Hello, ladies and gentlemen, today we’ll talk about the round shield, which was used by both our ancestors - the Slavs, and the northern Scandinavian warriors, known throughout the world - the Vikings. I want to say right away that this is not a reconstruction, i.e. The method of creating a shield is not historical. But that doesn't mean he's not real.
Will be needed
This is the most basic thing, you will need a few more small things, but more on that later.
Making a shield
We are not looking for simple ways, so we will not make a shield from plywood or furniture board(a shield made from a shield, cool), but from boards. These are: 
And you ask me how to make something cool out of a bunch of these old boards? But no way! First you need to plan all the blanks. 
In the process, I replaced some of the original boards. Light wear and tear on the wood gives it a special charm, but outright rot is unnecessary. If you buy edged board(you can have one long one and then cut it into the required parts), then you won’t have to plan it much, but if you go the difficult route and take old boards, you’ll have to adjust the ends. What I mean is that all the blanks should fit together well. We need this for the next stage - gluing. Oh yes. All boards must be no more than 10 mm thick. The shield should be light, a historical Viking shield could be 8 mm in the middle, and 5 mm towards the edges. The shield shouldn’t have been enough for more than 1 battle, only the umbon is tenacious, but more on that later.
I glued all the boards on a workbench, with stops in the form of bars attached to three sides. I glued the ends together with Moment wood glue. Very good glue By the way, I used it to glue the soundboard of an electric guitar, and glue the furniture, and, well, the shield. All ends were glued and joined in turn. Then a third stop was attached to the workbench, which clamped all the boards, and two more boards were placed on top, and gypsum blocks on them. This is so that the gluing does not fail. I left the glue to dry for about a day. 
Afterwards a circle with a diameter of 74 cm was drawn. Not the largest or smallest, in general, I chose this size specifically for myself. 
Next, I started making the umbon. In general, it should be made of approximately 4 mm steel, but here I decided to take the path of least resistance. I found an iron plate a little more than one mm thick and began to bend it into a hemisphere. 
To do this, I dug a pipe into the ground, put a plate on top, constantly heated it with a burner and beat it with an old dumbbell. 
Afterwards, holes were drilled along the edges of the umbon, and I also cleaned it from old paint and smoked it over the fire. Also with inside skin was glued to the umbo. 
Now we mark a hole for the umbon in the center of the shield and carry out drilling and chisel work. That is, we drill along the edges of the markings, and then we knock out the circle with a chisel, those places that were not drilled. We also drill the umbo itself and the shield along the edges of the hole for the rivets. 
We attach the umbo to the shield with rivets. And we paint the shield with stain. I used a mixture of mahogany and mocha. It turned out quite interesting. In different lighting and different angles, the color is sometimes darkly saturated, sometimes dull and light. 
Next I made the handle from a pine block. Why pine? Because it was lying around, why else?! 
The handle is also attached to the shield with rivets and to each board to strengthen the shield.
Next I found black and brown leather, which was cut into strips and nailed to the shield with small nails. On the reverse side, I had to additionally attach all the leather with a large stapler, because the nails were too short. Go to the store and buy carnations of the right length? No, not our option. 
This completes the production of the shield. And yes, we tried to hit it with an ax and, lo and behold, it survived! It’s better not to repeat this, even if you make a shield and are not sure of it. 
There is a rune ax, there is a shield, all that remains is to make a longship and go on a campaign! 
Hello. Today we will talk about how you can make a shield with your own hands for, or simply for the purpose of reconstructing ancient weapons and armor. Previously, we have already looked at material about and, as well as weaving. Now it is the turn for the front line of defense of the medieval warrior - the shield. The shield should not only be durable and impact-resistant, but also lightweight. Therefore, think about what kind of wood, and we will make the shield from it, you will use. The best option for making a shield would be birch. This type of wood has not only good viscosity and elasticity, but also lightness compared to other alternative woods. Next, you need to decide on the size of the shield. A shield with a diameter of 600-700 mm is considered optimal. Such a shield will completely protect the forearm (from elbow to hand) and at the same time will not be too heavy.
The boards for the board must be well dried, have a straight-layer structure and do not have large knots. So, the shield manufacturing technology is as follows. Take a birch board measuring 2100x200x40, already pre-planed, and saw it into four parts. You should have two pieces of 620 mm each and two pieces of what remains. Plan carefully and fit tightly together side faces these boards. From these pieces we will glue the base of the shield. Use plasticized PVA glue. Leave to dry overnight.
Now we need to plan the planes of the shield blank in order to smooth out the joints of the boards, removing the steps. Next, we outline a circle with a radius of 300 mm and cut it out with a jigsaw.
Next we need to make our shield blank convex. To do this, on one side we plan with a plane, going deeper from the edge to the middle, and on the other hand, on the contrary, from the middle to the edge. As a result, we should get a kind of wooden lens 15-17 mm thick.
Here you go wooden base We have a homemade medieval shield ready. Now let's get to the metal.
In the center of the shield there should be a convex bowl called the umbo. The umbo can be knocked out from a round metal plate 1.5 - 2.5 mm thick, placing it on a lead pad, and tapping with a hammer from the center in a diverging spiral until a convex dome is obtained with a diameter of 150-200 mm and a depth of 50 mm. We bend the edges on an anvil to a width of 15-20 mm. This is how cold forging is performed. But in order to settle the cup to such a depth, you need to use hot forging, heating the metal gas burner or until red, depositing metal in an annular mandrel or matrix. However, if blacksmithing is new to someone, he can order an umbon from a forge, or buy something similar in a store.
Now we need to forge the edge of our medieval shield with iron. To do this, we again need an anvil and a hammer to bend a steel strip two millimeters thick along a radius of three hundred millimeters in a plane. We place the strip on the anvil and begin to flatten one edge with a heavy hammer, periodically checking its curvature with a cardboard template. If your strip is made of ductile metal, then it will be enough for you to produce cold forging. But still, it is better to do this by heating the strip with a gas burner until red and letting it cool slowly. After that, we continue to hit it with a hammer. It is not necessary to bend the strip around the entire circumference of the shield. You can divide it into several individual parts. It will be a little easier this way. Although the work is quite hard. We adjust the metal to the shield so that there is an edge left for bending to the thickness of the shield. Bend the edge ninety degrees can be done on an anvil. To do this, we replace one of the “lips” of the vice with a plate, the upper edge of which is curved along a radius of 300 mm, that is, along the circumference of our shield.
We carefully adjust the finished edging of the shield ribs to each other and attach them to the shield using bolts, which we will later replace with rivets. We also screw the umbon to the middle. Now we need to work on the remaining parts of the shield. We need to cut twelve shield covers from sheet iron using a jigsaw. The photo clearly shows what shape they should be. But you can show your imagination and make something of your own. The plates can be riveted to the panel with furniture bolts. We rivet from the inside of the shield, placing wide washers on the bolt rod. We saw off the rod so that it extends two or three millimeters above the surface of the shield.
Now we just have to make the shield holding elements. To do this, we need to carve a wooden one (you can use a copper or brass tube) and rivet it from the inside of the shield. The forearm belt loop is made of leather, 70mm wide in the center and 40mm wide at the edges. We attach it to the shield also using through rivets. But the forearm pillow can be screwed to the shield with bolts with a rounded head.
Well, that's probably all. Our medieval shield completely ready. You can start role playing, or hang it on the wall as decoration next to your other remodeled items. Good luck!
The article is a rewrite. Photos taken from the book “Reconstruction of Ancient Weapons”
Viking shield.
Good day reader! Today I will talk about how to make a simple round shield Viking. This is certainly not , but still interesting and necessary!!
A little history: Shields of this type, that is, Scandinavian ones, had round shape, and the size varied from 65 to 90 cm. According to archaeologists.
The Vikings made their shields from different breeds pine, ash, maple, linden, oak trees, depending on where they lived in a given period. The greatest preference was given to shields made of ash or oak due to the strength of these species; the lightest was a shield made of linden. The thickness of the shields also depended on the type of wood and varied from 12 to 6 mm. In connection with such data, I recommend that you use it as the simplest and best option and whoever is cheap, simple ordinary plywood 6 - 8 mm thick with a diameter of up to 90 cm.
Let's start making:
Material:
Plywood 6 - 8 mm thick;
Glue (preferably PVA) or fish casein (for pasting with leather); burlap or linen (I recommend several layers) I took a bag of sugar;
Strong nylon threads;
The leather is preferably thicker (you can save money and choose another suitable material);
Metal with a thickness of 1 to 2 mm;
I used enamel paints (optional);
Nails for rivets;
Stain;
Varnish;
Tool:
Hammer, pencil, ruler, electric jigsaw, grinder with a circle 1.5 - 2 mm thick, sandpaper. It seems like I haven’t forgotten anything, well, you yourself know which tool you need!
Let's start production
: Take the prepared plywood and mark two circles, one with the diameter of your shield, take approximately 800 mm. Another one is the diameter of an umbong (slightly larger than your fist).
Advice: in order to succeed good circle take a board of any length, width
I screw the self-tapping screw through 3–4 cm from one end, and at the required distance I drill a hole for a pencil. This method of drawing produces smooth circles.
Having made the necessary movement, we already get the first result.
The next step is cutting on the inside of the board to imitate boards, as well as opening it with stain and varnish (do not overdo it with the tone).
After everything has dried, we proceed to making the handle and two side strips (we take the material - oak, birch, ash) and rivet them in accordance with the pattern you applied on the boards (I used nails as rivets, those that protrude from the other side, bite them off with wire cutters and rivet).
And now the first hints appear that you have shield, not a piece of plywood.
Let's move on to the next step: you need to outside cover the shield with burlap (to absorb impacts on the shield). We take glue and apply it to the front part of the product, and I advise you not to regret it. We take the burlap and fit it onto the shield, smoothing it out so that there is no air jams, And different types unevenness. Smooth? So it’s great to wait for it to dry a little and repeat the operation several times without sparing the glue. When everything is dry, cut the burlap along the contour of the shield.
The umbo is knocked out of metal blank thickness from 1.5 to 3 mm. Preferably steel (it’s more reliable). If the steel is thicker than 3 mm, the process occurs in two stages with intermediate annealing with a gas burner. Remember, you need to make the umbo as convenient as possible for your fist in future battles.
Recently I received an order from a friend for a Viking shield and axe. And while I have been working with axes for quite a long time, this was the first time I had to make a shield.
I didn’t take the simple path, i.e. I didn’t cut it out of plywood or buy furniture board. I purchased some planed pine boards from a warehouse to keep them dry. Board thickness 20 mm, width 95 mm.
I bought good carpenter's glue and built a small device for gluing boards together from two pieces of plywood and studs. I sawed the boards into fragments 90 cm long, not very economically, but it was more convenient for me, so that there was more margin when cutting out a circle.
Then, as soon as the glue has dried (in my case, the next day), we screw a self-tapping screw into the center of the workpiece, tie a rope to it, and a pencil to the end of the rope.
I decided to make the shield with a diameter of 78 cm (it seems not the smallest, but not huge either), I read before that historical information on Viking shields.
After marking, I cut out the circle with a jigsaw, and then treated one side with a wire nozzle to brush the wood.
Yes, I forgot, I removed 5 mm of the thickness of the board with an electric planer. I wanted more, but the knives on the plane began to remove the wood very unevenly and I refused to continue the procedure.
In short, the thickness of the shield was 15 mm. Then I sanded the front and back sides a little to remove large burrs. The umbon was made from a sheet of steel 2 mm thick.
I cut out a circle (about 21 cm) from the sheet, found a pipe of suitable diameter and pulled out a hemisphere. During the process, I slightly heated the workpiece in the forge. I used a slightly rounded hammer (modified with a grinder) and half a Soviet dumbbell in the shape of a ball. I tore the first umbon (most likely due to rusted areas), but the second one came out quite well. Depth about 5 cm.
Then I drilled holes in the umbo and shield and riveted aluminum rivets. I cut the shield's handle out of a birch board with a jigsaw (there was a good one left from a pallet) and placed it on furniture bolts so that it could be removed if something happened (it seems like they were going to hang the shield on the wall, but who knows). Photos on at this stage I didn’t, I confess.
By the way, the holes turned out to be a little asymmetrical, and all because I really wanted to finish it as quickly as possible, but I no longer had the strength. It would be better if I went to bed, but oh well.
Since the theme of the shield is Valkyrie, I sketched something like wings (I found a similar picture with a tattoo sketch on the Internet). In the photo, the shield is already covered with stain - mahogany.
I applied the design using pyrography and covered the shield with drying oil so that the wood fibers would show up better.
Then he started covering the edge of the shield with leather. I sewed with a saddle stitch, used leather 2 mm thick, and pre-drilled holes in the shield.
To be honest, I’m tired of sheathing (my fingers still hurt), it would be better to nail it down with nails (after sheathing I also glued the skin a little with waterproof universal glue).
This is what the shield looks like reverse side. This strap is temporary for now, most likely later, when suitable leather appears, I will make a carrying strap.
Leather pads at the joints, 3.5 mm thick. I don’t pretend to be historic, but I tried.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, today we’ll talk about the round shield, which was used by both our ancestors - the Slavs, and the northern Scandinavian warriors, known throughout the world - the Vikings. I want to say right away that this is not a reconstruction, i.e. The method of creating a shield is not historical. But that doesn't mean he's not real.
