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+--- Thread: Rawhide faced shield trouble (/showthread.php?tid=17658)
Rawhide faced shield trouble - zugislander - 10-10-2010
Hello all,
I am building a flat oval Roman shield for a Marine kit. I decided to try and use rawhide to face the shield as I had a skin laying around that I had intended to use on another project and chickened out as I had never done it before. Overall that was a mistake as I was very pleased with how well the rawhide went on. Anyway, I glued the hide to the face with wood glue, and then glued and clamped the edges around onto the back and left it to dry. All went well for three days. I had left it horizontal across a large plastic basket. On the morning of day four I noted that the shield was starting to curve up at the ends toward the center. I kept the clamping in place and flipped the shield over on to its face on a table and weighted the shield down to try and straighten it out. I left it this way for three more days to make sure the glue had dried on the edges then took the clamping off. The shield was a little better on the curve so I laid the shield down on its face on the table and placed several weights on it to keep it straight. I left it for a week and checked it today, it is no better.
Is there anything that can be done to straighten the shield at this point? It curves in perhaps a half inch. It does not look bad, but it bugs me and I am wondering if anything can be done. Having no experience I turn to you folks where I know some of you have a lot with this sort of thing.
Thank you in advance.
Re: Rawhide faced shield trouble - jkaler48 - 10-11-2010
I would try steaming with the weights on it then wait a week under the weights to see if stays flat after drying.
Re: Rawhide faced shield trouble - Matthew Amt - 10-11-2010
Unfortunately, I don't think there's any hope, besides trying to strip the thing apart and starting over. Rawhide has incredible strength as it dries and shrinks! I have a Bronze Age "potato chip" shield myself... There are a lot of similar experiences and some excellent advice on this thread from the Kelticos board:
http://www.kelticos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=395
Basically, you probably got your hide too wet and stretched it too much. If you can get it off the shield and let it dry (REALLY dry!), you may be able to start over. If your wood has survived...
Good luck!
Matthew