10-28-2009, 03:13 PM
Khaire!
Glad my "potato chip" experience has helped! One immediate word of advice: IT IS NOT DRY YET. A day or two is not nearly enough, especially if it's in a basement. A week or so in a dry upstairs room, with some sunning on dry days, and you'll be closer to "dry", but I'm not sure how long it would be until I really trusted it! Even after a few weeks, transitioning from basement to upstairs can do weird things. We faced a Roman scutum with goat rawhide, got it neatly fitted and glued on, and after an hour or so out of the basement, the facing started wrinkling, bubbling, and peeling off! We glued and weighted it down again, stitched it securely around the rim, and it's pretty much behaving now, but it's still not as flat as when it first dried. Weird!
I'll be watching your experiment! Really nothing I can add about your methods, except that I hope they work. I can't help thinking that the shape of the Dipylon shield was the RESULT of using rawhide over some sort of semi-flexible frame or backing, that the backing or framework was designed to "aim" the shrinkage to a workable shape (not concave like mine!). Who knows, maybe the frame started out rectangular (with cross-braces?), and as the rawhide dried it pulled everything into a shape with convex top and bottom and concave sides? The older ones look pretty flat, so you wouldn't need much "decking" to make a dome. I'd probably try a wickerwork "deck" for making a dome shape, like we presume for a figure-8 shield. At some point, someone may do enough of these expensive and time-consuming experiments to find the trick, and I have a feeling it will involve a surprisingly lightweight framework. Or a much heavier frame that is simply a form, not a permanent part of the shield?
Good luck!!
Matthew
Glad my "potato chip" experience has helped! One immediate word of advice: IT IS NOT DRY YET. A day or two is not nearly enough, especially if it's in a basement. A week or so in a dry upstairs room, with some sunning on dry days, and you'll be closer to "dry", but I'm not sure how long it would be until I really trusted it! Even after a few weeks, transitioning from basement to upstairs can do weird things. We faced a Roman scutum with goat rawhide, got it neatly fitted and glued on, and after an hour or so out of the basement, the facing started wrinkling, bubbling, and peeling off! We glued and weighted it down again, stitched it securely around the rim, and it's pretty much behaving now, but it's still not as flat as when it first dried. Weird!
I'll be watching your experiment! Really nothing I can add about your methods, except that I hope they work. I can't help thinking that the shape of the Dipylon shield was the RESULT of using rawhide over some sort of semi-flexible frame or backing, that the backing or framework was designed to "aim" the shrinkage to a workable shape (not concave like mine!). Who knows, maybe the frame started out rectangular (with cross-braces?), and as the rawhide dried it pulled everything into a shape with convex top and bottom and concave sides? The older ones look pretty flat, so you wouldn't need much "decking" to make a dome. I'd probably try a wickerwork "deck" for making a dome shape, like we presume for a figure-8 shield. At some point, someone may do enough of these expensive and time-consuming experiments to find the trick, and I have a feeling it will involve a surprisingly lightweight framework. Or a much heavier frame that is simply a form, not a permanent part of the shield?
Good luck!!
Matthew
Matthew Amt (Quintus)
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
Legio XX, USA
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.larp.com/legioxx/">http://www.larp.com/legioxx/
