UFO battle gear (OT)

[Plays with Fire]

I think it looks like a 1950's Flying saucer. It's 11 inch diameter titanium buckler. I plan on finishing the face more, as this is just after I sandblasted it to get all of the scale off. I have worked on larger shields before but not one this small. Does anyone know how to/ where the straps should go? I'm still undecided on a front spike too. Any opinions?
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[Dana Acker]

Sorry, I'm not enough of an expert to answer your question, but one thing I remember is that in the movie "The 13th Warrior" there is a scene of a duel where there are a number of round shields used, and they can be seen fairly well. You might get some ideas from that. If you have a DVD player, you can rent the DVD and pause it at those scenes, zoom in, and study them more closely. I remember them as being very neat. Good luck!

[Chuck Burrows]

Most bucklers of this size used just a center bar grip. (if you look close in the movie Dana mentioned that's how they are built and that is how the Vikings actually did make them. BTW there was a real mish mash of arms and armor in that movie, everything from 10th century swords to 15th century plate so don't take it as gospel. Also if you didn't realize it the book it's taken from, Eater's of the Dead, is based on the actual journals of an Arab traveler, Ibn Fadlan. Nat'l Geo did an article on the man and his travels sometime back.)

Larger round shields such as Scottish targes and such, usually had the center bar grip and then a wrist strap rivetted on to one side.

I'm swamped with trying to catch up after having the flu, but I'll try and find some images in my mess of a filing system and post them.

[Plays with Fire]

Hey Dana that's a really good idea. i will rent it and when it's finished I will repost picture.

Hey Wild Rose any pictures you can dig up would be appricaited.

Hope you are feeling better. The flu sucks!

[Dana Acker]

Even if you don't get anything useful out of the movie, it's still an enjoyable watch. Good flick. They just don't make enough Viking movies, these days. Westerns either. Neither were a very PC bunch...kinda like us, here at the Outpost.

[Chuck Burrows]

Other good flicks:

The Vikings - Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis - lots of fun!

The Longships - Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier

The Warlord (really good Norman/Viking flick) & El Cid - Chuck Heston

I haven't dug up any pics yet, but try a www.google.com search for Medieval Bucklers, Viking Shields, and Scottish Targe

here are a couple of good sites I found:
Bucklers - htttp://www.thehaca.com/essays/SwordandBucklerP2.htm

Viking shields showing the back side - http://www.viking-shield.com/shields2.html


BTW the Medieval term for the arm straps is "enarmes"

Hope this helps.