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Aspis Build Thread
#11
It has been too long since I have been on here! I have made some progress with the aspis but school has kept me busy so I haven't been able to get "that" far. Here's what I've done so far.

[attachment=11780]WP_20150213_002.jpg[/attachment]

I have covered the inside of the aspis with the flax canvas I was talking about before. To glue it on, I used a acrylic primer. I know that isn't exactly historically accurate but it sure works wonderfully.
*Note- The primer needed water to penetrate the fabric and bond to the inside so a fair amount of water and primer is needed. I just kept dumping rather larger quantities of water in at a time and worked it in with a brush a bit at a time. I didn't have a knife or cutting tool of sorts to fix any folds/ wrinkles in the fabric that formed while working. Fortunately, there are only a couple that formed and were not too noticable. Gives the aspis a bit of character to be honest! Tongue

I then painted the inside with a several coats of red acrylic paint. The rim part was left unpainted because of bad wrinkling. I intend to cut the wrinkles and put another layer over later to make it look neater.

[attachment=11781]WP_20150213_003.jpg[/attachment]

I have also cut down the rim to around 5.5cm by your advice Giannis and boy does it make a difference! Before, the rim would cover most of my face when holding it and when people would gently bump it, it would basically smack my face pretty good. Now that it has been cut down, I can manouver it much better and it doesn't smack my face! Big Grin I can see this as the reasoning behind why the rims were smaller. Having a rim that will knock you out if you take a hit to your shield is not exactly the best design. I still have some material to cut off in the pic. I will see if I can even sand a touch more off if possible. *The limiting factor to how much i can remove is due to the fact i used screws to hold the rim on. I will be just on the edge of hitting a screw at 5.5cm :|

[attachment=11782]WP_20150213_001.jpg[/attachment]

I also put two coats of finish on the front because this was starting to happen...

[attachment=11783]WP_20150213_004.jpg[/attachment]

The finish should help slow down shrinking of the wood which lead to the crack. *I filled the crack with epoxy first.

A metal porpax may be out of my abilities to make. I have some THICK leather used in horse saddles though. Its about an inch wide so I was thinking of running 3 strips and securing them the same way one would with a metal porpax. My teacher and I were looking at using chicago bolts or copper nails with roves to secure the "porpax". Any thoughts on this? The nails and clenching is more historical but the ability to possibly swap my porpax to a metal in the future with the chicago bolts is very appealing to me. I feel pretty freaked out when thinking about drilling/nailing/clenching things in my aspis... But the end is in sight then! :woot:

So that's about all that I've done so far and hope that I eventually get this done! Slow and steady wins the race as they say. Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this so far. I really appreciate the comments and tips that you all have left.
Eric


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Messages In This Thread
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 05-09-2014, 01:34 AM
Aspis Build Thread - by Flavivs Aetivs - 05-09-2014, 01:37 AM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 05-09-2014, 01:56 AM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 05-16-2014, 10:41 PM
Aspis Build Thread - by Joe Balmos - 05-17-2014, 03:29 AM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 06-05-2014, 12:25 AM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 07-20-2014, 09:50 PM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 07-20-2014, 09:55 PM
Aspis Build Thread - by Joe Balmos - 07-21-2014, 03:47 PM
Aspis Build Thread - by Giannis K. Hoplite - 07-21-2014, 09:10 PM
Aspis Build Thread - by Eric - 02-14-2015, 08:36 PM
how did ancient greeks make aspis? - by gookbbong - 04-07-2015, 06:17 PM
RE: Aspis Build Thread - by Zolis - 04-20-2017, 05:14 PM
RE: Aspis Build Thread - by Zolis - 04-20-2017, 07:53 PM

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