buckler manufacture from wood help wanted.

[GeorgeHill]

OK, I'm about to make a buckler. Now, Do I cut a hole, and then attach a grip, or is it more 'historically accurete' to cut two holes with the grip being between them and therefore not requiring an additional peice of wood?

Also, is there anything commonly avalible that makes a good center boss, or will I need to send off for one from an armorer?

[Matthew_Anderson]

Most of the bucklers I've seen have a seperate handle bolted or riveted across the back. Hope that makes sense.

[Allen Johnson]

If anyone knows substitute materials for making stuff like this I'd say Brian Hunt would.

[Brian Hunt]

Hi Allen,

thanks for the vote of confidence. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

For a wooden buckler, I would cut it out of plywood (either 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch). I would cut out the hole in the center. I would attach a boss ( I would hand hammer one from 16 gage steel), or if you can find a small trailer hub cap of the appropriate size you could hammer the edges of it into a flange for attachement to the plywood. I have also seen about 1 quart stainless steel bowls with a good flange used as a boss. I would drill 4 - 6 holes in the flange of the boss, file them so that they are square and attach the boss to the plywood with modern carriage style bolts. I would then cut a handle out of wood (prefereably hickory, though oak would do) just shorter than the diameter of the plywood and 3/4 of an inch to an inch thick. Make sure the handle has a square shape with rounded edges. I would also angle both ends of the handle so that the thickness reduces down towards the ends. This helps reduce the weight, then attach the handle to the back of the buckler with 2 to 4 carriage bolts.

That is about it.

Hope that helps.

Brian Hunt
GFS.

[Shane Smith]

All of the bucklers I examined at the Royal Armouries at Leeds had separate grips rivited or bolted to them. My own wooden buckler was cut from plywood and rivited through with a 16d common nail which I cut and peened on the face of the boss using the head of the nail as the rivet head on the back side. I cut the grip from oak 1x stock.

[ChrisThies]

Center boss quickie:
For the center bosses on a couple of padded bucklers I made I chose to use two metal bowls (which had 'lips') purchased for <$1 each at a nearby 'Goodwill' store. I cut the hole in the wood with close enough tolerance so that the 'lips' of the bowls would catch the outer wood 'donut' when inserted from the rear. I then applied wooden cross bar handles as Matt A. suggested above, notching them appropriately to fit tightly over the bowl 'lips' and thus flat to the outer wood 'donut', where I secured them with wooden dowels at each end.

[GeorgeHill]

OH, As long as we are on the subject of bucklers, what is the normal method of 'wearing one' on the belt? Some sort of pouch? a string perhaps?

[Allen Johnson]

I have not seen any historical artwork that shows exactly how this was done but Ive heard a few things. One is just a simple leather tie. The other is a small 'tab' riveted on to the buckler as seen in this reproduction here: http://www.eskimo.com/~cwn/buckler.html