10-10-2010, 11:23 PM
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.
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.
Mediocris Ventvs Qvod Seqvax Maris
Michael
Michael
