Protecting Paint on Wooden Shields

[Sean Powell]

Hello All,

I am in the process of finishing my new pretty shield for demo's. (of course the demo is this weekend... if it wasn't for last minutes things would never get done.) The shield is 2 pieces of 1/4" birch plywood, glued in a press, with glued canvas front, alluminum plywood edging, yellow plastic rope around the edge and stretched 4oz leather to cover the mundane bits. (Didn't have raw-hide available.) I JUST put the last coat of paint depicting my heraldry on the outer layer and was debating a layer of low-gloss polyeurathane to protect the paint. I'm affraid the polyurethane will yellow the white paint on the heraldry.

Does anyone have any experience with sealing paint on wood shields. If so what did you use and how did it work? If I am going to put poly on it it will have to be tomorrow afternoon at the latest so it is dry by saturday's demo.

I WILL post pics after this. It took too long to build to not post pics.

Sean

[Pietro da San Tebaldo]

A product called Polycrylic, available at fine big-box hardware stores like Lowes and Home Despot, is a water-based, non-yellowing alternative. It's a bit more expensive than straight polyurethane, but it's good stuff and doesn't ^%$# up your careful paint job.

Good luck.

Pietro

[Edwin]

I don't know much about paint, but your comment about raw-hide caught my attention.

Have you considered using a large dog chew-toy? I went to the farm store here, bought 3 large chew toys. Soaked 'em overnight, unrolled 'em, and then used some old tin-snips to cut them each into 3 strips. Each toy made 3 strips that were ~24" long and 4" wide. Folder it over the edge of the shield. Just need to overlap the rawhide at the edges.

My shield was a 1/4" inch pine plywood glued to 1/4" birch (and curved in a press). Edged with cotton rope, and then only the raw-hide. After 2 years it held up fine. I first started seeing chips of wood flying off this week.