Modest experience with wooden bosses

By Arttu Peltoniemi

The inspiration for wooden bosses came originally from an article describing the Tira bog find. The firs

shield we built was mostly inspired by this find.

(Read about building the first shield here:

https://hirdmenn.blogspot.com/2020/06/making-of-our-first-viking-shield.html )


In the making of our first shield we got a birch burl that I (Arttu) shaped first with power tools close to the

finished shape and to give it an authentic finish I did the final shaping with an axe and chisels. The work

was frustrating and I hated every moment. The wood was so hard that it did not want to cut in any

direction, and was really unrewarding to work with. After the shape was ready it was rewarding to test it.


In the first test we compared the wooden umbo to a plank a little thicker than it. The result was that the plank

broke in two pieces, whereas the umbo got only a small arrow mark. Its first scar if you will.

(See the first test here: https://youtu.be/jbnn0td5k70 )


Later among many of our tests done to our thin shield (later named as the pale blade eater) I and Joeli both successfully threw a spear to the umbo and those throws left even smaller scars to it than the original

arrow test.


This was very interesting in comparison to the experience our friends at the Virtus reenactment club had

under a training hosted by Hirdmenn member Sakari Saaristo (aka Sire Sasa). 


Me (Arttu) and Sakari had been building Republican Roman scutums with wooden bosses.



The example on the picture was tested against a spear throw and the result was quite different from the

results on the boss made out of birch burl. 


These tests are not to be compared one on one since they were done from different distances and with different spears by a different thrower. Still the result is similar to that we had when testing a thick plank against an arrow. The wood breaks along the grain and lets the point through.


As the burl construction in our modest experience with wooden bosses was meaningfully superior I wanted to make more of those. I had found an old piece of pine furniture with a huge burl and took it to a friend's workshop. There I was happy when making the umbo as it was so quick and easy to make… until it dawned

on me while doing the final shaping with my axe… pine burl is soft and easy to cut. It would not give the

same results. I decided to finish my umbo and show that it breaks. We prepared a show / test and I

unfortunately missed my spear thrust. Still one can see the umbo exploding here:

https://youtu.be/GmYSaxqayuc


There is a legend among reenactment group Grey Wolves that a reenactor known by the name IhmisSusku had built an umbo out of a birch burl and it had lasted many battles, but it eventually exploded when hit by a Dane axe.
This story made me notice small cracks on my original birch umbo. I don't do a lot of blunt weapon fighting with my reconstructions, but still the boss had received quite an amount of damage and little cracks had started to form. I had a feeling that this is what happened to IhmisSusku's Umbo. My understanding is that she did quite a lot of bluntfighting, and thus I think the umbo eventually broke, because of the growing amount of cracks weakening its.
Thus I wanted to test my construction against historically plausible blunt damage and we tested the umbo against sling shots.

The hit to our umbo happens at the end of this video at 22:48. I feel the whole video is worth a watch. See it here:



After seeing a big new crack on our umbo, I feel these wooden bosses have quite clearly a short lifespan.

I still feel it can be longer than a shield's lifespan is. 


A disclaimer. 

These tests don't really compare to each other, or create a bigger picture. Much more systematic testing

needs to be done to get any definitive information. This being said, we hope our experience adds to the

understanding of wooden shield bosses and their properties. We hope to do more useful tests in the future. 


Stay tuned by following us on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe to our Youtube channel. We will

not post often or with regular intervals, but eventually we might have more data and more answers. We

would also respect if you can point us to good tests and research done by smart people. 


See you in events, or on social media (https://www.facebook.com/Hirdmenn).

Comments

Post a Comment

Most popular posts:

Making our first viking age shield

By Arttu Peltoniemi
Image
The preparation of our first shield was a long process. It took a lot of studying and this is a version Arttu was most interested in building. The preference was to make as light and agile a shield as possible. It is made of radially cut spruce. The boss is made of gnarl, the handle is ash, and the raw hide is deer. The planks are 6 mm thick in the middle of the shield and about 3 mm thick on the edge. The board Radially cut planks were a huge problem and we made some ourselves, but those turned out just a bit too thin and ended up becoming scabbards instead. We managed to buy radially cut planks from Fiskarssin saha . These enabled Arttu to make the board. Originally tried from pine                                Self made planks came 3-5 mm thick :(        From Fiskarssin saha (Finnish company) After using a circular saw Then there was some simple gluing with hide glue. Clamps.... ...an...
Read more

Testing thin and thick shields against Viking Age weapons

By Arttu Peltoniemi
Image
We have build two shield with similar construction. Both are made just like the one we named Fat little sister , with the exception that the other ( Skinny brother ) is made of 6 mm thick planks and the fat one is made out of 10 mm thick planks. Read about the construction of the Fat little sister from this blog post: https://hirdmenn.blogspot.com/2022/01/fat-little-sister-making-of-sturdy.html The black paint is on the 6 mm thick shield and the white paint on the 10 mm thick shield.    Both are of spruce tree from the same order, so probably of the same age, maybe even from the same tree. The glueing was done the same way for both boards using same hide glue. Both have tanned leather facings from the same manufacturer. Both have raw hide edging from the same leather. The only difference is that the skinny one is painted with black iron oxide paint and the fat one has white chalk paint on it. Both are thinned down to 3 mm thickness on the edge, but the skinny one is shaved fr...
Read more

UNDERSTANDING THE SPEAR (and the overarm grip).

By Arttu Peltoniemi
Image
  It's been 12 years of training with a one handed spear for me (Arttu). Mostly I have trained weekly in summer time, but few years around the year. I started, and still continue, training with soft headed weapons in Finnish boffering scene. Also trained two handed pole weapons in HEMA context and one handed spear in Finnish reenactment scene. It took me 10 years before I became comfortable using a spear in the grip that is known as the overarm grip.    Underarm grip (left) and overarm grip Bef ore this I became ok with using the underarm grip. Here is a video of an accuracy drill. During my 10 year training I learned the sliding strike and to hold a long spear from the end of the shaft. I did not become comfortable in the overarm grip before I trained to throw the spear. (Here is an old, worst quality, training montage video .) There is a forever ongoing discussion about the grips that goes on in the armchair generals discussions of one handed spear fighting. To me the...
Read more