The Shield has lived few years now...

By Arttu Peltoniemi

If this shield is new to you please read the blog post of us making it here.


So, the shield we made a few years ago has had some experience. We have shot arrows at it, thrown spears at it, and it has been part of slowed down sharp weapon fencing.


Some things it endured better than others. Originally I (Arttu) wanted to try out how it holds together with only glue. I also wanted to cover only the face of the shield with animal hide, to show off with our radially cut planks. Hide on the face bent the shield a bit, so we changed the handle into a sturdier one. This made the shield straight again, but a bit heavier. Since the plan was to make as light a shield as we could, this was far from optimal.


Shield bent with the first handle still attached.
We tested the shield's integrity by throwing a spear at it multiple times. It took spear throws really well and due to its light structure the spear did not stick in the shield. We used a throwing spear made by JT Pälikkö. We took video of the throwing, but it has been lost for now. (Hopefully not forever.)
 
No one wanted to hold the shield while it was thrown at so...

There was one good throw I got to the umbo and the umbo held up well on itself. But the glue that held the umbo in its place didn't. Crystallized hive glue had already taken many hits and this one broke the last of it making the umbo fall to the ground. It would have saved the wielder's hand, but continuing to fight without an umbo is not an option. This is a bit similar to what I see in reenactment shields when the nails that hold the umbo become loosened over a long period of time of blunt weapon fighting.

Time also tested the glue and when the shield dried during the winter I had my firstborn child and corona cancelling all training for a while, it was not taken out to play in a while. This drying led to high tension on the shield trying to bend and finally one evening I heard a crack when the handle broke off from the shield.


So finally it was time to do the final part of the original plan and sew the shield’s umbo and handle to their places. I first glued them back using hide glue in a modern carpenter style. I dont have the skills to recreate the building methods of the viking age, so I’m just testing the results with correct materials.


This is how the shield looked after the handle had been torn off.

First I glued the new handle made to measure by Tero Lapinlahti.
Then I squeezed it tight using screws.
After the glue had hardened a week outside I sew the handle using reindeer tendon.

Two times through each stitching hole.
.

I do like the sewn look.


Three stitches hold the umbo in place if the glue would shatter again. I might add more later if necessary.


It's straight and feels light and strong.

Back in its place above my bed. The glue still smells a bit after two weeks.

The next step was to test the shield more. The archaeological evidence that I am aware of shows that shields were actually sturdier than mine is. Then again it is mentioned in the sagas that Finns had lighter shields than Norwegians. There are just a tiny amount of shield fragments found in the area of modern Finland, but there are a lot of sword finds. The hypothesis is that people had lighter shields made totally out of organic materials. This is why I made the shield as light as possible with an umbo made of gnarl sewn on using a tendon.

In a test I held the shield while it was struck with a sharp axe. Here is the link to a video of it (I wish my camera placement was better.) Here is how it was after.


The axe went in.
Approximately 1 cm of axe blade came through the backside of the shield.

Also the glue holding the umbo in place partly shattered so the stitches got to prove themselves good holders of the umbo. The weapon did not lose its integrity and was good to use after it was attacked with the axe. It remains to be tested and trained how to take advantage of the axe while it’s momentarily stuck in the shield. I repaired that crack the same day by pouring some glue on it and then hammering the tear back in.

Good as new?

Next up was to test the shield against sharp sword cuts. See that video here.The weapon kept its integrity really well against cuts. Even the ones that went deep did not seem to weaken the overall structure.

Moderate.

Other side.

This was so deep it was a bit scary.

And the other side (should have kept my thumb there for scale).
I shall name my shield "Pale blade-eater" and say that in my opinion it's a good weapon. It might not survive many fights without repairs, but it has survived many repairs, and can certainly survive one duel or a small skirmish. That being said it offers very little passive protection and to my opinion only works when used actively. The next shield I will make out of 10 mm thick planks and cover it with tanned leather. We’ll see how these two compare in the future.

The next shield will not be ready in weeks, but I might name it "Fat little sister".

If you wish to comment please do. We will most likely answer. This post will be updated if for example wrong information has slipped in. So your comment might be valuable. If you know of a better test of sharp weapons used against shields please let us know. We will post links below this post, to show different kinds of results people have had. Next summer we will most likely test the “Fat little sister” together with the “Pale blade eater” and will post about the differences.

UPDATE 2022 02/09
Fixing the wounds. The planks had bend a little so first they needed to be fixed to their place.



The we used raw hide to overlap the edge. 


Also the handle has gotten a bit of on the edges, so Arttu re attached it. Since the tendor had streched a litle Arttu used raw hide.




Looks nice and is good to go again. Arttu poured thick glue to he wounds in the facing. That alone seems to hold for now. 


UPDATE 17.9.2022: Since we now again had a nice and strong board we could test it more...

So we tested it against an Ango and Dane axe. The idea was to use the most devastating weapons against shields that were at all plausible (thou unlikely) to meet its kind.. Surprisingly the results with ango were similar to light throwing spear. We actually could not recognize the new cut in the shield from old ones after the test. One can see the test here:


The ango spear head made by Takomo Hukkarauta


The "Dane axe" was more like expected, but the shield was still up to the challenge. Watch the video of Dane axe vs thin shield test here:

So when hitting along the grain the shield gave in. The planks also broke. This might not happen if we had facing on both sides..., but here is the results.

The axe was quite stuck, but this is how it looked after we got it out. Under here one can see the cut and how the plank broke.

This is how Arttu fixed it on hes balcony. A lot of glue was poured in the broken wound.


Looks good enough... even thou could be better. In this picture one can also see arrow holes that are reinforced whit glue. The one arrow that came thru more than others broke a piece of wood of from the planks. One can kind of see that in the picture below.


Next up was to hit against the grain. The shield was only scared a little... no need for fixing. Unfortunately no picture was taken until it was repaired by pouring glue to the wound. Its now stronger, but the wound looks bigger than it did originally.

One interesting thing to try was to give the edge a blunt trauma. Since the edge is only 3 mm thick it might shatter... the result was ok.


Arttu only added some glue there and decided its good enough...

The axe was of-course hit to the edge. Surprisingly along the grain struck sword cut went deeper than the axe cut, but a big difference is that the axe didn't got stuck, but was easily taken out.



The axe was made by Timo Miettinen.

...And then its fixed.
 


So there... the edge took the hit well. Only interesting part of the dane-axe tests was the braking of the wood in the hit along the grains. This must be re-tested with our new shield that has facing on both sides. We think it is quite possible the axe gets stuck, but maybe the strike doesn't go as much thru. Another interesting thing is that after all this pain endured the shield is still good. One noticeable thing is that after a lot of blunt damage the wooden umbo, that is very cut resistant, starts to have small fractures in it. I have heard a story of a similar umbo exploded by a blunt dane-axe hit.  So I am guessing I might need to change the umbo next.

UPDATE 7.11.2023

We tested the shield against blunt damage using slingshots. See the test here:
https://youtu.be/ecWK1TrHpyA

The shield was very dry during the test, and we succeeded to get the glue cracking a bit and a hit to the wooden boss created a big new crack. After this test we wrote a new post about all of our experiences with wooden bosses: https://hirdmenn.blogspot.com/2023/11/modest-experience-with-wooden-bosses.html 

Now after this test we must conclude that tis thin shield can take all kind of damage, from all kinds of weapons. Hardest damage to repair is blunt damage, but even after a lot of blunt beating the shield is still good enough to use in combat. Therefore we wish to conclude that a thin shield construction could be a really good weapon. We have tested this shield since 2019 and all except one test can be seen on this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRDL6wPnRyPhX1_cLByFLlKY0dY49oH6Z
It is shame that we lost the video of throwing spears at it. The boss hit was uniquely interesting, still giving the boss a smaller wound than the original arrow test did. We hope our work has added to the understanding of the qualities that the german style center grip shields have. 

For our other work on germanic center grip shield go and see a thick shield construction tested agains similar thin shield construction here: https://hirdmenn.blogspot.com/2022/12/testing-thin-and-thick-shields-against.html

Please leave comments and criticism, and point us to tests that might ad value to our understanding of shields. 

Yours. The Hirdmenn team.






Comments

  1. ElisaSeptember 2, 2021 at 11:57 PM

    My heart deflated when I saw the damage made by the axe, especially after you have put so much effort to sew the handle and umbo on. I was happy to read on that it was fixable with glue. A beautiful shield you have every reason to be proud of and display above your bed. Looking forward to seeing fat little sister in the future.

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