Would jeweler's brass make an effective shield boss?

[Dan D'Silva]

Neat!

There is a little more evidence about the violin shields than my previous post may have implied.  A few of the reliefs from Persepolis show them from the back, and they're held in such a way that they must have an armband and an off-center handgrip.

IIRC gilding metal is indeed another name for this kind of brass.  I don't know the name of the gauge system that most of the sellers I've seen use, but under it, the equivalent to 14SWG would be 12-gauge (0.08 inches = just about 2.03mm).  At that point the options and number of sellers narrow, and the price shoots up.  It would probably have made sense to not cut out a hand hole in the center-gripped shield at all, and instead given it a protruding grip and a thinner-gauge boss on top of the shield board (this seems to be how LBA Eastern Mediterranean shields were made), but no use crying over spilled milk.  The violin shield can function with a thinner boss since it won't have a cutout for the hand.  Thankfully I have not yet invested in any materials for it, so it'll be easier to plan correctly.