Making an authentic Viking shield, Part 1

Hi guys, I'm currently in the process of making a new Viking shield. I want to make a much lighter one with excellent or perfect mass distribution. I have already experimented with making authentic shields. So this again is a shield corpus which is made from split planks. So the planks were not sawn but rather radially split from the trunk and then scraped down to shape and they are glued together with hide glue. And right now I'm in the process of thinning down the board so that there's a distal taper in cross-section from the center towards the edge. The edge is supposed to taper down to say 5, max 6 millimeters or so. And in the center it's more like 8, 9, maybe 10 millimeters. And the reason for that is that when you are using the shield then you want good mass distribution. So not only do you reduce overall weight by taking off material here, it also means that the mass distribution becomes more handy. The object becomes less unwieldy and clumsy as mass goes closer to the hand and away from the edge. Now in order to scrape it down I have here a scraping knife. It's a replica of an authentic tool and I just wanted to show you this particular knife. It's a very clever and simple design. There are these two wooden pins. So we have two wooden pins and the actual blade. That's the actual blade here and it's detachable as you see. And this is the handle. So now you put the blade into the two holes in the handle. And then from the top side you insert the pins. The pins will keep the blade in place. So here comes the next one. And that's it. So here we have a scraping knife. So right now I'm in the process of thinning down the edge and this is what I'm doing here. Not a woodworker, I'm learning while I'm doing this. But it's a great tool and it's really cool because it does accelerate the process of scraping down material. And it's much better than actually sanding or grinding. Just take a look at how it takes off material from the board. And also not only is it faster than using a sander or a grinder, it's also less dusty and it's the authentic way to do it. So a very cool and simple tool to do the job.