4/14/2023 0 Comments Best parts for a hoplite shieldI used a slightly different curve for mine, as well as 0.5 inch wood rather than the 0.75 inch he used. Once I drew each ring I labeled the ring so I would know in what order it would fall in the glued stack (though it's pretty obvious when you're stacking them). Drawing a cross section helps to immediately identify which rings nest inside each other. Obviously several rings can be cut out of a single piece of plywood if you draw additional rings within each other. I measured the ring widths in the cross sectional paper diagram I made, transferred those rings over to the plywood, and cut them out. I bought 1/2 inch, 4x8 feet sanded birch plywood, and cut it to 36.25 inches while I was still at the lumber store to make it easier to handle, since I knew no piece would be needed larger than 36 inches, but still giving me an extra 0.25 inch to allow for kerf and sanding. I hope the text and images of the process will be useful to you. My aspis is, of course, an amateur's first attempt. I've learned alot during this process about ways to speed things along, and have a greater understanding of why hoplite equipment functions the way it does. Seeing depictions of shields on vases close-up and in person, rather than on a computer screen, definitely helps put you in the right frame of mind.Īt the very end of the build post I list a bill of materials used, with some notes regarding where the materials were sourced, areas to cut costs and changes I would make on a future shield. A visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City a week prior to starting was also very helpful. Many of the images from those books can be found online using a Google search. (As a side note, I have yet to purchase the brass strip and attach it, since I like my finished aspis the way it is.) I also used the Peter Connolly "Greece and Rome at War" book, plus several of the Osprey books about the Peloponnesian War and Greek hoplites for additional inspiration. I did this because I was thinking of encircling the finished aspis with a 1/2 inch wide brass band, and since I could locate 1/2 inch wide brass strips, this would save me the effort of cutting the brass. I planned my rim to be 1.5 inches (4 cm) wide, and 0.5 inches (12 mm) thick at the outside edge, and 1 inch (25 mm) thick where it met the bowl of the shield. I planned mine to be around 4.5 inches deep (11.4 cm). This is the same method described by Matt Amt on his site (check out the link at the top of this post). So I came up with a diagram of a cross section of my shield at 18," since I would just double it to 36" from the center point. Some are more historically accurate than others, though all of them when finished look like what we've seen on vases in terms of their width and depth. So I read through a bunch of aspis construction threads online to see what kinds of materials they used. But since I read online that the average aspis would be around 16 pounds (7 kg) at 36 inches diameter, I figured that's what I should expect (and that turned out to be correct). I knew that if I made a 36 inch diameter shield, it would weigh more than a 34 inch shield, but I didn't - and still don't - know by how much. Any smaller and it wouldn't cover my thighs or the man to my left, and it might look a little tiny when I held it. I decided that the current thinking of a 36 inches (100 cm) diameter shield was right for my body size. I'm 6 feet tall and weigh 175 pounds (182 cm and 80 kg) which I figure is an average build for a man of the 21st century. I decided upon using the layered ring method because I figured it would take me the least amount of time to complete with the tools and workspace I had available. I think the lathed/turned shields and steamed/formed lath/slat shields (like those of forum members Athena Areias and Zolis, or Huovi and Giannis K. Making an aspis, ring method visual aids I feel that more shield-building tutorials are better than less, that way we can pick and choose what we like from each other's methods.Ĭhris B. I'm posting this as a "thank you" to those two guys for answering alot of questions for me before I ever even had to ask, and for generously sharing their time and experiences through those guides. But on the off chance that someone finds my Greek shield building thread through Google first, I urge those visitors to instead go and view all the material by Matthew and Chris first. I know that their contributions to Greek reconstructions are well known on this forum. (and Chris's YouTube videos) were invaluable. The excellent aspis build guides written by Matthew Amt and Chris B. This is the visual journal of how I constructed my aspis.
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