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Folkert van Wijk




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 3:03 am    Post subject: 500-700 dished shield construction.         Reply with quote

I am (1) looking for the authentic construction method of making a dished round shield 500-700 AD.
And (2) for a modern method of doing this myself. Can someone of you knowledgeable people point me out to a website or PDf maybe somewhere that shows me these methods..?

I also understand that it's questionable wether(all) shields where dished in that time?

A good sword will only be sharp, in the hands of a wise man…

I am great fan of everything Celtic BC, including there weapons.
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 3:49 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hi Folkert,

1) Is difficult.
You can do it by carving the whole thing down from thicker planks as Richard Underwood did:-
http://www.millennia.f2s.com/reconstruction.htm

Or do it by using 'coopering' methods, where each plank needs to be narrower at the top and bottom than in the middle, cut to the correct angle on the butting edges and then steamed so that the planks can be curved over a form, glued along the butting edges and clamped in place. That's how I've done it and the method that I consider to be the most likely one used. It's not easy though and I'm afraid that I've never documented the process.

There is a third method, which involves building the shield from pie-slice shaped pieces of board which leads to a conical shaped shield which does match some period illustrations. It's the one used by Regia's Steve Etheridge when he made a reconstruction for an episode of 'The Weapons that made Britain' that you can see here:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0moVAG0JDOc

2). Modern methods.
Easiest one would be to buy a dished blank from Tim Noyes at Heron Armoury. He makes them by using a former, a flypress and sheets of birch ply. The result is a perfectly formed lenticular shield blank, approx 36" diameter which stands up to the stresses of re-enactment combat exceedingly well and, once faced on both sides with hide or leather, looks perfect.
These German chaps sell them as well. Don't know how they make theirs though:-
http://www.reenactment-bedarf.de/html/schilde.html


Another methods is the method used by the talented French chaps here:-

http://fabricae.free.fr/

if you look under 'Fabriquer un Bouclier' you'll find a photo essay of the method used.

As for it being quesionable....there is circumstantial evidence in the form of surviving fittings that some say points towards the use of dished/lenticular shields but it doesn't prove it and others argue that the same features are evidence of something else entirely (as an example, some bosses have a flange which meets the wall at an obtuse angle which might be taken as evidence of a dished shield as a flat board would might be expected to require the flange/wall interface to be perpendicular. However, it might just be at that angle so as to ensure that the nails fixing board to boss are kept under tension and to provide a little bit of shock-absorbancy to the boss).

Same with pictorial evidence. Lots of pictures of what look like they might be depicting dished shields (from slightly later periods) but these could just be attempts to show side views or partial persepctives of flat boards.
Until we find planked remains that prove the matter then it will remain a subject of debate.

Hope all of that is useful to you.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Elling Polden




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 4:33 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I have one of the above shields , which is made from veneer/ply.
My estimate that using layers of ply strips are probably the historical method for making them. Roman shields where made from veneer, as well as some medevial shields.
Alternately, one could bend boards with a combination of moisture and heat, similar to the making of barrels or shipboards.

There are several ways to achieve the same effect, but they demand access to tools, knowhow and time.

"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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Folkert van Wijk




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 6:27 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Thanks for the info, and yes I think this give's me a good overview of the possibilities...
A good sword will only be sharp, in the hands of a wise man…

I am great fan of everything Celtic BC, including there weapons.
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 6:43 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Elling Polden wrote:
My estimate that using layers of ply strips are probably the historical method for making them. .


If that were the case then you'd expect to see evidence of it on the shanks of boss and board studs whereas, so far, all the evidence is for a single thickness of planks?

See Heinrich Harke's "Anglo Saxon Laminated Shields At Petersfinger - A Myth" for his dismissal of Leeds and Shortt's earlier claims on the subject.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Elling Polden




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 7:46 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

One does not have to laminate ply in alternating directions. In fact, one could split a plank into ply, and glue it back together in the desired shape. Or build a laminate of thin strips where the layers overlap eachothers seams..

Looking at Harke's article, the most interesting bit is that the shield is only some 6mm thick at the boss. This is very thin indeed. Viking flat shields are this thin at the edges, but thicker at the center. My shield from Heron Armoury is about twice as thick with the rawhide facing.
A 6mm linden board would not be that hard to bend in the first place. But it stil leaves several questions as to how the planks would be put together. Tapered board radiating from the middle, paralell boards, and so on.

The preserved high medevial shields that I have seen are all made of planks set together at an angel, but they only curve in one direction. You could make a domed shield in the same way with pre-bent planks, though.

"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Thu 18 Apr, 2013 12:18 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

I suspect something akin to coopering, but maybe without the steaming and bending? The planks could simply have been shaped to the desired curvature in the first place. Sure, that means starting with something c. 5" thick and carving it down to size, but these are folks who thought nothing of shaving every plank in a ship down from double the desired thickness just to leave cleats standing up from the inner surface for the lashings. I am very leery of the conical pie-slice construction, but some of those depictions DO look very conical!

Most depictions of shields outside Scandinavia shows them as convex. The surviving archeological components--angled boss flanges with angled rivets, curved handles, surviving Late Roman shields, etc--shows the board was convex. Even descriptions of shields call them "hollow". That's 3 for 3, as close to solid proof as you'll ever get. Isn't it easier to conclude that shields were dished than to invent a whole new branch of physics to explain the "shock absorbing" qualities of sloped shield boss flanges? (Sorry, that was nasty and snarky of me, but that theory always drives me nuts!)

Matthew
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 12:38 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:
I suspect something akin to coopering, but maybe without the steaming and bending? The planks could simply have been shaped to the desired curvature in the first place. Sure, that means starting with something c. 5" thick and carving it down to size, but these are folks who thought nothing of shaving every plank in a ship down from double the desired thickness just to leave cleats standing up from the inner surface for the lashings.


But that's a lot of effort to go to for something that's essentially disposable isn't it?
Analysis of the barrels of the period have shown that they were coopered as we would understand it, cut to shape and thickness before being bent to shape.
If you understand the process then I think that splitting planks to the right thickness and then forming is less effort than hacking out 30-50% of the material.
But then perhaps that's just because I don't understand how easy that might be to someone who did it for a living.
I'll have to talk to Damian Goodburn about it.

Whichever way it was done, there'd have to be some 'post-assembly' trimming to achieve the tapering profile from boss to edge.

Quote:
Most depictions of shields outside Scandinavia shows them as convex. The surviving archeological components--angled boss flanges with angled rivets, curved handles, surviving Late Roman shields, etc--shows the board was convex. Even descriptions of shields call them "hollow". That's 3 for 3, as close to solid proof as you'll ever get. Isn't it easier to conclude that shields were dished than to invent a whole new branch of physics to explain the "shock absorbing" qualities of sloped shield boss flanges? (Sorry, that was nasty and snarky of me, but that theory always drives me nuts!)


I don't buy into the shock-absorbing thing myself but I know from practical experience that having an obtuse angled flange on a flat board does keep the boss nails under continuous tension. I don't know whether there's any great practical advantage to this but it is a fact.
Curved handles could occur after deposition (because the iron elements are quite thin and everything gets squashed after deposition).

Surviving late iron age 3rd-4th century bog shields are flat (which might be considered to be more relevant to the development of European shields than the 3rd century boards from Dura in Syria that you mention).

The term 'laerig' may mean 'hollow' but it may not actually be an adjective at all. It only occurs twice in literature and may mean any number of things including 'shield rim'. It's impossible to say what it means based on the two contexts in which it occurs but it certainly can't be taken as proof of lenticular boards.

I put forward all of the above as counterarguments, not because I doubt the existence of lenticular boards but to show that there is no hard evidence one way or another.

And because it's fun to debate stuff.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Gregory J. Liebau




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 1:03 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Bunker wrote:

But that's a lot of effort to go to for something that's essentially disposable isn't it?


What piece of a man's armament was not 'essentially disposable?' Look at the work that went into weaving shields from fibrous cores and facing them with hide in the ancient Near East, or the intensely laminated core of a Roman scutum, or the completely lathed Greek aspis! It's hard for us today to judge a crafting process of the past as being too much effort when we can't really appreciate how imperative that extra effort may have been in creating a quality tool capable of saving someone's skin. We're not worried about dying because our shields fail us... Contemporaries were.

Not to mention the consideration of all of the other (sometimes superfluous) steps in creating one of these 'disposable' tools in pre-industrial societies. Crafting milk glues and mixing milk paints, tanning rawhide for facing, making iron rim strips and raised bosses... Once you consider the process as a whole, almost any amount of complexity in the wood work itself may be negligible.

-Gregory
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:15 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Gregory J. Liebau wrote:
Matthew Bunker wrote:

But that's a lot of effort to go to for something that's essentially disposable isn't it?


What piece of a man's armament was not 'essentially disposable?' Look at the work that went into weaving shields from fibrous cores and facing them with hide in the ancient Near East, or the intensely laminated core of a Roman scutum, or the completely lathed Greek aspis! It's hard for us today to judge a crafting process of the past as being too much effort when we can't really appreciate how imperative that extra effort may have been in creating a quality tool capable of saving someone's skin. We're not worried about dying because our shields fail us... Contemporaries were.


Apologies, I should have said ' a lot of EXTRA effort'. The effort that goes into making a lenticular planked shield method is considerable (I know, I've done it a few times) and, to me, the extra effort required to carve it down from thicker planks when thinner planks could be split, steamed and curved, seems to yield no discernible benefit.

As for your other points, with the exception of the paint mixing (and there is no evidence that I can think of, other than references in poetry of the period which may refer to the colour of the covering hides rather than paint colours, that shields of the period 500-700 were painted), they're all essential to the function of the shield. The planks have to be glued together, the board has to be contained by a hide (probably not leather) facing and backing, the hand hole has to be covered by a boss.
All vital to maximise the effectiveness of the shield.
Carving down from thicker planks, especially when working down to thicknesses of between 6 and 9mm, to me, makes no sense.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"


Last edited by Matthew Bunker on Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Gregory J. Liebau




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:21 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Hard to say what benefits may arise from various techniques when we don't actually know anything about the dimensions/construction of contemporary lenticular shields. Perhaps the stress added to the steamed/bent wood would be enough to make lathed/carved planks preferable? Have you watched coopers at work shaping barrel staves? The professionals are quite fast at their work...

I'm more or less playing devil's advocate here. My only interest in lenticular shields goes back to the Assyrian period, and those were obviously of wickerwork.

-Gregory
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Gregory J. Liebau




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:37 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Bunker wrote:

Carving down from thicker planks, especially when working down to thicknesses of between 6 and 9mm, to me, makes no sense.


This, to me, is where the logic of your point falters. Where were the thicker planks in the first place? They were carved by the shield maker. There was no hardware store where these fellows ran to get their pre-sized "shield" wood. Personally I find it more farfetched that the craftsman would carve his planks to the x'th degree, stop, then steam and bend them into shape the rest of the way when he could have just continued on with the carving process and glued it all together in proper form.

Mind you, that's considering that the conical/lenticular nature of the shield's surface was not too extreme. I don't know if there's any reliable data to estimate exactly how much shaping would be necessary in practice using either method.

-Gregory
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:45 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Gregory J. Liebau wrote:
Have you watched coopers at work shaping barrel staves? The professionals are quite fast at their work...


Yes I have. I've also watched somebody shape, form and assemble lute bodies using the same sort of techniques to produce the most incredible concave forms, taking hours to do so.


Quote:
I'm more or less playing devil's advocate here. My only interest in lenticular shields goes back to the Assyrian period, and those were obviously of wickerwork.


Oh quite. I'll argue black is white as long as it's a defensible position. Wink
The only way to find out which method would produce the more resilient shield would be to build them both and test them. Even then it wouldn't prove how it was actually done.
We'd need a reasonably intact find for that and, unfortunately, all of the substantial Western European board finds we have to date are seemingly from flat shields.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 2:58 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Gregory J. Liebau wrote:
Matthew Bunker wrote:

Carving down from thicker planks, especially when working down to thicknesses of between 6 and 9mm, to me, makes no sense.


This, to me, is where the logic of your point falters.
-Gregory


Really?
Splitting a plank from a split trunk is a relatively simple task. Once split, it can be adzed to a consistent thickness. To my mind it is then easier to cut the planks to form, bend, assemble and clamp than it would be to try to carve thicker planks down even further (having already glued them together and rounded them off to form the blank) to a consistent, tapering thickness.
This may, of course, owe more to my lack of skill as a wood carver than it does to the actual relative difficulties of the two processes.

The obvious answer would, of course, be to mount a blank made from thick planks onto a massive pole lathe and turn the dished shield down as you would a bowl.

That's how the Romans would have done it.

"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Gregory J. Liebau




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 3:04 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Later medieval heater shields consistently exhibit varied thickness, being thinner towards the edges with the central planks bearing the brunt of the mass. These would have been planed down substantially after assembly to maintain the curvature and negate any of the awkwardness where the planks joined.

The Gokstad ship shields also generally were planed to thinner dimensions around their circumference, which could only have been done properly/easily after assembly. IIRC, those go from about 10-6mm in thickness from center-to-rim.

It's rather relevant to note that in the cases noted above that "extra" work was done even for shields intended only for a ceremonial function. A majority of surviving heaters are funerary shields, and the Gokstad shields were of course sent off with similar sentiment.

-Gregory
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Matthew Amt




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PostPosted: Fri 19 Apr, 2013 6:48 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Bunker wrote:
Matthew Amt wrote:
I suspect something akin to coopering, but maybe without the steaming and bending? The planks could simply have been shaped to the desired curvature in the first place. Sure, that means starting with something c. 5" thick and carving it down to size, but these are folks who thought nothing of shaving every plank in a ship down from double the desired thickness just to leave cleats standing up from the inner surface for the lashings.


But that's a lot of effort to go to for something that's essentially disposable isn't it?


Oh, agreed, but as Gregory says, it's hard to imagine how much effort those folks apparently took for granted, sometimes! As he points out, Ancient Greek shields were hideously complex, yet they were known to be crushed in battle so the final product was clearly not as strong as we'd like to think. But those are the Greeks, can't do ANYthing the easy way...

Quote:
Analysis of the barrels of the period have shown that they were coopered as we would understand it, cut to shape and thickness before being bent to shape.
If you understand the process then I think that splitting planks to the right thickness and then forming is less effort than hacking out 30-50% of the material.


You could very well be right! I know that they were note afraid to carve up a lot of wood, but I don't know much about steaming, aside from watching a couple shows about coopers. The one difference I can see is that with a barrel, it's easy to tension the steamed staves against each other, simply with a binding around them. That would be harder to do on a shield, hmm, unless you pressed them into or over a form of some sort, hmmm...


Quote:
I don't buy into the shock-absorbing thing myself but I know from practical experience that having an obtuse angled flange on a flat board does keep the boss nails under continuous tension. I don't know whether there's any great practical advantage to this but it is a fact.


Yeah, I don't see any advantage, either. What's a little rattle? Ha, wouldn't it serve to soak up shock?

Quote:
Curved handles could occur after deposition (because the iron elements are quite thin and everything gets squashed after deposition).


Yes, and curved things like Roman scuta end up flat! Sure, things don't often stay intact underground, but isn't it a little odd that you don't find other sorts of curvature or twists or even any flat ones? Do we really know all the physics of burial, decay, ground slumping, etc? Sorry, it just seems to me that if handles are consistently curved, and are found with bosses with angled rims, the need to "warp" the evidence to make everything come out flat--in direct opposition to the pictoral evidence--just seems desperate and weird, to me! Sure, I'm all for caution, but geez...

Quote:
Surviving late iron age 3rd-4th century bog shields are flat (which might be considered to be more relevant to the development of European shields than the 3rd century boards from Dura in Syria that you mention).


Yeah, actually there is an ongoing battle among Late Roman reenactors on whether flat is legitimate, or only dished. But then they argue oval versus only round, too, and I can't keep up with it! Geography might be a factor--aren't all the bog shields from fairly far north? I'm honestly not sure, and might be stretching. The Dura dished shields were the typical "Germanic" types seen in Late Roman artwork. But I don't really offer them as *proof* of later medieval dished shields, more as a demonstration of plausible construction techniques, etc.

Quote:
The term 'laerig' may mean 'hollow' but it may not actually be an adjective at all. It only occurs twice in literature and may mean any number of things including 'shield rim'. It's impossible to say what it means based on the two contexts in which it occurs but it certainly can't be taken as proof of lenticular boards.


Huh, okay, I was only going by what I'd heard in translation. Only twice?? Huh...

Quote:
I put forward all of the above as counterarguments, not because I doubt the existence of lenticular boards but to show that there is no hard evidence one way or another.


Well, I'd still say that the archeological remains and pictoral evidence are pretty hard, especially since they are not only consistent but also support each other perfectly. I mean, if someone were using one aspect of the evidence to counter another, that would be one thing, but in this case all the evidence is consistent, and there is nothing to support it but flinging aspersions on the poor medieval artists and very tenuous theories about how metal underground always bends in just the right way...

Quote:
And because it's fun to debate stuff.


Ha, careful, I'll get frothy, soon! (Okay, maybe I already am...)

Matthew
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Matthew Bunker




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PostPosted: Sat 20 Apr, 2013 2:26 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Matthew Amt wrote:


Yeah, actually there is an ongoing battle among Late Roman reenactors on whether flat is legitimate, or only dished. But then they argue oval versus only round, too, and I can't keep up with it!


Ha! See that 'Medicus Matt' bloke on RAT? That's me that is. Wink

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Rick Orli





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PostPosted: Tue 23 Apr, 2013 12:01 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

But OF COURSE they were dished, at least often, based on lots of quite clear illistrations. Certainly in the Byzantine era. The advantage of a dished shield is huge. way more than I expected. basically you put the center of gravety with or behind the hand and for handiness manoverability and comfort that is an amazing benefit. My solution to dished kite shield can be seen here 3/4 way down the page with some construction pictures.

http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/ByzInfantryTypes.htm

I made it out of plywood, since that was a common byzantine shield construction material although I assume the original material was different from the modern. the first step was to steam-curve the whole - otherwise the tension would be too great. I cut a hole in the center for the boss wich allows the hand to reach in to the hollow of the boss. of course there are several ways to wear/hold a kite but for swordwork you want it on your fist.


The next step is to cut out a pie piece and stitch together, while clamped shut. (rawhide stitching). (Don't cut it round yet because you need the excess materials for your clamp to grab securely. ) make permanent with glue and overlay of glue-soked linen tape. built up and sanded to be somewhat smoth. Once everything is covered over by canvas soaked in glue and the outside gessoed and sanded (several layers), you get a smooth finish with a distinct ridge. Several period bas reliefs of dished kite shields show a ridge exactly like that.
On the inside, I built up the center with thin layers of veneer and paper, so that it tapers to a thiner edge. Inner lining is thin silk, impregnated with glue

one was made with hide glue /period materials and a couple with poly resin and I really can't tell them apart, except for my first experimental model which slightly resembles a fibreglass snowboard. Rawhide edging, stitched. About The most work was dishing the commercial bosses I purchased - they were all designed to fit on flat shields and totally did not fit my dished versions. That took hours of heating and banging for each one.

I made one oval dished for ca 600AD Roman, and making a round one would be about the same. On my oval one the pie slice is progressively wider to force a more bowl-shape (rather than conical).

I somewhat disagree with the 'hey its disposable' reasoning... in a battle its disposible but until then its carried about everywhere, maybe for years, and with good luck a shield might last a generation - just as a soldier might retire whole. I strongly argue that dishing make the shield so much better (handling on and off the battlefield) that it's well worth the effort, then as now.

-Rick
Matthew Bunker wrote:
Matthew Amt wrote:


Yeah, actually there is an ongoing battle among Late Roman reenactors on whether flat is legitimate, or only dished. But then they argue oval versus only round, too, and I can't keep up with it!


Ha! See that 'Medicus Matt' bloke on RAT? That's me that is. Wink
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Elling Polden




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PostPosted: Wed 24 Apr, 2013 1:33 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

There is one very important argument against carving the curve out of thicker planks. Namely that in doing so you break the grain of the wood.
Thus a impulse to the top of the board could cause the entire thing to split anlong the grain. A whole, bent board, or ply, would flex along the grain insted.

"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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