Saturday, February 16, 2008

New Project: Shield Cover


The winter months are coming to an end, and it's time for me to start getting my stuff back in functional shape. My first project is to get my shield back into shape. Since I'm going to try to fight with it more, I want it to be functional, and of course look nice. It has been sitting in the back of my van for so long, it got neglected. Some water got on it and it looks like it oxidized the paint in places. The first time I fought with it in months, the first hit to it, paint exploded off it. Now it looks pretty beat-up.

More images of my poor shield are in my Flickr set which you can find on the right side of this page.

My plan is to make a fabric cover for it. I've seen more people are doing that now, and I really like the idea. What I will do is make a cover out of trigger or duck cloth that I can slip over my shield, and tighten it with a pullstring. On the cover will be my device. Now if it gets dirty, or I need to make a repair, I just take off the cover and do it, instead of having to repaint the entire thing. Plus, if I wanted to make several covers, I could swap them out easily.

Another plus is that with some of our newer fighters, I could loan them my shield so they could fight and authorize. And to make it more personal, make a cover for each of them so they could have their own presence on the field. It's not terribly important, but I think it'd be a neat bonus.

As I make the cover, I'll document as best I can for anyone who may be interested or reading this..... all none of you. :)

Mata-ne

5 comments:

Kennis said...

Wouldn't the cloth tear/rip forcing you to make covers more often? Other than that I think its a cool idea. Can't wait to see what you come up with.

And LOVE the idea about making covers for people who use it to authorize.

Thordr said...

So I'm just a nobody huh? Thanks, I'll must mope over here to the corner sit by myself <\smartass> ;)

Yamashiro Kato said...

Eilidh: Yes, I imagine it will rip. But I'm making it out of trigger, and hopefully it will be on the shield taunt enough that will prevent it from tearing too often. But if it does, I can just repair it, or make a new one. I would use it primarily for tournaments and such. Not for practice, where I'd just use my regular, uncovered shield.

Yamashiro Kato said...

Thordr/Wilhelm: Touche'. Sometimes writing in blogs, I kinda feel like I'm on an island. Speaking of which, what corner are you moping in? Hawaii? Bora Bora? Cabo? :)

Thordr said...

winnemucca nevada, its easy to get here, drive to bum fuk egypt, turn left, and go twenty miles