Hoplon ancient method of construction

[zugislander]

Spyros,

It certainly could be done with the wood cut first and assembled/glued later. However, the carpenters I know say that would be much more work. A man with reasonable skill can adze out the bowl in a day, it would probably take a couple of days to work the rim as that would require either much larger hunks of wood to allow the adze to be used, or much more careful work with smaller and slower tools.

I have spoken with Craig at Manning and he said his is lathed. The only historical problem with his particular (and beautiful) work is that the evidence suggests wider pieces of wood. Each shield was custom made for its owner so a "factory" would be impossible, but skilled craftsmen who knew what they were doing would certainly be the ones making them. Quite probably working in teams for the various portions.

Stefanos,

I have a bronze faced Aspis reconstruction and the metal works MUCH better when you have the wooden bowl to work the metal around. Please believe me! Both of the auto body men who worked on getting my bronze around the wood cursed me up and down for installing the interior fittings before letting them have the shield for fitting the metal face.

I do not believe that planks could be steamed to form an aspis. Perhaps part of the way, but the majority would have to be done by hand removal of the offending wood.

Cordially,

Michael