Another Steel Sled Cap Shield

[liawehck]

I know there are tons of threads on shields, so what's one more?

This is actually the second shield I've made, with the first one made from a satellite dish. Naturally it wasn't as big as I would have liked, but I was pleased for my first attempt. I have since gotten a full TFA suit completed, so I wanted a shield closer to the correct size to go with it. So to start things off, here's my first shield (and costume):

Still some things that need work of course, (like my height), but not much I can do about that

Anyway, wanting a better shield, but not wanting to break the bank, I went with this as the base:

Yes, it's the steel Flexible Flyer sled. I found a website that was selling them for a non-outrageous price (@$38). No way I was paying the crazy prices I saw on Amazon.

Step 1: Cutting the shield.

So the first thing I did was find the center of the shield. The trick to this is using a drafting triangle, or some other right angle to mark points around the edge. Please do a Google search on that. There are many tutorials that explain it better than I would. Once located, drill a tiny hole in the center.

The next step is to make a compass. With the curve of the sled, a conventional ruler wouldn't work too well, so I took an aluminum yard stick and cut it the approximate radius of the shield (about 12 1/2").

Using a metal ruler allowed me to bend it to fit the contour of the sled. Once I had it bent into shape, I found a point just short of one of the rope handle holes, then rotated the ruler around the sled just to make sure this point wasn't going to hit any of the other holes. This gives you the outside radius of the shield, so drill a small hole in the ruler at this point just large enough to fit the tip of an Ultra Fine Sharpie. Use the Sharpie and ruler to draw the outer edge.

With the outer circle drawn, I used a jigsaw and a metal cutting blade and carefully cut the outer edge of the sled off. You may choose to cut a little before the mark if you don't entirely trust your jigsaw skills, one wrong slip at this point would be a major problem. This will give you more sanding to do later, but it's easier to take off than add

Providing you did everything correctly, you should now have this:



Next step, get rid of that red paint!

 

[liawehck]

With the shield cut out, now you need to get rid of the existing paint. I used Citristrip aerosol and threw a nice thick layer on it, letting it sit overnight:


The next morning I used a plastic scraper (like you would use for cleaning stuck-on food from pots and pans) to scrape away the loosened paint. It's a bit messy but it does the trick.
I then wiped it down with a rag soaked in acetone which cleaned off any remaining paint and stripper. I then took a paint pad and wrapped it around my ruler to apply a bit of the spun effect. Here is the finished product at this point:



Next, draw some rings on that thing!

 

[liawehck]

Before drawing any rings, I covered the entire surface with Scotch Blue Painter's Tape, slightly overlapping each strip so there would be no paint leakage.

Now you need to decide your center diameter. If you've read the threads, there are all different opinions on the proper size. For me, I went with a 9.5" circle. So, from my zero point, I measured 4.75" on my ruler, made a mark and drilled another hole.

Once again, using your Sharpie, draw the center circle.


Now, you need to determine how big the stripes should be. Measure from the outside of the center circle to the edge of the shield and divide this number by 6. This gives you the width of each stripe. On mine, this came out to about 2.5". So grab your ruler, and from the hole you drilled for the center circle, measure 2.5", make a mark and drill. From this point, measure another 2.5", make a mark and drill.


Using your newly drilled holes, draw the two circles, making three rings.


Take an X-Acto knife and LIGHTLY cut the center circle out. I pressed too hard when cutting the tape out and make some cut marks in the surface of the shield that I had to sand out.


I then cut out a star from card stock, slightly smaller than the final star will be. I taped this on before painting so the surface under the star would remain bare metal. After one coat of DupliColor Blue, here's what you have: