Viking shield

Viking shield revisited

Back in 2014 I made my first Viking shield using wood that came from an industrial pallet that I had left up in my attic for about 10 years. The shield looked really good however I was never quite happy with it and I ended up putting the shield back up in the same attic that I had stored the timber for so long.

So a few weeks ago, I decided I would take the shield down and redo it the way I wanted it to look. Maybe I could hang this on my wall and not be ashamed of it. Even though I say it myself, the workmanship was really good and the fact the wood was warped, cracked and split, really suited the shield perfectly. The worst thing for me however,  was the shield boss which I made from a Fray Bentos pie tin that fitted into a fabric covered ring I made from a piece of partial wood.  At the time, I had no access to metal plate that I could make a shield boss from. I also had very little money and no workshop. So I made the shield and the boss out of whatever materials I had at hand. In fairness, it was a really good way to recycle materials that would otherwise be thrown in the bin, even if it was the recycle bin at that. For anyone that does not know, the boss is the metal dome in the center of the shield that is used to protect the hand while holding the shield in battel.

As you can see in the photo above, the finished boss on the right looked ok if you had never seen a Viking shield before. But I was just not happy with it and felt it took away from finish, feel and look of the shield project. Now this shield was always just an art project, but could still be used in a re-enactment Viking battle.

So, when I was back home in Donegal, I found an old copper water cylinder and thought this would be ideal to finish off what was then my abandoned project. I cut the cylinder up into square sheets and flattened them out. I then made my new boss from a sheet of the bronze copper that I cut and hammered it out using a warrington ballpein hammer on a large log that I hollowed out to make a dish shape. I also used on old canon ball as an anvil to give it shape. The canon ball I dug up in a garden in Dublin Ireland, years ago.  Never really thought about it till now, but just wonder what the story behind the canon ball is?
 

When the boss was finished, I then got it professionally distressed and aged, so it would look the part. It turned out very good although I would have liked a little more Verdigris. Verdigris is the blue green oxide that aged bronze and copper has, as in the photo below.

So after a little bit of work, the new boss was ready to replace the fray Bentos pie dish.

So I went ahead and attached it to the shield, but it still didn’t look the way I wanted. Sorry, I did not take a photo

So I got out my rarely used carving chisels and started giving some texture to the wood. I then aged it and even got a blow torch to it and scorched some of the wood.

So this is the finished shield. I’m not 100% happy with it and I might age this in the future. I am also not happy with the edging as Viking shield would have used raw hide leather, but it does kind of looks the part.

It is what it is, so I am reasonably happy with the finished shield.