The Armour Archive

Hi all,
I have made pretty large number of shields over the years, and have always fought and fought to get a decent way to draw out Norman teardrop shields.
Does anyone have a trick to making these?
Here is the basic issue....
You can draw a circle for the top, and draw lines down from the edges to the bottom point, but those look wrong.
If you use an ellipse at the top, they still look wrong.
How are these made?

Thorfinn

The deal seems to be the proportions. The kite is a long, narrow shield, and when done a'la SCA, they tend to be too fat in the middle and too short in the point. Drawing the point down from the widest point of a round-shield's diameter ought to work fine, if that diameter is fairly narrow to start with. Curving the shield, as opposed to leaving it flat also helps with the "look". A 2.5 or 3:1 ratio of legth to width seems to be the deal, if this pic is any indication:

I laid mine out in AutoCAD. I drew a 20" diam. circle at the top and a 1.5" diam. circle at the bottom, then drew the straight sides tangent to the 2 circles. I also figured out the exact center of balance for the grip/boss...here is the result

If you look at the third Norseman in SS's picture, I think you can see the key. The shield actually gets wider *after* the semi-circular top. Not by much, or perhaps not at all, but the optical ilusion at least is there. I don't think that you can achieve this look by drawing straight sides down from the top to the bottom, regardless of where you measure from. (Though I agree that the tangent drawn sides in the example above are much closer to the right impression)

A great deal of that shape in the sculpture is artistic interpretation.

If you look at the middle knight, and the length of his arms and then compare it to the length of the rest of his torso to where his outstretched toes end, the proportions are all wrong for a normal shape body. His legs are WAY too long.

So long as the "look and feel" are right, it'll be a good shield in my humble opinion.

GdS

The circles are, as previously mentioned, just joined by tangental lines.

It appears that the top should be more egg shaped than round.

Tape together a cardboard blank of posterboard. Make it with a folded centerline. Then trim some off of the top circle to get the ellispe-fold it over, trace, and cut.

I agree, the tangental lines are obvious, but its getting the top curve to look right.
Every time I make one of these I fuss with the pattern for hours before I am satisfied with the look.
Maybe I will try an ellipse and a wider bottom point.
I have access to server boxes free, so large sheets of cardboard to play with are not the problem. Its a time and frustration thing.
I figured there is an easier way out there....
I mean, shields were mass produced for armies...did they just make one pattern and make 100 at a time? I dunno...

I mean, shields were mass produced for armies

As far as the era in question is concerned, I'd like to hear evidence for that. I've heard that each man (under most circumstances, and borrowing this from English history) had to provide his own arms during the 11th century and around that time.

So, where'd the mass-production bit come from?

-Gregory-

Sir Thorfinn wrote:I agree, the tangental lines are obvious, but its getting the top curve to look right.
Every time I make one of these I fuss with the pattern for hours before I am satisfied with the look.
Maybe I will try an ellipse and a wider bottom point.
I have access to server boxes free, so large sheets of cardboard to play with are not the problem. Its a time and frustration thing.
I figured there is an easier way out there....
I mean, shields were mass produced for armies...did they just make one pattern and make 100 at a time? I dunno...

There was no centralization of production facilities in those days. One dealt with local merchants and crafts people. A carpenter might do the wood, then send it to a smith for finishing. Everyone had guild specialties, so there was a lot of outsourcing and subcontracting bewteen various shops.

You could get in big trouble for working outside of your guild and warrant (they wanted to be sure you knew your stuff, quality control-and it kept amatuers out)-so this was how they networked.

What were they sending it to a smith for? The boss? I would have thought they had carpenters make the "blanks" and then have some servant paint, and get a boss from a metalworker. I definately agree though, that they were not mass produced to the same specifications. Most of the shields we see hit the same place in the chin/shin areas, and people's height would have varied. The carpenter might have had the secret for "his" shields, the same way a tailor will change a pattern to fit each person. Unfortunately, we dont know what that "secret" was. I agree about the ellipse on top, to get the rounded look. Most of the kites we see are too circular on the top, for the right feel of the Crusades/Normans.