Painting rawhide rim of a scutum

[Marcus Mummius]

Salvete,

I have a question about the rawhide rim of a shield. Should it be painted or left natural? If painting it is best than what colour? Matt Amt says on his site that it should be painted red, yellow or black. Does someone know of any evidence concerning this?

Kind regards,

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Marcus,

I do not think there is any proof either way. So I am leaving mine the natural shade of rawhide, and ,letting nature provide patina. I am also using rawhide made from a deerskin my friend made. I found that the deerskin will stretch and fit the curves better than rawhide from dog toys. Plus its no bleached to the snow white color most dog chews have.

[Theodosius the Great]

Matt Amt says on his site that it should be painted red, yellow or black. Does someone know of any evidence concerning this?

Yep. The Dura scutum (of which I own a replica of :wink: ) had its rawhide edge painted red. Although mine is black.

[Primvs Pavlvs]

Theodosius,

Wasnt the edging missing on the Dura scutum?

[Neuraleanus]

and it was painted, see the description given in Simon James's book on the Dura finds. There's also a nice color drawing in "Greece and Rome at War".

Don't use Dog chews for a rim. These have been chemically treated and no longer have the correct properties. Instead, buy an entire side of rawhide. Here's where I have purchased cow rawhide sides:

www.springfieldleather.com/catalog/uncut_leather/rawhide/rawhide.asp

[Marcus Mummius]

Thanks for the feedback! Alas I already started using dog-chew toys :roll: the scutum is halfway 'rimmed' now. If I have time I'll make another scutum (then I'll have three...). This third scutum will have a leather front and I'll use real rawhide for the rim.

@Neuraleanus: what kind of rawhide did you use? Goat?

Kind regards,

[Neuraleanus]

click on the link that I provided and scroll down to the cow rawhide listing. One hide will make rims for several scuta. The problem with the dog chews is that they've been bleached. They do not look or feel like natural rawhide. The romans used goat leather for many things, so why not goat rawhide for shield rims? Either cow or goat is probably fine.

[Marcus Mummius]

One hide will make rims for several scuta.

Sweet! Then this isn't that much more expensive than using dog chews:-)

But I'll paint this rim in a red colour so the chemical bleaching won't be visible.

Best regrads,

[Robert Vermaat]

Don't use Dog clews for a rim. These have been chemically treated and no longer have the correct properties. Instead, buy an entire side of rawhide. Here's where I have purchased cow rawhide sides:

www.springfieldleather.com/catalog/uncut_leather/rawhide/rawhide.asp

What color is that rawhide. the dog chew stuff we used was light brown to dark beige (chamois), never 'white'.
How large would such a side generally be? Can I use one for the front of an oval shield?

[Neuraleanus]

and they felt "leathery". This is from the bleaching process. The rawhide that I purchased was light brown and translucent. So, if you have obtained translucent dog clews, that may be ok. I still do not like it, as you're forced to use short sections. The one example that we have, the Dura scutum, appears to use long pieces of rawhide for its rim.

[Robert Vermaat]

Nah, not leathery, only when they were properly soacked. After hardening, hard as stone.
Yes, dog chews over here are still translucent:



How long a piece can I get from a goat hide? The pieces I used were (stretched) about 80 cm. I needed 4-5 pieces for the whole rim.

Here's my scutum page.

[Gaius Decius Aquilius]

Hey, umm...

I spent last night trying to cut 9 inch sections of copper tubing into an edging shape and got nothing I wanted. I then thought to cut rawhide into the same shape, like the bronze riveted pieces. I have seen "brass" and "bronze" colored oil paint at the art supply store. Has anyone tried that to fake the edging, or is that too Hollywood?

Gaius Decius Aquilius
(Ralph Izard)

[Neuraleanus]

see:
[url:1nxfonz5]http://www.florentius.com/scutumedging.htm[/url]

I haven't tried this method, but it appears to work. You have to get some tooling made so that you may make good bends in the brass.

Salve, Valerius

Your rawhide looks like the stuff that I used. I think that there are dog chews and then there are dog chews. The stuff that I have seen people use dried to a white leathery state, not at all right. So I stand corrected, dog chews may be alright, if you buy those that are unbleached.

[Marcus Mummius]

Those are the same dogchews as I used.

[Matt Lukes]

Me too and they worked just fine. I have also tried the bleached ones previously mentioned (accidently) and they're definitely no good. WAY too thick and have a very weird grainy texture. Only go for ones that are that golden brown and are clearly thin. Certianly the only authenticity drawback to using chew-toys for rawhide is that you can only get relatively short lengths, meaning your rim will be composed of a bunch of pieces rather than one or two long ones. I suppose that's just something that one would have to live with if it's either difficult or too costly to get a full hide. Then again, I can imagine that the ancients wouldn't waste material and may well have used shorter pieces when they reached the end of a hide or when there were enough scraps to do the job.

Matt