Yet Another Captain America Shield.. for Pretty Cheap.

It's hard to believe that one of my first Instructables was in 2011 and it was the WWII Captain America shield created from the back of a damaged theater seat.

And, like many others, after watching the Winter Soldier, I wanted to complete my shield collection with a proper round shield.

How to do that, without spending a lot of money on a cool spun aluminum shield, like some prop makers have done?

Step 1: Research!

Another Instructable member, Trans4mation, created a pretty neat shield… as did a few people on the Real Prop Forum. So we took some inspiration and went from there.

Step 2: Materials! Tools!

Materials:

MH round sled. $32 bucks on Amazon, free delivery with Amazon Prime

JB Weld

Duplicolor Metalcast Paint in red and blue

Black enamel paint

Rustoleum orange paint

Rustoleum aluminum paint

Primer

Assorted brushes and sandpaper

Matte board stock

Two "leather" belts from Kmart

Anchor nuts and screws and assorted washers.

Painters tape and newspaper.

Tools:

Exacto knife

Dremel

Drill to drill through metal ruler

Metal ruler

400 grit sandpaper

Leather punch

Lazy susan type thingy

Step 3: The Bodywork!

The sled comes with two nylon webbed handles and a couple of nuts and screws. Remove those, fill the holes with JB Weld, let it dry and then sand it smooth.

My trick for creating the grooves in the surface of the shield was to drill holes through a metal ruler at the right dimensions.

The inner circle is 10" so there's a hole at the 5" location. Each ring is 2.75 inches after that. The disc is aprox 27" round so I adjusted slightly so each ring is proportional. The hole I drilled in the metal ruler allows for the shaft of a ball end Dremel bit to fit through, but not the ball. The ruler, being made out of steel, wasn't cut by the ball end bit.

Bolting the ruler to the center of the dish, I was able to just move around in a circle, creating nice grooves.

I also have access to a nice lazy susan type of thing, often used for working with clay. Made things real easy for spinning the disk.

Then I spun the disk and held 400 grit sandpaper to the surface. This scratched the surface enough so that when I painted it with the aluminum spray paint, it looked like spun aluminum.

Step 4: The Handles!

Ok, THIS IS NOT A SCREEN ACCURATE SETUP.

Don't mean to yell, but I know it's not a hero prop from the film. I used JB Weld to glue the nuts to the disk, then paper to approximate where I wanted the supports, cut the supports out of matte board. (Someone else's amazing spun aluminum disk for reference) and then I cut, punched and screwed the leather to the shield. The matte board is held in place with double sided tape and the screws from the leather straps.

I know, I did not sand off the MH from the sled manufacturer. I was tired. and it really didn't bother me.

Step 5: The Paintwork!

The body work is done, things are relatively smooth time to mask off and paint.

I used Frog tape, because that's what I had from another project and it was still good. The grooves are going to eventually get gunked up but I was still as careful as possible, using an Exacto knife to get a crisp line.

Blue first, the Metalcast® paint was amazing. Let that dry fully. Mask off for the red.

Now you may be asking.. what about the star?

Step 6: The Star!

The star I also cut out of matte board. I then scored it with the Exacto knife to create the engraving, then painted the whole thing silver.

I glued it to the shield using JBWeld again. Taped it down, let it dry over night.

Step 7: Battle Damage!

Ok, we're talking Winter Soldier here, it's too pretty.

Spraying some of the aluminum paint into a plastic lid, I then take a terry cloth towel, dip it into the paint, and brush it on the shield. Hitting several points as if a bullet had grazed it.

Step 8: More Gack!

This is my formula for grime. Black enamel paint, a healthy shot of orange spray paint, and add some water. Yep, water.

Wipe it on the shield from the center out. We're going to make a mess here so don't wear your Sunday finest on mom's rug.

Let the mixture dry a bit, wipe on some more.

Let the whole thing dry.

Done.

Comments

[Jedi_zombie85]

Finally got around to doing mine, cheers for the info mate worked out better than I expected

[jkoro]

That looks great! What kind of black enamel paint did you use that works with plastic?

[monkeywork]

any enamel will work after you prime the plastic. Since it's sticking to the paint, not the plastic. So prime first.

[monkeywork]

That looks fantastic! Well done!

[Jedi_zombie85]

Cheers mate, I took a massive risk on this with the way I did it lol, just had some spare black car paint I sprayed into the cap and used an old rag to drag it outwards ( was a great tip by the way )

as for the added silver shine I had a metallic silver marker that was pretty much useless but the ink on a cotton bud really worked making the "deflections" seem metallic and also ran it around in odd places in the grooves to make them look worn do to the metal.

Cheers for the guidance and feedback

[jkoro]

That looks great! What kind of black enamel paint did you use that works with plastic? Is this what you were talking about?

[jkoro]

That looks great! What kind of black enamel paint did you use that works with plastic?

[WestonCurran]

Thats amazingly cool, so if its 25 inches is their a way for me to cut it down to at least 20? I'm quite short almost 5 foot lol I know, thanks!

[monkeywork]

one of great things about making your own props is making them to fit you. It was very freeing to realize that every Jedi had to build their own lightsaber. Which meant I could design my prop for me, and not have to be screen accurate to anything in particular. Same with this shield, make it fit you. You wouldn't build an Iron Man outfit that didn't fit right?

Cut it to size, and post the results!

[Jedi_zombie85]

Seriously cool dude, looking to find one of these in the UK but they are £90 even on amazon, will have to continue the hunt,

[monkeywork]

£90!? Ouch. Will the factory ship it to you for less?

[Jedi_zombie85]

yea tell me about it, have seen some cheap ones for £5-£10 but would have to buy 2 and cut them up and fill in the gaps for the handles or use filler.

Either way will deffo give this a go

[Arduino_Tutorials]

it looks verry verry good

[monkeywork]

Thank you!

[trans4mation]

Very nice Monkeywork, great minds think alike. I was going to add battle damage to my own shield, but it was so shiny and I didn't have the willpower to do it. But now that I see it, it really pays off. I'm so happy to see your rendition! Best regards!

[monkeywork]

Thank you! Battle damage also covers some bodywork sins..

:)

Nothing like some makeup to hide a flaw.

[mchau2]

the damage battle adds up a lot to the successful look of the Shield! I was wondering how to make those paintjob so realistic.

[primeauxmey3]

My kid really want it

[mchau2]

i really want it too

[Sparximus]

So, I just came across this, and your design looks AWESOME!! I am trying to use a plastic Cap shield that I bought off of amazon as a visual prop/illustration, but the plastic is way flimsier than I anticipated. Someone suggested using bondo on the inside of the shield to give it some more weight & support. I'll be using it from a stage, so I really want it to look like it has some decent fill to it. The shield is 24" wide, and the plastic already isn't super thick. I attached a photo of it for a better idea of what I'm talking about. Do you think bondo would do what I need? If so, how thick should I layer it on the inside, and what mixing ratio should I use for it? (I've never used the stuff before, and have no idea how it's all supposed to work). Thanks for any ideas!!