My Scutum Press and Scutum Blank Construction

[sulla felix]

Then I cut the parts for the press with a jigsaw (not a Roman one, but I am too old for all that hand sawing lark!) from scrap 3/4" plywood I found lying around on site at work Obviously I used the pattern to mark out each individual pair (male and female) to ensure that there were no incremental errors in the size of the pieces. I made 5 of each, a number that was chosen entirely arbitrarily, but I would suggest that 4 of these is the minimum you could get away with for a 48" shield blank.

The "Female" part of the press assembled with 1" x 4" sawn timber side straps and noggins (bracing):

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t15/ ... Press1.jpg