How to Make a Viking Round-Shield

Hello everybody! In this instructable I'll be showing you how to make a full size axe-proof, sword-proof and trebuchet-proof round-shield out of commonly available materials.

• a piece of 3/4" plywood, about 26" x 26" or bigger
• leather offcuts or a trash leather belt
• 1/2" long wood screws, here: wood screws
• a utility knife
• a ruler
• a small nail
• nylon string
• a marking tool, pen, pencil, sharpie, etc.
• a jigsaw
• a power drill and drill bits
• a small domed dog bowl or dish, this will become the boss of your shield.
• outdoor paint
• leather, here: leather
• small tacks or large headed nails
• a hammer
• a grinder with flap disks or sandpaper and a ton of elbow grease

Take the plywood and lay it on a level surface, then find the center using the ruler as shown in the second and third pictures. Put the nail on the center mark and hammer it in. Tie the end of the string around the nail, determine how wide you want the shield and then divide that number by half. tie a loop on the string at that measurement and put the marking tool in the loop. While holding the string taut draw a circle by using the string as a guide.

With the jigsaw cut on the line that you drew on the plywood. You should be left with a plywood circle, perfect for making the shield with.

With the ruler draw five or six straight lines along the face of your shield, then using the utility knife cut at a 45 degree angle on those lines. Repeat on the other side of the lines so that the cuts meet and form a groove. Do the same thing on all of the lines, this should make the plywood look like its made up of six boards fitted together.

There are two ways of making the handle for a round shield. I'm going to show how to do both and you can choose which one to use, its really just a matter of which handle you like more. I chose to go with the second type, the more traditional handle, even though it's a bit harder to make.

This handle is super simple. All you need to do to make it is cut out two holes with your jigsaw.

First draw out where your boss (the metal dome in the center of the shield) will be and how big it is. Then draw two half-circle shapes inside and slightly smaller than your boss outline, leaving a strip of plywood between them about 3/4" wide or wider, depending on the size of your hands. Drill two holes, one in each semicircle, big enough to fit the jigsaw blade. Cut the half-circles out, then sand the handle (the strip you left) to make it a little more comfortable and that's it!

This handle is somewhat harder to make than the first one. First you need to make the first type of handle, then cut off the strip of wood that makes up the handle leaving a circle cut into the shield. The boss will cover the hole from the outside and the handle will go over the hole on the inside.

To make the handle you take a piece of wood (I used a 2x4) and sculpt it into shape. I'll be making a handle with a grinder and jigsaw but you can use any method you like.

First you need to cut a 2x4 so that it is a square beam, about 1-1/2" x 1-1/2". Then use the grinder with a flap disk to round the middle where your hand will be. Keep shaping it until the handle fits your hand and knock off the corners of the square ends. To attach the handle to the shield I used custom length carriage bolts that went all the way through the handle and the shield to the face. I used Shou Sugi Ban, a Japanese technique of burning then waxing wood, to color my handle.

You'll be using the paint as a base color to paint the face of the shield, so choose a color you like. Shou Sugi Ban will be used on the back of my shield but on your shield it could be painted any earth tone color.

This is a pretty straightforward step, you just have to paint the back of the shield in your earth tone and the front in your chosen color, don't worry about being even on the edges because they'll be covered up later.

There are a few ways to add designs to the front of your shield, you can use masking tape or a stencil to mask off parts if it's a geometric pattern or paint it freehand if it's not. I used masking tape to make my pattern because I wanted it to be perfectly symmetrical but you could do something similar freehand if you didn't want to use tape.

The bowl I used for my boss was not a perfect half-circle (I don't think many bowls are) so I had to round out the flat bottom. I used a sandbag made for dishing and forming metal but a pile of dirt or sand would work just as well. Put the bowl, domed side down, in the sand and then using a round faced hammer strike around the rim of the flat spot. Then, moving in a spiral pattern outwards, hammer the rest of the bowl until you get a shape that you like.

To attach the boss to the face of the shield you need to drill four holes in the rim of the bowl, big enough to pass wood screws through the metal, then screw the boss to the wooden back of the shield.

I used two 3" wide by 24" strips of brown leather, to cover the edge of the shield. First you take one end of the leather strip and tack it onto the back of the shield like in the fifth picture, then bend the leather over the front of the shield and tack it there. Repeat this all the way around the shield, when you reach the end of one piece of leather continue with the second.

After finishing this step your shield is nearly complete. All that's missing is the strap to take some of the weight off your wrist.

For the straps I just used some bits of a leather belt leftover from a previous shield project. The size of the straps will depend on the size of your arm. To guess how long your strap will be, grip the handle and put your arm flat against the back of the shield. Then put the strip of leather over your arm and down onto the shield, marking the leather at the place that it touches the shield and adding about 1-1/2", then cut it. Now place the strap on the shield and drive three or four screws per side to hold it to the wood.

Now you can go out and wham things with your new Viking shield! Or use it to prevent you being whammed, as the case may be.

NOTE: I ended up adding a cushion because the edge of the handle opening kept digging into my arm, you should be able see it in the pictures.

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