This article will outline how I made my Norman kite shield, of the type depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. The shield is flat, not curved, since this is much easier to make. The techniques, however, translate to a curved shield quite effectively. You will need to find your own method of curving the shield though. The shield is somewhat overengineered, but it will last for ages under combat conditions.

Thanks to Victor and Steve for their assistance making this shield. If they hadn't helped, I wouldn't have been able to take the photos!

Ingredients:

• Shield blank - cut from a sheet of 7-ply with a jigsaw.
• Canvas
• PVA Glue (Aquadhere)
• Angle Aluminium
• Rope
• Clear Vinyl Tubing (CVT)
• Hot Glue Gun
• Bolts (8)
• Leather for edging
• Leather for strapping
• Closed Cell Camping Mat
• Blued Cut Tacks
• Steel for boss
• Paint

Method:

Surface

First, take your shield blank and cover the entire surface with PVA glue. I'm told that a paint roller works well for this, but we did it with our hands:

Don't miss any bits. When the glue is spread, place your canvas over it and press it down carefully, making sure there are no air bubbles. Bubbles are bad. Leave this to dry. We left it to dry for a week.

When the glue is dry, the excess canvas can be trimmed with scissors or a sharp craft knife. Always cut away from yourself, etcetera.

Rim

The next step is to cover the top edge of the shield with the aluminium angle. This reinforces the part of the shield that is most commonly hit. We used angle aluminium in this step mostly to reduce the weight. Steel would work just as well, but the aluminium was cheap and came in exactly the right size. Because aluminium angle is difficult to bend without buckling, we trimmed it down using beverley shears in this pattern.

Now the aluminium can be more easily bent over the top of the shield. Use a ball peen hammer to whack down any buckles and kinks, and fix it with screws. The shield now looks like this:

Now it's time to break out the hot glue gun. You need to glue the rope over the top of the aluminium. Note that the rope covers more of the shield than the aluminium does. We wanted the most reinforcing where the shield will be hit most often, which is the top edge. The leg side of the shield is next most frequently hit, so we wanted a little bit of reinforcing there too.

Remember, hot glue guns are hot, etcetera.

The next bit of reinforcing is the clear vinyl tubing (CVT). This is added because it is as tough as a tough thing, and will absorb the impact of blows very well. When it is covered with leather, sword hits to this area of the shield are less likely to just cut through the leather. With multiple layers of reinforcing, and leather over the top to make it look nice, the shield will last forever - which is a good thing because I don't feel like doing all this again for a very long time.

Slice the CVT down its length so that it covers the rope. Then fix it with the hot glue gun. You want to cut your CVT so that it overlaps the ends of the rope.

Now for the leather. The first thing to remember about working leather is to soak it. Wet leather is much easier to work with than dry leather, and in a situation like this you can bash it with a hammer to shape it almost like you can shape steel. This helps to iron out the kinks and buckles.

We used heavy 4mm leather for the top edge and lighter 2mm leather for the rest. The leather should cover the entire rim of the shield, and it is fixed in place using blued cut tacks.

Beware! Blued cut tacks are made from butter. Expect to have to throw some of them away when you bend them into a pretzel shape. Make sure you throw them into a receptacle and not onto the ground, because there is nothing worse than stepping on a pretzel-shaped blued cut tack.

Space them about 3cm to 10cm apart. On the straight edges of the shield (the sides), you can place them further apart. Along the top, where the shield is strongly curved, you need to put them closer together.

We worked the leather rim in three parts - the left side, the right side, and the top. Make sure you overlap the leather where the parts join.

We found that it is best to place the tacks by successively halving the distance we want to cover. Put two tacks in, a decent distance apart, then put one halfway between them. This allows you to pin down the buckle that comes up when you're bending the leather. Then fill the gaps between them in the same way.

The other thing to remember is to place something heavy and hard, like an anvil, on the other side of what you're hammering. This way, the tip of the tack, when it breaks through to the other side of the shield, is bent over and locks onto the wood.

Painting

Then it was time to paint the shield. I find that it is always better to work to a concept. I knew I wanted my Norman kit to be basically black-and-white. So my sword hilt is wrapped in black leather, my shoes and gauntlets are black, my tunic is black and white, and my shield is painted black and white.

Do some research on historical shield patterns. In my case, my inspiration was the Bayeux Tapestry itself, but my design is also appropriate for an early Crusader period, which matches well with my pot helmet.

Really slap the paint on - you want a nice thick layer. You're not only making it look nice, you're also sealing the surface of the leather and the wood. Being plywood, it's not likely to warp and twist very much, but it's best to be sure. Use at least two coats of paint.

Remember, only paint in a well-ventilated area, etcetera.

Boss

Now for the boss. This shield will have a very small boss. We cut a circle out of 3mm steel, about 12cm in diameter. Then Victor bashed the heck out of it in his armouring dish. We ended up with a very nice mini-boss, which will be fixed to the front of the shield with bolts. Drill four holes, equally spaced around the rim of the boss.

We used comon bolts to secure the boss to the shield, but we linished the markings off the head of the bolts first. This takes about five minutes on the linisher, but you want to hold the shaft of the bolt with vice grips so that you don't linish your fingers.

Place the boss in the required position on the shield and mark the holes. Make sure you know which way up the boss goes! Unless you've used a protractor to drill the boss, it won't work if you turn it through 90 degrees. Drill the holes and place the bolts through the boss and the wood. Turn the whole lot over.

Place a washer onto the shaft of the bolt, and rivet the shaft over to fasten it. This isn't going to come off unless the shield is destroyed, so we might as well make it permanent. This will also prevent the bolts from digging into my arm when I use it.

Padding

I'm ready to pad the shield. At first I padded it with about 6cm of open-cell foam, which provided great protection for my arm, but made the shield completely unusable. The face of the shield was just too far from my arm for me to use it comfortably. In the end I ripped that off and replaced it with a single layer of closed-cell camping mat covered in black cloth. This works quite well. I didn't glue it down - this means that I can remove it if I want to. I fastened the cloth down tightly with blued cut tacks, making sure that I stretched the fabric over the pad, to make it firm.

A couple of tips: First, place your arm in the position where you will be holding the shield, to determine where you need to put the padding. Nothing is worse than gluing down your padding only to realise that it is not where you hold it. Second, make sure your padding does not interfere with your strapping. On my second round, I found that I had placed the padding too close to one of my strap bolts.

Strapping

I wanted a square pattern of straps for my shield, mostly because it is historically accurate. There are a lot of strapping patterns that are historically accurate though, and choosing one is a matter of preference and practice. Do some research.

Again, mark out the locations of the bolts by actually putting your arm on the shield. Don't adjust your style to the straps, adjust the straps to your style. Rivet the bolts over, just like the boss. Again, there is no point in not making the straps permanent, and I think everyone has had experience with strap bolts digging into the arm.

Make sure you have the straps in the right place before riveting them on! Once you bash that bolt, it will require considerable effort with a carbide-tipped drill to get it off again.

I also added a gigue, because I like them and I want to be able to carry the shield on my back if I use a pole weapon. The gigue is buckled so that I can adjust it if necessary.