Woodworking Project Diary

[Sean M]

The middle board is hollowed out! Now to prepare the boards which will sit on either side of it.

Because shields before the late middle ages are thin (usually about 6-10 mm overall thickness in the middle, including everything on the front and back of the wood), its a hard balance between removing as much wood as possible and avoiding thin spots. If necessary I can glue some thin slices of wood here and there before the final shaping. Since the wood will be covered with linen and gesso, nobody can see any patches.

[Sean M]

It has been a month, so I poured the water off the plaster of Paris, poured it out into a cloth in a strainer, and placed it on something neutral to dry. It will take some time to lose the remaining water. I am not sure if 60 grams / 2 oz is the right size of cake but it seemed best to be generous. The gesso for a panel should be all mixed at once or it will not bond together evenly.

I could have tried wringing the slaked plaster of Paris in a cloth to remove more water. After two nights it is still damp.



Finished hollowing out the second alder board by sawing. As with the centre board, this gives a piece which is just a bit too thin. to turn into an edge plank. Its also hard to cut a curve like this which cuts 'higher' on one side than the other. The saw wants to drift out of its path.

I left more wood at the edges of the bowl to give me some 'wiggle room' after I glue the boards together.

I will use the chisel to hollow out the third alder board and compare how much time it takes.

[Sean M]

After a bit less than 40 minutes of sawing and chiseling, the third board looks like this:



Call it 40 minutes including the time to sweep the shop afterwards. This produces tidy chips of wood instead of blowing dust. I find that chiselling along the length of the board, then striking the 'block' across the width of the board is the best way to remove it. And it seems slightly faster than sawing out the centre. If we had a working fireplace or a BBQ to burn the wood, it would have every advantage over the 'saw' method.

[Sean M]

The third board is roughed out! Right now, I think I will probably glue the three middle boards together before I add the boards at the side. I may remove a bit of the excess wood from the face of the middle board (while still leaving it full thickness in the middle and at both ends so it sits flat while the glue sets). If part of the shield is almost the desired cross-section, its easier to make a form and test the shape against it.

The American Chemical Society and a US Forest Service report from 1967 say that pasteurized skim milk makes perfectly cromulent curds for casein glue. The report says that casein glue was only produced in large quantities in the United States beginning around 1916 or 1917 due to the demand for wooden airframes. So it may be that the period when you could buy prepared casein glue was relatively short.

A friend with two wood planes helped me smooth the sides of the boards for the Anglo-Saxon shield. Planing such thin boards was a bit of a challenge, but they will glue together better if they are really flat.

[Sean M]

Here is the middle plank with some wood removed from the 'front side.' I left a block of wood at each end so it will sit flat with the other boards. If I have the cross section almost right, its easier to place a male form and a female form against it as I do the fine shaping and smoothing.



If you are interested in Iron Age through Roman Near Eastern stuff, gaukler has launched a fibula based on a kind which was popular in the Achaemenid Empire but will do for Assyrian, Hellenistic, and Roman times.

On Sunday or Monday I will make a tiny amount of casein glue and test it on some scraps of wood.

[Sean M]

Curdled some milk, made casein glue from the curds, and glued some scraps of wood together. 1/4 cup of milk is enough to thickly cover about 4 square inches of wood. So I will probably need 1/2 cup of milk per join between planks.

Grinding the cheese or curds between two plastic cutting boards could be a handy alternative to grinding them between two wooden planks like Theophilius. Lime water is a mild base so the smaller the curds, the quicker they dissolve.

Photos will migrate from scholar.social as I have time.

The Thegns of Mercia have a post on how Anglo-Saxon shields were painted. They are kind of cautious about the possibility, I would have leaned harder on the fact that every Iron Age and Medieval European culture which left us good evidence painted its shields.

I bought a small ball-peen hammer to make the ferrule for the walking stick.

[Sean M]

Both shields are glued! I have not made or attached the side boards to the alder shield.





This time I warmed the milk in a hot-water bath to about 30*C before adding the vinegar. That seemed to increase the yield of curds. One cup of milk and two small spoonfuls of limewater made enough glue to glue the six joins, two of which are long.

Theophilius ground the cut and washed cheese between two boards to make it as fine as possible. I ground the curds between two nylon cutting boards.

Since the basswood boards are planed to match each other, I hope they will join well without clamps. The Thegns of Mercia just glued the boards in pairs and leaned them against a wall with the seam vertical. The alder boards were smoothed with power tools by the supplier. Thanks to Dan Hill for lending the clamps.

[Sean M]

The gluing was successful!



One side of the alder shield is very close to flat. The other is not quite as flat, but most of it will be carved away anyways.



When I cut the basswood shield into a circle, two of the seams partially came loose from the vibrations. One of them was adjacent to a plank which was slightly curled, but I think I should have used more glue on those seams. Next time, I will try scraps of cardboard or those wooden craft sticks / tongue depressors to spread the glue rather than a stainless-steel spoon. I may use the 'edge clamps' from Viking Age shields to reinforce those spots (take a scrap of thin sheet steel or brass, fold it over the edge, nail it in place). The rawhide cover will also hold the planks together.

I still have to figure out which tool would be best for thinning out the front of the basswood shield towards the rim. Since I don't have a draw-knife, I may have to borrow a plane.

[Sean M]

The pair of shield bosses arrived! These are 17 cm diameter of the flange, 127 mm diameter of the upper bowl, 56 mm tall, 390 grams. That seems to be a pretty common size in the cemetery of West Heslerton in Yorkshire.



The style of shield boss with a 'golf tee' in the centre of the dome is more typical for the 5th and 6th centuries AD, but hard to buy during the pandemic. Many shield bosses are oversized for have-a-bash games where fighters have to wear bulky padded gloves, and many suppliers in India / Pakistan were affected by COVID or can't get their products to market. So a boss which is affordable, the right size and weight, and almost the right shape is 'close enough.'

Original bosses from this period usually have five rivet holes not four, but again, since I did not forge it myself ...

Last week I roughly hollowed out the last two boards of alder so I can glue the hollow shield together. I used the same strategy of cross-cuts with a saw and then cuts with the chisel to remove wood between the saw cuts which I used on the middle three boards.

[Sean M]

Dan Hill made this scabbard core for my Albion Sempach some time ago. Its time to cover it and suspend it.



I have enough scraps of this linen to wrap the core in it. Wrapping scabbard cores in linen seems more typical in the early Middle Ages and the 18th century, but it does make the scabbard core stronger. I think I will just stretch the leather over the linen and not glue or paste it.

The linen has been washed hot two or three times so hopefully will not change much as it dries.

I can make a simple brass chape and a vertical suspension (I have a page on sword suspensions 1360-1410).

[Sean M]

Today I did three things on this project. I tried thinning out the shield board and decided that of the tools I have and with the sharpening skills I have, chisels are the best way to thin the shield from 7.5 mm in the centre to 6 mm at the edge.



I made casein glue and re-glued a failed seam on the flat shield and glued the linen wrap to the scabbard. This time I had trouble getting enough curd out of the cheesecloth and dark is coming so I will have to finish the gluing tomorrow.

[Sean M]

Today I had an hour free so made up another batch of glue, finished covering the scabbard with linen, repaired the fourth red alder board, and glued that board to the core. I did not have quite enough glue for the fifth red alder board.



I realized I could apply the glue to the linen rather than the wood and just turn the core to wrap it in the glued linen. Then the glue can cover all sides of the scabbard without dripping off.



Cross-cutting and then chiseling between cross-cuts reduced the tendency of the red alder board to splinter as I hollowed it out. I definitely recommend that method. Any technique that uses a chisel or adze produced nice tidy chips instead of messy dust.

[Sean M]

Early Anglo-Saxon shields have a grip set level with the shield board and reinforced with a strip of iron, not a long wooden bar nailed to the back of the shield board. My scrap steel is badly rusted, so I placed 2.5 cups of warm water and 0.5 cup of fresh molasses in a plastic storage bin and put it out in the sun on this bright day with temperatures around 22 degrees centigrade. I will see if the rust starts to flake off by Friday.

If I simmered the steel, the rust would fall off faster, but I don't have a big enough pot which I don't mind scratching and my housemates might not appreciate the smell of hot molasses.

[Sean M]

Today I swapped out the 5:1 mixture of water and molasses. There was quite a bit of particulate in the solution so maybe a new batch will react better. Its been between 20 and 30 degrees in the shade for the past three weeks.



Here is one of the pieces of mild steel after I washed it.

[Sean M]

Today I got a ride up the penninsula to buy some rawhide from Vern of Pat Bay Leather. Two 24" discs of ~ 0.5 mm thick dehaired buffalo rawhide cost CAD 90.00

In Europe and North Africa, bovine skins seem to have been preferred for covering shields from the Bronze Age to the Viking Age. I suspect that hide from a bubalus sp. will do even though domestic cattle are bos taurus. I will attach a photo when I get around to taking one.

I still need to sand the thinned-down board and cut the hole for the hand and the grip, but then I can glue a piece of rawhide to one side of the shield, let it dry, and glue another piece of rawhide to the other side to even out the tension.

I have been debating whether to soak the skins in limewater like Kel Rekuta suggested. The book Ancient Skins, Parchments, and Leathers says that texts on preparing skins do not mention lime until the 12th 8th century CE or so, even though rabbinic literature has a lot to say about preparing skins for Torah scrolls. Rolf Warming in Denmark examined four shields from the Baltic ranging from 350 BCE to 950 CE. "The hides used on the Baunegard and Tira shields appeared not to have been tanned, had a stretched parchment-like structure, and the latter appeared to have been treated with oils or fats."

I suspect that if you follow Theophilius' instructions and just soak the hide, pluck out the hair, wring out some water, and stretch spread it over the board, as it dries it will get that stretched structure like a hide drying on a parchment-maker's frame. These hides don't feel too greasy. If I make further shields I may try liming the hides.

[Matthew Amt]

I am only one of several (or many) people who have stretched wet rawhide over a planked shield and gotten a warped shield at best, or a splintered disaster at worst. I would say "BE CAREFUL", but I'm not even sure what the best course of action *is* for "being careful". Rawhide has tremendous strength when it dries and shrinks, so you'll really want a voice of experience to chip in before you risk destroying all your woodwork!

Matthew

[Sean M]

Matt, unfortunately I don't know anyone who just followed Theophilius' instructions. Many people don't even cover both sides of the shield like the shields in Migration Era graves! Here is my translation of Theophilius' words:

Then they (the panels for altars or doors) should be covered with the raw hide of a horse or a donkey or a cow, which has been soaked in water. As soon as the hairs can be scraped off, a certain amount of water should be wrung out, and thus damp it is put on top with cheese glue.

Previous Projects

Your thread about making a planked shield was lost in the great spam on the Bronze Age Center forum. You have a few notes at https://www.larp.com/hoplite/BAarmor.html

Jan Kohlmorgen just places the damp hide on one side of the shield and nails it in place, places the damp hide on the other side of the shield and nails it in place. He does not use glue to fasten the hide to the board. Both he and Roland suspect that covering both sides will mostly even out the pressure.

Richard Underwood covered his domed shield with 'leather' fastened with hide glue. He then sewed a strip of wet rawhide to the edge. He had no issues as the hide shrunk.

Mac is busy doing home repairs, his thoughts from 2016 are here http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/ ... 6&t=181105 I think most of his experience is with smaller, thicker shields for jousters.

Ásfólk take a very different approach than I do (they spread the dry rawhide flat and place loose planks on it with hide glue) Viking Shield vs Viking Sword, Part 1: Glue, Planks & Hide and Viking Shield vs Viking Sword, Part 2: Completing the Shield

Roland used a similar approach to Asafolk in 2017 Making an Authentic Viking Shield, part 3: Attaching a hide facing His shield with a rawhide cover curled slightly towards the front from the water in the hide glue, but when he attached the long grip bar it leveled out. My Anglo-Saxon shield does not have that bar because Early Anglo-Saxon shields had short handles level with the board.

The Thegns of Mercia are vague about how they "wetted, glued and moulded over the front of the board" https://www.thegns.org/blog/princely-shields-part-2

I suppose that once you have made 20 shields, you get good at judging how much water to leave in the hide so it pulls tight but does not burst. One reason I am only putting rawhide on the flat shield it that it has a simpler shape and was easier to make. Does anyone else have thoughts?

Other Issues

Aside from curling, many people find that creases and air bubbles appear under the hide. If the hide is fastened with hide glue, you can press those areas with a hot iron to smooth them out. Does anyone else have solutions?

It would help to have more experiments with gesso for shields. Roland Warzecha had bad experiences with chalk-based gesso flaking of his Viking style shields. Jan Kohlmorgen used it too, but calcium carbonate gessos seem to have been preferred for panel paintings, and Daniel V. Thompson seems to say that chalk gessos are more brittle than calcium sulphate gessos. And since about 2005, people have examined shields under the microscope, and often see other layers or additives such as ground glass or flax.

[Matthew Amt]

I should have realized that you are way ahead of me, as usual, ha! I will be watching closely.

Yeah, it's the usual thing--the craftsmen back then had done this so often they didn't even consider it a problem, just a procedure. We still have a problem with just paying attention to what little they did tell us! Keep right on prodding us.

Matthew

[Sean M]

Matthew, I would like to hear from someone who has used damp rawhide! But it will be better if I actually do the work than keep analyzing what might go wrong from my armchair. My vice is putting too much energy into the later (the opposite vice would be something like the Green Bay linothorax project where they never asked anyone who knew armour for advice).

The local university library has a copy of the Liber Diversarum Arcium, an early 15th century copy of a 14th century list of recipes for painting. Its section on how to make the panel is mostly a paraphrase of Theophilius, but it says more often that this is how you make either panels or shields. So someone in the 14th century read the same passage which Mac did and thought "that is also how you make shields."

It does not add anything about how to make sure the hide is smooth on the shield. I wish I had bought a spare piece of rawhide to experiment with, but I am out of practice at peopling and I did not expect that Pat Bay Leather would have just the size and shape I needed..

In the commentary, Mark Clarke declares: "an important early form of oil painting was heraldric shields, clipei, Wapenschilden, which were wood with a complete covering of skin or cloth and painted in oil; this is the form of panel painting described by Theophilius and the Secretum Philosophorum." I wonder why he thinks oil painting was more common than water media on shields? I would expect that many painted shields from 15th/16th central Europe use oil as the binder, just because that was the most popular binder for panel painting at that place and time.

Franco Sacchetti tells a story that the famous Italian painter Giotto was once asked to paint someone's arms on their shield. Giotto was taken aback (""What doth this mean? Hath this man been sent unto me for a mockery? Be that as it may, never before hath a shield been brought unto me to be painted, and he who brought it is a man of no account, and simple, and he saith that I should paint his coat-of-arms as though he were of the royal house of France. Of a certainty I must devise for him new and curious arms.") and decided to paint the man's weapons and armour on the shield. That might mean that shields were not a prestigious thing to paint in 14th century Italy, or it might mean that asking Giotto to paint your coat of arms on your shield is like asking John Howe to paint your car red.

I like the description of working process: "And thinking this to himself he (ie. Giotto) placed the said shield before him, and having drawn upon it that which seemed good to him, he commanded one of his apprentices to finish this painting, which he did." Sometimes these preparatory drawings were line drawings, other times they were a monotone painting with shadows and highlights to help the painter who added the colours.

[Sean M]

Aed Thompson kindly gave me a mini-dissertation on covering shields with hide. One thing they have noticed is that the 'pringle effect' is one part from the expansion and contraction of the hide, and one part from the expansion and contraction of the wood. They dried off the leather until there was no longer water pooling on the outside, similar to how they dry off tanned leather for tooling. They would like to try Jan Kohlmorgen's approach "fit the hide to the shield wet, let it dry, remove it, apply the glue to the shield, apply the hide to the glued shield" on one of their Early Anglo-Saxon shields.

I hope to have more to report soon. I have some scraps of leather to make risers for my scabbard core, so I can glue them on then stitch on the leather.

[Sean M]

Today I made some more cheese glue and glued leather risers to the scabbard core, the last red alder board to the shield core, and fixed a weak seam on the basswood shield. The next step is to rough out the short handgrip for the basswood shield and cut the hole for the hands. I could start to cut the handhole with a chisel or with a drill.

[Sean M]

Today I soaked the leather, placed it on the scabbard core, and stitched it down. As you can see, I was able to tighten it over the scabbard risers several times!

I am now rubbing down the leather with a stainless-steel knife handle to reduce the 'pebbling' of the leather as it dries.

I used a double-needle running stitch like some of the Viking Age sword scabbards from York, so the seam will stand up on the back. Other Viking Age scabbards have the leather butted together and stitched differently.

[Sean M]

Today I tried to chisel a hole in the centre of the shield for the handgrip. It did not go well: the vibrations on the narrow table shook two of the seams apart (and started to crack one of the boards).



After the middle seam failed, I roughly cut the hole with a hand-held hacksaw and smoothed the edges by pushing a chisel along them. I started with a round hole 10 cm in diameter and the made the 'knuckle' side a bit longer and narrower like the Thorsberg shields.

I think I will redo those seams with hide glue and use cheese glue to attach the rawhide. The quality of my cheese glue still seems uneven. I can use some of the hide glue to attach some scrap linen to a piece of plywood to practice gessoing and painting.

I thought that the boards would be more likely to slide as I glued them (and less likely to be glued weakly). I think its important to make sure that the curds are fully softened by the limewater.

I see that Matthew Amt usually uses an electric jigsaw to make the hole in his plywood shields https://www.larp.com/legioxx/scutum.html

[Sean M]

This morning I turned most of a litre (4 cups) of milk into curds before it spoils. It took about an hour. Heating the bowl of milk does speed up the process. I used about 10 mL of vinegar in each cup of milk.

Edit: the yield was about 100 grams of curds (105 including the thin plastic cup).

There seem to be two stages in the separation. At first the dull white curds appear in thinner but still white liquid, then the liquid becomes clear yellow whey and the curds sink below it. Sometimes the second stage does not happen.

[Sean M]

Today I mixed up some hide glue and repaired the failed seams. I think I had one good batch of cheese glue and one not so good.



I think I used too much water for this particular hide glue (1/2 cup water to 1/4 cup glue grains). In that case it will be weaker and slower setting.

If I had a drawknife or even a plane, I could make the shield board smoother, but its a first attempt.

[Sean M]

Today I brushed a third layer of hide glue on the plywood panel (first layer more dillute to soak into the wood, second and third stronger, just like Cennini says), waited six hours or so, heated up some 1/4 cup hide glue: 1 cup water solution to 70*C, dipped some fine, used linen in it, spread it over the plywood and smoothed it with my bare hands. With respect to Laura Broecke and all those scholars of Theophilius, Cennini's instructions are clear enough for me.

After it has dried for a few days I can gesso it. I want to test out the procedure on something small and cheap before I try covering the alder shield with linen and gesso. I can practice brush strokes on the panel.

[Sean M]

On Tuesday evening I removed one of the scraps of steel from the molasses and water. I think it should sand down nicely.



I have to decide whether to pre-drill the holes for the nails which hold the steel to the handle to the board. The handle + cut-out wood are only about 8 mm or 5/16" thick so I don't want to split them.

I have to decide whether to clench or peen the nails. Dickinson and Härke imply that they were peened over a washer, but I want to double-check what that is based on.

[Sean M]

I have sanded the steel (~150 and 320 grit I think) of the grip reinforcement and then cut it roughly to shape. Most of the grip reinforcements were pretty simple, just a flattened bar of iron.



I am filing the edges so there is nothing sharp. The surface of the 'good side' has no more brown or red rust, and a satin finish on the flats, but also some pitting with black oxidization. I am inclined to sand it again and leave it as it is, because the whole grip was usually wrapped with leather anyways. The grip reinforcement was not there to look pretty, just to reinforce the join between the handle and the shield board.

iEdit: if we have any styrofoam, I may try to use some of it as a sanding block instead of wood and see if it gets into the pits on the steel better.

I will need nails to fasten the reinforcement to the handle to the board. Should I look out for anything to get nails whose heads will stay on when I clench or clip and peen them?

[Sean M]

Today I spent an hour and a half priming the 6" by 12" panel with gesso sottile. Cennini's recipe is straightforward and he says that for small projects its OK to use gesso sottile directly and not to soak the gesso sottile and wring it out.

About 10 grams of slaked plaster of Paris and 10 grams of hide glue made one layer. I applied five layers in all, rubbing the first with my hands in a circular motion and just brushing on the next four layers (one layer end to end, the next layer side to side). Cennini recommends as many layers as possible, but this panel is just to practice gessoing a panel and to have something to test brush strokes on. The podestà is not going to examine how perfectly smooth the painted surface is before he pays the second half of my fee



Cennini was not clear what state the parchment glue is in when he kneads it with the plaster. I melted it and scattered the gesso into it. I had problems with chunks of gesso forming, it might have been a good idea to grind it in a mortar or on a slab. Cennini says that the gesso should be sliced thin like cheese before its mixed with the glue and kneaded, but mine wanted to crumble under the knife like a dry cookie.

It is also tricky to mix the gesso and glue without bubbles forming. Bubbles will spoil the nice smooth surface which you are working to create. Cennini suggests mixing with your hands, and if I were making a larger batch that might be a good idea.

[Sean M]

On Thursday evening I chopped up my curds, mashed them with a mortar and pestle, mixed them with limewater, and glued the rawhide to the back of the shield. I scattered chalk (calcium carbonate) on the hide to absorb fat and oil and make the colour lighter. Cennini says that gesso powder also works.



Because the hide is barely big enough, I pinned it in place around the edge rather than wrapping it over the sides of the shield. The hide for the front of the shield is bigger.

So far there is some slight bowing and one of the seams sealed with hide glue failed. I can re-glue it with cheese glue when I put the rawhide on the other side.

[Sean M]

Made another batch of curds. A ratio of about 1 cup (250 mL) of warm skim milk to 3-4 teaspoons (15-20 mL) seems to be right for separating the milk into clear yellowish whey and thick white curds. More or less vinegar might be needed depending on how strong it is.

Ordered some oxide pigments and huntite from Kama Pigment in Quebec and Kremer Pigmente in the USA. Huntite was used in ancient Egypt and is brighter than gypsum and less poisonous than lead white.

[Sean M]

Put the slightly heavier buffalo rawhide disc on the front of the shield with cheese glue. I applied clamps around the edge so hopefully it will clench to the back as it dries.

Because the board was pringle-shaped, it was hard to get the rawhide to fit as smoothly to the board. Hopefully that problem will go away as the leather dries and pulls. I can keep massaging it as it dries.

[Sean M]

The shield dried mostly flat. I suspect that few of these were perfect discs.



The scabbard fits my Albion Sempach! Just have to decide what to do at the mouth, and buy parts for the suspension mechanism and chape.



Two shipments of pigments arrived from Kremer in the USA and Kama in Quebec: two red iron oxides, two yellow iron oxides, huntite white, burned bone black, and small amounts of Egyptian blue and malachite green. Artists call black from burned bone "ivory black" (Pigment description, according to ASTM: Ivory Black or Bone Black, Inorganic: amorphous carbon produced by charring animal bones kama Pigment) All of these pigments were common in the Bronze Age and Iron Age in Egypt, the Aegean, and Southwest Asia.

[Sean M]

I had time and energy on Thursday to test out the scorp on the red alder shield. Needs sharpening! I wrapped some 400 grit sandpaper around a hardwood dowel and used that to sharpen the inside of the blade. Will see if its the right tool or if I need a gouge for some of the final shaping.



I have a cardboard template which shows the cross-section I want the inside to have.

[Sean M]

Today I had the afternoon free and wanted a quiet project so I sketched out a plan:



tempered the pigments with egg yolk and water and painted a test swatch.



I will give it a day or two to finish drying and see how the colours look then. Top row is two red ochres (haematites) and two yellow ochres, bottom row is malachite, Egyptian blue, Huntite white, and ivory black (really a bone black).

Egyptian blue is a bit tricky to work with, it seems to want to be lightly tempered because it has large particles. Malachite green looks nice after a few layers. Some of the pigments don't have enough covering power to hide the sketch in India ink.

Most of these pigments are not too nasty but powdered pigments can mess up your lungs, eyes, and random household objects! That includes staining porcelain sinks when you dispose of them. I wear a mask when dispensing the powder, wear an extra layer of clothes I can take off when I am done, keep food and drink (and empty plates or glasses) away from the painting space, and wash my hands with cold water and hand soap.

I may get a dedicated set of stainless steel measuring spoons for pigments and temper.