My Scutum Press and Scutum Blank Construction

[Crispvs]

Sulla Felix,

When I was an eleventh century re-enactor we used to edge our shields with rawhide from dog chews. Once dry it made a very tough rim to a shield and definitely helped stop shields from splitting under heavy blows to the edge, as happened frequently with shileds which had not been edged. The rawhide we used was always from dog chews and we found that the ones with each end tied into a knot were much better than the moulded ones. We found that it was virtually impossible to predict how much usefull rawhide you would get from any one dog chew. The best were those which turned out to be made from a single piece which had been tightly rolled. This could be cut into strips up to eighteen inches long. At the other end of the scale, we would find that some other dog chews which were outwardly the same had only a short length which formed the outside layer and which enclosed a lot of virtually unusable scraps of rawhide. Buying a dog chew was always a bit of a gamble but we normally found we could use most, if not all, of the rawhide in it.

Over the weekend I had a look in a large pet supply shop and came across a huge rawhide dog chew, shaped like a huge thigh bone, which was called a 'Genuine Thigh Bone' (or something like that). It appeared, from what I could tell, to be made from a single piece of rawhide about two to two and a half feet long and of unknown length (but given the width of the 'bone' and the thickness of the rawhide I would estimate about two feet). The piece was priced at £7.99 at Pets at Home.
Obviously that would not be enough to cover a shield but perhaps if it were possible to sew two or more pieces together it might be enough. Obviously to be applied to the shield it would have to be saturated and folded around the edges of the shield and tacked or sewn in position. The rawhide piece would have to be reasonably tight but big enough to allow for shrinkage as it dried without cracking or warping the shield. As long as it was tight accross the face of the shield when dry it would make a very good additional defensive layer.

Crispvs