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DIY Viking shield. How to make a medieval shield with your own hands

Recently, a friend received an order for a Viking shield and axe. And if I have been dealing with axes for quite a long time, then the shield had to be made for the first time.

I did not follow the simple path, i.e. did not cut out of plywood or buy a furniture board. I bought some planed pine boards from a covered warehouse to keep them dry. Board thickness 20 mm, width 95 mm.

I bought a good carpentry glue, built a small stray for gluing boards 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 the margin was larger when cutting a circle.

Then, 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I decided to make a shield with a diameter of 78 cm (it seems not the smallest, but not huge), before that I read historical references on Viking shields.

After marking, I sawed out the circle with an electric jigsaw, and then processed one side with a wire nozzle in order to brush the tree.

Yes, I forgot, I removed 5 mm of board thickness with an electric planer. I wanted more, but the knives on the planer began to remove wood very unevenly and I refused to continue the procedure.

In short, the thickness of the shield came out 15 mm. Then I sanded the front and back sides a little from large burrs. Umbon made from a sheet of steel 2 mm thick.

I cut out a circle from the sheet (about 21 cm), found a pipe of a suitable diameter and pulled out a hemisphere. In the process, he slightly heated the workpiece in the forge. I used a slightly rounded hammer (finished with a grinder) and half a Soviet dumbbell in the form of a ball. I tore the first umbon (most likely due to rusted sections), but the second came out not bad. Depth is about 5 cm.

After I drilled holes in the umbone and shield and riveted the aluminum rivets. I sawed the handle of the shield with a jigsaw from a birch board (there was a good one left from the pallet) and put it on furniture bolts so that it could be removed in case of something (it seems they were going to hang a shield on the wall, and then who knows). I did not take photos at this stage, I confess.

By the way, the holes came out a little asymmetrical, and all because I really wanted to finish it as soon as possible, but there was no strength left. It would be better to go to sleep, but oh well.

Since the theme of the shield is a Valkyrie, I sketched a semblance of wings (I found a similar picture with a sketch of a tattoo on the Internet). In the photo, the shield is already covered with stain - mahogany.

I applied the drawing using pyrography and covered the shield with drying oil so that the wood fibers would show up better.

Then he proceeded to sheathing the edge of the shield with leather. I sewed with a saddle stitch, used leather 2 mm thick, pre-drilled holes in the shield.

To be honest, I got tired of sheathing (my fingers still hurt), it would be better if I nailed it with carnations. (After sheathing, I also glued the skin a little with waterproof universal glue).

This is what the shield looks like from the back. This strap is temporary, most likely later, when a suitable skin appears, I will make a carrying strap.

3.5 mm thick leather overlays. I don't claim to be historical, but I tried.

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 considered the material about and, as well as weaved. Now the turn has come for the front line of defense of the medieval warrior - the shield. The shield must be not only durable and impact resistant, but also lightweight. Therefore, think about what kind of tree, and we will make a shield from it, you will use it. The best option for making a shield would be birch. This type of wood has not only good viscosity and elasticity, but also lightness, in relation to other alternative species. The next step is to determine the size of the shield. A shield with a diameter of 600-700 mm is considered optimal. Such a shield will fully protect the forearm (from the elbow to the hand) and at the same time will not be too heavy.

Manufacturing technology of a medieval shield

Boards for the shield must be well dried, have a straight-layer structure and 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 end up with two 620mm pieces and two pieces of what's left. Carefully cut and tightly fit the side edges of these boards to each other. 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 by removing the steps. Next, we draw 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 the one hand, we plan with a planer, deepening 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 with a thickness of 15-17 mm.

Well, here we have the wooden base of 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 an umbon. An umbon can be knocked out of a round metal plate 1.5-2.5 mm thick by placing it on a lead pillow and tapping it with a hammer from the center along a divergent spiral until a convex dome with a diameter of 150-200 mm and a depth of 50 mm is obtained. Bend the edges on an anvil 15-20 mm wide. This is how cold forging works. But in order to settle the cup to such a depth, it is also necessary to use hot forging, heating the metal with a gas burner or to redness, upsetting the metal in an annular mandrel or matrix. However, if blacksmithing is new to someone, he can order an umbon in a blacksmith, or buy something similar in a store.

Now we need to iron the edge of our medieval shield. 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 put the strip on the anvil and begin to flatten one of its edges with a heavy hammer, periodically checking its curvature with a cardboard template. If your strip is made of ductile metal, then cold forging will be enough for you. But still, it is better to do it by heating the strip with a gas burner to redness and letting it cool slowly. After that, we continue to beat on it with a hammer. It is not necessary to bend the strip around the entire circumference of the shield. It can be divided into several separate parts. That will be a little easier. Although the work is quite hard. We adjust the metal to the shield so that there is an edge for bending to the thickness of the shield. A ninety-degree edge bend can be done on an anvil. To do this, we change one of the “lips” of the vise to 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, with each other and attach to the shield with bolts, which we will later replace with rivets. We also fasten the umbon to the middle. Now we need to work on the rest of the shield details. We need to cut out twelve overlays for the shield 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 shield with furniture bolts. We rivet from the inside of the shield, putting wide washers on the bolt rod. We saw off the rod so that it is exposed above the surface of the shield by two, three millimeters.

Now it remains for us to make the elements of holding the shield. 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 belt loop for the forearm is made of leather 70 mm wide in the center and 40 mm at the edges. We attach it to the shield also with the help of through rivets. But the pillow for the forearm can be screwed to the shield with rounded bolts.

Well, that's probably all. Our medieval shield is completely ready. You can role-play or hang it on the wall as a decoration next to your other remodeled pieces. Good luck!

The article is a rewrite. Photos taken from the book "Reconstruction of ancient weapons"

During the Viking Age, warriors used large, round, wooden shields. In written sources that are known to scientists, it is described that the shields were made of linden.

But archaeological finds have not been able to confirm more than one such case. And although linden wood is more suitable for making shields, it is lighter and more viscous, it does not split under impact, all the shields found were made of spruce, fir or pine.

The method of making shields was described in the Norwegian laws Gulaþing and Frostaþing. The legislation stipulates that the shield must be made of wood, 3 metal strips were made on the inside, to stiffen it, the edges must be sheathed with iron, and an iron handle must be nailed on the inside. Later the law changed, shields were made of 2 layers of wood and the front must be painted red and white.

The size of the shield was supposed to be 90 cm in diameter, but there were exceptions, both larger and smaller. Scientists attribute this discrepancy to the fact that each shield was made individually for each warrior, and the size of the shield was selected to match the size of the warrior.

The largest collection of Viking shields was found on the Gokstad Viking ship found by archaeologists. This collection dates back to the 10th century. A total of 32 shields were discovered, some of which have been preserved in perfect condition.

The thickness of the Gokstad shields was about 12mm and decreased towards the edges of the shield by 6mm. In the center of the shield was an umbon, which protected the warrior's hand.
Umbon, as a rule, was 12-15mm in diameter and had a thickness of 3-5mm. Early umbones were cylindrical, but after the 10th century they were made flatter.

The handle was usually made for the entire diameter of the shield. It was usually made of wood, but samples were also found where the handle was also upholstered with iron and decorated with silver or bronze.

The shield was covered with leather. The skin was stretched in such a way that the boards pressed against each other as tightly as possible. The skin was stretched and nailed to the boards, at a distance of 20 cm from the center. Later examples used clips along the edge of the shield, this allowed a damaged shield to be quickly repaired.

It is worth noting that the shield did not absorb the impact force. Rather, it redistributed the impact force over a larger area, which reduced the risk of injury. The round shape of Scandinavian shields later became widely used in cavalry.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, today we will talk about a round shield, which was used by both our ancestors - the Slavs, and the northern Scandinavian warriors, known to the whole world - the Vikings. I want to say right away that this is not a reconstruction, i.e. the way to create a shield is not historical. But that doesn't mean it's not real.

Need

Boards. Part of the pallet, part just lying around in the country.
Joiner's glue. Any wood glue will do.
Rivets.
Sheet of iron.

This is the most basic, you will need something more in a trifle, but more on that later.
Shield making
We are not looking for simple ways, so we will not make a shield from plywood or a furniture shield (a shield from a shield, cool), but from boards. Here are these:

And you ask me how to make something cool out of a bunch of these old boards? But no way! First you need to cut through all the blanks.

In the process, I replaced some of the original boards. A slight wear by time gives the tree a special charm, but frank rot is already superfluous. If you buy an edged board (you can use one long board, and then saw it into the necessary parts), then you won’t have to plan it much, and if you go the hard way and take old boards, you will have to adjust the ends. This I mean that all the workpieces should fit well to each other. You need this for the next step - gluing. Oh yes. All boards must be no more than 10 mm thick. The shield should be light, the historical Viking shield could be 8 mm in the middle, and already 5 mm towards the edges. More than 1 shield battle should not have been enough, only the umbon is tenacious, but more on that later.
I glued all the boards on a workbench, on three sides of which stops were attached in the form of bars. I glued the ends with wood glue Moment. Very good glue, by the way, I used it for the deck of electric guitars, and glued furniture, well, and a 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 were placed on them. This is so that all gluing does not lead. I left the glue to dry for about a day.

After that, a circle of 74 cm in diameter 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 about 4 mm steel, but here I decided to take the path of least resistance. I found an iron plate a little over 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, heated it constantly with a burner and beat it with an old dumbbell.

After that, holes were drilled along the edges of the umbon, and I also cleaned it of old paint and smoked it on a fire. Also, leather was glued on the inside of the umbon.

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 marking, and then we knock out the circle with a chisel, those places that were not drilled. We also drill the umbon itself and the shield along the edges of the hole for the rivets.

We fasten the umbon to the shield with rivets. And paint the shield with stain. I used a mixture of mahogany and mocha. It turned out pretty interesting. With different lighting and different angles, the color is either darkly saturated, or dull-light.

Next, I made a handle from a pine block. Why pine? Because it was lying at hand, 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 studs. On the reverse side, I had to additionally attach all the skin with a large stapler, because the carnations were too short. Go to the store and buy carnations of the right length? No, not our choice.

This completes the production of the shield. And yes, we tried to hit him with an ax and, lo and behold, he survived! It’s better not to repeat this, even if you make a shield and you won’t be sure of it.

There is a rune ax, there is a shield, it remains to make a longship and go hiking!