We make a shield with our own hands. DIY furniture shield. What is a shield
Novice furniture makers sometimes face a problem - where to buy a furniture board. Factory samples are not always suitable for the intended design, but blanks can be made independently.
For the manufacture of shields, you will need special equipment: a planer, grinders (belt and surface grinders). Boards for work choose the same breed, without knots, dried, with minimal warping. The best option is to buy a log and saw it into pieces of the required size. The cutting angle is 90 degrees. Pine, oak, birch are suitable for the manufacture of shields.
Wooden panels are very practical - they do not deform, have slight shrinkage, the structure of the tree is not damaged, so the investment in the production of lumber quickly pays off.
Successful busy people must have hobbies. It relieves stress and reduces the risk of a heart attack. You can collect candy wrappers and coins, or you can do a serious craft. For example, glue a furniture board with your own hands. The process is not as complicated as it might seem, but it requires at least a minimal knowledge of the tool.
Tools and materials for the manufacture of furniture panels
- Circular Saw.
- Milling machine.
- Drill.
- A hammer.
- Electroplaner.
- Belt and surface grinders. You can clean the tree with an emery cloth by screwing it onto the block. True, it will take a little longer.
- Reismus.
- Clamps or homemade devices for tightening boards.
- Long metal ruler, pencil, tape measure.
- lumber.
- Plywood and thin slats for rallying the shield.
- Glue.
Preparatory work
First, let's decide what size furniture board we need in order to stock up on a sufficient amount of material. In any case, blanks must be longer and thicker than the final dimensions of the shield. We choose boards from a tree of the same species, dry and even, with a minimum of knots. You also need to know the basic properties of wood. We offer a small carpenter's dictionary, so as not to get confused in terms:
- Plast - wide longitudinal sides of the boards.
- Plots - separate bars, planks, sawn from a wide board.
- Lamels are solid, non-jointed blanks. In fact, the same as the plots.
- Curl - a random arrangement of wood fibers in the workpiece. Occurs when a board is sawn from a butt of a tree.
- Sapwood is the outer layer of wood just below the bark.
According to the advice of the old masters, how to make a good quality furniture board, plots are taken that have a width to thickness ratio of 3x1. Such a lamella is stable, since the internal tension of the wood is not enough to split the batten. We have all seen boards cracked at the end. This is the case when material stress caused by improper drying splits the workpiece. So, first we dissolve the lumber into slats with a width of no more than 15 cm. In the process of sawing, at the same time we remove all defective sections of the boards.
Before assembling the shield, we take into account that the wood warps in different directions during shrinkage. The strongest - in the direction of annual rings (tangential direction), two times weaker - in the direction of the core lines (radial direction). We glue the sawn blanks in the order indicated on the very first photo:
Shields a and b: heartwood to heartwood, sapwood to sapwood. This will avoid warping when the shield shrinks, which reduces the strength of adhesive joints.
Shields c and d: we orient blanks with pronounced pilosity along the lines of annual rings, then the deformation of the finished shield will be much less.
Step-by-step instructions for making a furniture board
Methods for connecting plots in a shield
How to make a furniture board with your own hands so that in the future the wood retains its original stability? There are several ways to deal with shield buckling caused by sawn timber.
We glue the lamellas on the dowels (the lower shield in photo 6) or use the finishing tips, following the example of the drawing board. To fix short boards, we use a tip with a groove-comb assembly (upper shield in the photo), connected flush with the lamellas. The tip may have a protrusion over one (middle shield) or both layers, depending on the purpose of the product.
If the furniture board is intended to be used in conditions of constant fluctuations in humidity, it would be better not to glue the boards. Compensation for wood with frequent swelling is achieved by various methods of rallying the plots. The upper shield in photo 7 is connected in a quarter, the middle one in a quarter with chamfering from the upper edges. The boards of the lower shield are also cohesive in a quarter, but with a selection of profiled edges on the front side.
Another type of conjugation of plots without the use of glue is the use of flashing strips. The upper shield in photo 8 is pulled together with a regular rail, the middle one - with a profiled bar without grooves, the lower one - with a profiled bar with grooves.
If the furniture board will be operated under constant mechanical load, in conditions of high humidity and temperature differences, then the boards should have a more powerful interface. Photo 9 shows examples of such compounds. The upper shield is assembled on dowels, the middle one - on a plywood rail. The width of the lath should be equal to the thickness of the plots, the thickness of the lath - one third of the thickness of the plots.
The example of the lower shield shows a tongue and groove connection used when laying a floor or facing partitions. All these methods can be used in the manufacture of collapsible panels (for example, for sliding furniture). Glue is not used in these connections.
Gluing the lamellas on the dowels requires perfect accuracy in the location of the holes, otherwise the geometry of the shield will be broken. Nests are marked with markers. Drilling the ends is best done using a drill stand and stop. The depth of both holes in total should exceed the length of the fastener by 2-3 mm.
If there is no milling machine, the grooves and profiles at the ends are removed using a drill mounted on a stand. An appropriate cutter is installed on the tool and high speeds are turned on.
We saw off the assembled, dried and polished shield to the desired size. Now you can put it to work - make furniture, doors, window sills, sheathe walls and ceilings. Durability, aesthetics, naturalness of furniture boards are the best recommendations for a building material.
Before starting the instructions you need to prepare materials:
First of all, we need a sheet of plywood. Then you need to draw a silhouette, after which you need to cut out a circle. We choose the size of the circle ourselves. This process can be organized in a more rational way. You can have a rope, a nail and a pencil handy. Thus, we can get a unique compass. To do this, you just need to drive a nail on one side, and tie a pencil on the other side of the rope. We need a compass to draw a circle. But you can cut this circle with a saw or a jigsaw. After that, you need to make a hole in the middle of the circle. The hole should be the size of a fist. By the way, then the hole must be closed with an umbon. In addition, you still need to make 2 straps (holding) and of course the handles. As materials, you can use oak, beech, birch or pine. Attach them as shown in the picture. For this we need rivets that can be anodized if desired. The diameter of the rivets should be more than 6-7 mm like a cap and more than 3.5-4 mm like a rod. You also need to remove the extra wire cutters and rivet.
After that, we move on to pasting the shield. For this, of course, we need glue. It will be better if we have PVA or casein glue. If we have leather pasting, then it is advisable to use fish glue. We also need leather and fabric to wrap around the outside of our shield. This process should be done like this. First you need to impregnate the fabric, and then stick it on the shield. You can also paint the surface of the picture with paint. Then, using a rotating drill, you need to make holes. And it is necessary to do this from the edge of a small circle. This process must be implemented in order to fix the umbon. In order to knock out an umbon, we need a steel blank, the thickness of which should be from 1.5 to 3 mm. If the thickness of the steel billet is 3 mm, then the umbon must be knocked out in stages. In this case, we have 2 stages. Moreover, it is necessary to knock out annealing, which should be intermediate. To do this, you can use both a gas heater and a gas stove. There are several types of shields. Fist and elbow. In order for the edge of the shield not to crumble, it is necessary to upholster it with mettal or carnations, which should be small. The fact is that large carnations usually break through, and this is not desirable. We also need 2 bolts to attach the umbone and handle. By the way, this must be done through the shield. The umbon must be attached from the outside, but the handle is the opposite. To make everything reliable, you can fix the umbon with 2 more bolts. By the way, if you do not wrap the handle with leather, then it can rub your hand. Therefore, it is necessary to wrap. And after that, it is already necessary to flash the skin, but this should be done only after the lining on the shield has dried, which should be ready. By the way, it is necessary to flash with a nylon thread or linen, and this must be done around the entire perimeter of our shield. But the stitch pitch should be from 1.5 to 2.5 cm. We also need an electric drill with a drill to make holes for the firmware. After that, you need to take the metal plates and put them on the places where the joints are. By the way, these linings can be fastened with a few rivets on hand. But before that, it is very important to finish the leather lining.
Usually such shields have a leather strap, which consists of several parts. Or rather, two of them. The first part is a belt, which ends with a molded buckle. But the second part is the tail, which in turn ends with a rump, which is decorative and cast.
Very often, along with the usual winding, you can decorate the handle with overlays. Moreover, the material of the overlays can be different. It is possible and bronze with silvering, and silver with gilding. By the way, it is important to decorate in a place where there is a grip with a leather belt. The entire length of the handle can be decorated with carnations of silver and gold, or wire of the same metals. You can also create the illusion of planks. You can do this with a stain or watercolor on hand. I need to draw stripes. But in order to create the illusion of a small crack between the boards, you can draw stripes between the boards. You can do this with a simple pen or cutter.
We start making a shield, take a sheet of plywood, draw a silhouette, cut out a circle of your chosen size (Fig. 1). It is better to take a rope, drive a nail on one side, and tie a pencil on the other. Draw a circle and cut it out with a jigsaw or saw (Fig. 2). Do not forget to make a hole in the middle of the shield blank that matches the size of your fist, which is then closed with an umbon (Fig. 3).
Rice. one.
General view of the shield.
Rice. 2.
Shield marking on plywood.
Rice. 3.
Cutting out the shield.
Rice. 4.
Installation of the handle and straps.
After that, make handles and two holding straps for the shield.
Material - oak, beech, birch, ash, pine. Glue them according to the printed pattern. As rivets, you can use nails, both anodized and non-anodized, with a head diameter of at least 6-7 mm and a rod diameter of at least 3.5-4 mm, bite off the excess protruding from the outside with wire cutters and rivet (Fig. 4) .
The next stage in the manufacture of the shield is its pasting (Fig. 5), for which glue is used (preferably PVA or casein, fish - when pasting with leather), burlap or linen (several layers if desired).
Shield with coat of arms.
The outer side of the shield is covered with leather or fabric.
Do it in the following way. Impregnate the PVA fabric and stick it on the shield or paint the pattern on the surface. Drill holes from the edge of the small circle for attaching the umbon. Umbon is usually knocked out from a steel billet with a thickness of 1.5 to 3 mm.
In the latter case (3 mm), the umbon is knocked out in two stages with intermediate annealing on a gas burner or on a domestic gas stove (Fig. 6). There are several types of shields: fist (holder on the fist) and elbow (2 straps on the elbow).
Fig 5.
Sewn sticker.
Rice. 6.
Installing the umbon on the shield.
Rice. 7. Upholstery of the edge of the shield.
Rice. eight.
Drilling holes and stitching with a sewing thread.
Beat the edge of the shield
Upholster the edge of the shield (so as not to crumble) with leather, small nails or metal (Fig. 7). Carnations take the smallest, so as not to break through. With two bolts, through the shield, fasten the umbon and the handle. Attach the umbon from the outside, the handle from the inside.
For better fastening, fasten the umbon with two more bolts - crosswise. Wrap the handle with leather so that it does not rub your hand. In the case of using leather, after the finished lining has dried on the shield, it must be stitched around the entire perimeter of the shield with linen or nylon thread with a stitch step of 1.5 to 2.5 cm; holes for firmware are made using an electric drill with a 2.5 mm drill (Fig. 8). Then you need to wire the leather lining and put metal linings in place of the joints, which are fastened with one or two rivets.
As a rule, such shields had a leather strap consisting of two parts: a belt ending with a cast buckle, and a tail ending with a decorative cast rump. Sometimes, in addition to the usual winding, the hilt at the place of grip with a leather belt was decorated with bronze with silver or silver with gilding overlays. Along the entire length of the handle, it could be decorated with silver or gold wire or carnations from these metals.
With the help of a stain
Using stain or watercolor, draw stripes across the shield to create the illusion of planks. Draw stripes between the boards with a chisel or a simple pen so that it looks like there is a small crack between the boards. Then you can rub the surface with wax or a candle and hold it over a gas stove - this will give the appearance of an old tree. Your shield is ready.
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"