Building a Historically Accurate Viking Shield

Howdy folks!
I posted this before the forum move and it got lost in the process, so I thought I'd add it back. This is a direct copy of the original post, so I'll just leave it at that!

Howdy folks!

It's pretty rare that I see a historically accurate Viking roundshield and that's something I want to change. Most are plywood for the purposes of reenactment or store-bought which I won't even go into. For this project I'm aiming for good historical accuracy. To achieve this I aimed for:

A tapered shield - thicker at the middle, thinner at the edges
A facing and edging - canvas for both in my case
Riveted or clinched-nail construction - I went with riveted
Painted in a plausible way
Planked - I went with pine

This isn't really a tutorial, and I had some serious screwups on the way which I will detail as best I can.


These are my ingredients. 6 planks of wood (about 7/16" by 6" by 36"), LOTS of wood scraps (I collect them as I do projects), a boss, a canvas dropcloth, a LOT of glue and of the stuff not shown, solid copper ground wire (about 1/4", a little smaller), washers and paint.


This is not the first time I've made a planked shield and I have a pretty decent method for the gluing. First I line up the planks, swapping them around to get as few gaps as possible - number them. If you have a fine-tooth tablesaw or are handier than me with a plane, you could probably get a much better fit than I did. Notice that at the left side, there's a scrap of wood the same thickness screwed to the bench. I'll call them sideblocks, and they are necessary, not merely for convenience.


And the other scrap of wood! When fitting this one down, push the planks together as much as you can. Both endpieces need to be almost the same length as the planks (if not the same length) and reasonably sturdy. The crosspieces are screwed to the left side only so they swing freely. They are thicker, about 3/4". You can see a pile of wedges and a mallet here also - make a bunch, you'll see why later! They're about 3/4" wide and range from about 1/4" to 1/2" thick, and of course tapered to a point.


Wood stops allow me to quickly swing the crosspieces in place and screw them down. Make sure the top piece can clear the stop for the bottom piece! These two crosspieces will serve as a clamp for the shield to minimize planks rising and gluing unevenly.


Trashbags served as a dropcloth to prevent the planks gluing to the bench. Should've done it on top too but I didn't.




My number of hands prevented me taking pics of this process, but essentially the planks are glued end-to-end. Make sure nothing gets stuck between them! When the last plank is in, swing the wood pieces on top of the whole mess and screw them down tight. THEN I put the 2x4 over the long wood clamps and clamp it down to make sure there's enough pressure in the middle. Then we tap in the wedges between the outer planks and the two sideblocks. I put them in wherever I can fit them, the goal being to clamp the planks tightly together and to try and close gaps. I was unable to close all the gaps but it worked great. When it sets up, you have a big shield blank.


Find the center, draw a circle and cut it out. Look at historical pieces and your own size/strength to come up with a diameter that works for you. Mines about 33".


The smaller hole for the boss. The size of this will depend on the boss you use - mine is 5.5" I think.


Now comes the planing to taper. I misted the whole thing with black paint to show where I was removing wood. It'll all be planed or sanded away anyway.


First I chamfer the edges down to the desired thickness. Right around 1/4" for me.


Plane

Plane

Plane

Plane

Plane

Plane. I found it easiest to plane from the edge to the center, then rotate and repeat. I screwed down the piece I cut out for the boss hole to help hold the shield steady. This process was hard work and really needs a sharp plane blade. I was frequently cutting the grain in less than ideal directions. This process reduced the edge to about 3/16". You can feel the taper as you work and see where you need to remove more. If you can't, try using a straightedge to see where you have high and low spots. Sand to smooth it out, but I don't worry about this too much - the canvas facing will tidy it up a bit.


First a bit of edging. Canvas strip about 1 1/2" wide and glue. I poured a bunch of glue into a tupperware and soaked the strip, then squeezed it out. Again, I couldn't take pictures, but I just spring-clamped one end on and started working, pulling it tight as I went. The edges stretched over and lay flat, which was great.


Edging drying on my sawhorse.




Gluing the first facing. This was on the front. I did 3 facings, one on the back and two on the front and I regret it - next time it'll be one on the front only, the additional faces just add too much work and weight to be worth it IMO. The edges were folded over, so I did front, back, front so I got overlap each time.

This is where the pictures take a big break, as this screwed up the process hugely and I was scurrying around trying to correct it. The shield warped BADLY with this first layer of canvas. I'm talking a curve about 6" deep. This is because the glue on one side of the shield wet the wood sufficiently that it expanded, while the other side did not. I THINK that this could have been averted by either gluing both sides at once or by spraying water on the other side. When I saw how bad it was, I rapidly trimmed, glued the edge over, faced the rear of the shield and clamped it flat. on the jig I made earlier. Unfortunately, this did not flatten it completely but optimism kept me going! I built a new jig on the bench, with 2x4 sections spacing the shield up to allow airflow and smaller blocks screwing down onto the spacers to clamp the shield. After the third facing, I sprayed the whole thing with water and clamped it up for 24 hours.


Sad shield in the clamp.

But it worked!


One thing I forgot earlier was drawing something to indicate which way the planks were running so that the handle could run perpendicular. I did that now, as I could see the imprint of a plank through the canvas.


Then I smeared glue over the whole thing and let it dry. This is another part I regret - I should've just sealed the canvas with paint rather than glue. Live and learn. It did not significantly warp the shield any more.


While the shield dried I carved a handle. This is almost as long as the shield is wide and made of ash.


The dry shield was sanded to knock down spots where dust had got stuck in the glue.


Test fit of the handle


This is where I start really enjoying myself. I sectioned the shield into quarters and drew this up.


The lines were so I could match size on the opposite side. Notice that the over-under pattern changes between the two to give a little contrast.


the painting starts. I always go with red and blue.


While that dried up I started making rivets. These were all a little over 1 1/2" long. I was ecstatic when I saw that Lowes carried the solid ground wire - it's easily converted into rivets.


The rivets are in the sieve after annealing - just heat to bright red, drop in water and you're done. The block on the anvil is the jig I made for making the first head of the rivets. The hole is a snug fit (the ground wire wasn't an exact fractional size that I had so I used number drill bits) and the wire sticks out about 3/16" with a washer on it. Again, the washer was drilled out with the number bit and has to be a snug fit. Then the wire is just riveted and popped out.


I was pleased!


When the rivets were made I went back to the painting, did the red and then finished up. I hate doing linework but I'm very happy with how it came out.


The back was painted as well. Then came the terrifying part where my rivets could reduce the shield to splinters.


I modified my flattening jig by building it up to the height of my crummy little anvil. This would allow the shield to lie flat and steady while I set the rivets.

I took no more pictures, but here's how I went...

First I set the rivets at the ends of the handle to keep it in place. I wound up measuring wrong and putting the rivets directly between two planks (I'm lucky they didn't break apart) so I put another closer to the ends.

Then I riveted the boss, starting with the two that went through the handle. The nice thing about the six-hole boss is that no rivet went directly through the weakest point, which would have been directly between the two side-rivets on the boss. That's not only a join between two planks, along the grain but also very close to the boss hole!

Then I measured wrong AGAIN! I intended to space two more rivets in 2 1/2" and instead put one at 2 1/2" and one at 1 1/2". I feel like an idiot for that and I will ALWAYS see it when I look at the shield.

Nonetheless, here we are.




I've been working on this since saturday and I've been working every day! This was a lot of effort. Every plank has at least one rivet holding it to the handle.

Historical problems with it:
An excess of glue. Historically, the planks were not glued together, being held together only by the handle, boss, edging and facing. And as I mentioned above, I shouldn't have sealed the canvas with glue.

Rivets? I kinda doubt it for a working shield, particularly copper. My experiments have shown these shields to be effective but pretty easily damaged, and it's not really worth the effort to rivet when you can just clinch nails.

I didn't use any rawhide - I don't know if that can really be seen as a historical problem as we have no evidence suggesting that all Viking shields had rawhide facing or edging. Given how much weight the canvas added, I'm pretty sure a rawhide facing or edging would've added more.

I'm sure there are more problems I'm missing, but all in all I'm very pleased with my creation and its historicity!

Thanks for looking, comments and questions welcome.

Pete