Wooden crescent shield

I started this shield close to four years ago.  Judging by period art, crescent shields were used from Thrace to western Scythia and possibly even Persia itself, but to my knowledge no archaeological example has been found.  I think - again judging by art - that most of them were made of true wicker, especially around the Aegean.  However, this one is intended for reenactment combat, and not having the luxury to replace my shield every time, I decided to start with a solid wood core.  It's made of two layers of 1/4-inch poplar planks glued up with a modern waterproof carpenter glue, and then cut on a bandsaw, with the edges rounded but no tapering.

The front is a goat rawhide drum cover attached with hide glue and stitched with waxed linen cord.  I had to spread the glue right up to the edges and weigh them down so they didn't peel away while drying.  It's painted with a simple mix of red ochre and boiled linseed oil in the area within the stitching, and commercial white oil paint on the edges.  I've found no clearly-attested shield devices from the Persian empire, so after a while spent wondering whether to use a Thracian device or a Persian motif that hasn't been found on shields, I decided to leave it plain.

Before attaching the front, I had to do the backing and then the grip and armbands.  The back is linen, attached with wood glue and then covered in acrylic paint.  Since beginning this shield, I've tried to use more period-appropriate materials; if I were starting from square one today, I would've used linseed oil and yellow ochre on the back.  The grip and armband are chrome-tanned leather attached with clinched nails, the grip wrapped in German buckskin with a wrist pad of the same held on by cut tacks.

Wrapping the upper corners with the rawhide left some gaps, which I packed with resin-beeswax hot glue and melted with the heat gun to fill in after the paint had cured.  Lastly, I rubbed the stitching, facing and facing edges with linseed oil-beeswax sealer, which is why the yellow back is slightly darker near the edges.  Total weight is 2 pounds 13 ounces (almost 1.28kg), width 20 inches (51cm), height 17 inches (43cm).  I suspect that originals were both larger and lighter (or at least proportionally lighter).  This shield is sized for me, especially the armbands and grips.  It may be difficult to use for someone whose forearms are a different length or thickness.  It's possible that the grips and armbands on true wicker shields could be re-tied to loosen, tighten or even move to a different place, though this was probably hard to do once the hide facing was attached.

As is usually the case with rawhide facings applied wet, the shield has wound up curved slightly concave as the facing dried and shrank.  The more you stretch the facing, the more it will warp; excessive shrinkage can even destroy the wooden core.