putting Yeoldegaffers over-stringers, which are rather an option; you can bend shields with or without those.

[Konstantin the Red]

Wood at Home Depot: your strongest stuff in plywood would be "marine-grade" which is very weather resistant and uses expensive glue that doesn't give out even with years of weathering. Also very high quality interior plies with no repair plugs that may weaken that layer -- no knotholes, that is. The very best in every layer. So not just the glue, but the wood too is expensive. So your boat don't sink without you really whamming it into the rocks.

Typical sorts of plywood are "interior grade" -- budget stuff not glued together with weather resistance in mind; "exterior grade," which is; and the whole choice of "good one side" and "good two sides" -- which means one, or both, sides of the plywood either free of any knots or with the knotholes cut away and fixed up. Makes a difference in the structural strength of the plywood, though not necessarily its ability to resist being smacked with big sticks. Interior grade good-one-side is about the cheapest plywood to get, but we recommend having exterior-grade as the lowest you go -- and covering with glued canvas/cloth for strength. Marine grade is considerably more expensive and somebody else had better tell you about how it wears compared to exterior-grade.

And there's always the extra reinforcement of putting on however much 1/8"-thick luan "door skin" you want to: facing the entire shield with it and making a 5/8" shield of one that had been 1/2", or a broad strip of it across the chief of a heater-shield on the inside -- whatever you could possibly like. You could make your Device's Ordinaries into 3-D stripes, top, middle, straight up, or slanted with the stuff if you cared to. I think you'd care to if you're one serious woodworking fiend and love to saw all kinds of wood! <_<... er, are you, by chance?

I've never heard of anyone facing an aluminum shield with luan glued on with household cement -- but you could. Then it won't go "bwash" when hit, with an odd metallic sound. Won't look like you're swordfighting with airplane parts either. (I used chrometanned leather, household cement, and a household sewing machine with a No.18 needle in it and low speed to piece the leather together.)

You've got a pretty good range of quality, and price, even from a big-box mass-market outfit like Home Depot. So if you're trying something that's totally an experiment, you might prefer to commit only as much investment as gets you the inexpensive plywood for that shield to test out an idea, before shelling out for the fancier stuff intended to last longer. The ability to just slap something into your press rather than having to wait on anything will be most convenient for you, and will be a mighty asset for equipping a household that has men-at-arms in it. "Dude milord, we need three shields." "Fine, come over Tuesday night with some 1/4" plywood, and we'll saw the blanks to shape Saturday afternoon and do up some edges and handles."

I know we shouldn't necessarily assume you'll be bearing your armor -- you said as much -- but it does make the armor a lot more fun! Even with sweating in the P.R. sun.

[Konstantin the Red]

Hey! I didn't finish this tutorial! What a dick!

Typical, gets us all excited and then leaves us dangling....

An Antipodean verse puts it:

Roll me over
In the clover
Put your belly next to mine and wriggle your bum!!

[Konstantin the Red]

You know what, Gam, in your isolated situation, getting yourself a copy of the Known World Handbook might be worth the twenty-five bucks. It's SCA-specific which you aren't quite, but it puts a lot of matters medieval under two covers, nice compact reference. There's a section on armor, a couple pages (in my 1985 edition) on making shields. An intro to many assorted medieval crafts.

[CTrumbore]

I wouldn't glue luan to aluminum, unless you want some awesome cracks.

Leather stretches and gives. Luann does not.

[Gamgan]

Konstantin again WOW that's a lot of information to digest!

I will search for the book you recommended.

So if I understood the first half of your post, if space is not an issue, then I can go ahead and make one of these frames for bending shields, although there are other designs out there that break apart to reduce space.

Screw press you called it?

I did not understand the second press you where referring to. The one that works with precut shields.

[CTrumbore]

Konstantin again WOW that's a lot of information to digest!

I will search for the book you recommended.

So if I understood the first half of your post, if space is not an issue, then I can go ahead and make one of these frames for bending shields, although there are other designs out there that break apart to reduce space.

Screw press you called it?

I did not understand the second press you where referring to. The one that works with precut shields.

This might give you a few ideas:

http://theprojectmodern.com/2011/05/16/bent-plywood/

[Konstantin the Red]

Screw press you called it?

I did not understand the second press you where referring to. The one that works with precut shields.

Legio XX's version of two different presses for making Roman scutums. Lovely photos show everything. Screw presses are like this, but are tightened down using all-thread, washers and nuts at either end of the press -- even all four corners. Medieval-shield presses don't have to be that deep in the curve, as medieval shields didn't wrap around you so far as a Roman scutum. You notice the Legio XX guys use large clamps to tighten that press down with the plywood sandwich in it.

Make something like this long enough to take entire sheets of plywood -- 8 feet -- and you can easily make shields two at a time, if you figure you want to. With its nice strong ribs mirroring each other top and bottom (each top and bottom pair are cut from the same piece of wood in a single curved cut) the press has enough power to bend even the small end of a pointy shield the small amount of curve it would need -- while you're bending everything else. It's all about leverage and available force.

A more usual length to the press would be three feet or four feet.

A heater-shield (called that because it looks like the business end of a clothes iron) just the right size for you would be one you can stand on its point, and straddle the top of with both feet flat on the floor. Maybe three feet, maybe rather less. A somewhat small shield, we find, rather shorter than that one, allows for cleverer attacks with the sword -- there's less in your way and you can move it a little faster. It also protects you less, so there's a trade-off -- you have to practice with it.

Kynnabaria's Shield Press instructions have no central spine thingy, but each forming-clamp assembly (a former-rib and a top, these cut from the same 2x8 plank of wood) has holes drilled through each end of each clamp assembly for the all-thread to go in; every clamp is tightened down using a wrench. Very compact to store, as there is no frame or anything holding the formers in place. Uses a lot of all-thread and many nuts and washers.

Legio XX's presses are often hinged on one side and swing open and closed; Kynnabaria's design moves the formers and tops together in a straight line, pressing.

Other designs:


Two-at-a-time shield press in use. If you haven't clamps, you can put temporary wood-screws in the edges where the clamps are, using a screw-gun. Very quick and effective. You can fill in and cover the little holes easily.


I think this one is supposed to bend metal, and this is why there is all that all-thread all the way around it. For pressing plywood sandwiches, you wouldn't need all these -- but this design would bend ply just fine.

[Konstantin the Red]

2 more useful pix. Quite big ones.


You can just barely make out in this dinky little pic that this press uses allthread screw to tighten it down, and that it doesn't use any clamp parts to the convex side, simply pushing the plywood sandwich down into a sturdy rectangular frame with a bunch of formers. Once any such press is tightened up like you want it, you can stand it on end or do about anything you need to with the whole thing, shield blank and all. It doesn't have to take up floor space even when you're using it. Just be ready to deal with glue drips; they'll happen, so don't do it on the good floor.

Bulky designs, both. As you can see, there are many ways to make a shield press.

Pics of a Legio XX shield press in use, from an artist's blog. Scroll down to Saturday, June 4, 2011 for his impressions.

Another screw press in use, two-at-a-time capacity, along with illustrated how-to in fabric covering a wooden shield blank, for painting on, and then putting enarmes (grips) on the back of it. Note the press could be leaning against the wall while the glue dries. Okay, maybe it isn't; but it could. His curvature is pretty shallow, but that's not a bad thing. There are ways to make this press deeper if wanted. These posts show you can make a lot of different curvatures.

And they just keep coming. YouTube; in Italian. Blank sandwiched of 3 sheets. Fabric facing gessoed for painting. Good detail shots of enarmes of leather.

There's even more, pero !basta, ya!

[Konstantin the Red]

For instance, another guy with his Legio XX, and tips on how to make the paint job look medieval. Don't use masking tape, he says, nor spraypaint.