How Make Captain America Shield for Nerf Battles

My nephew plays Nerf battles with his friends and he wanted to make a shield to have some defense. So he came with a request to make a shield albeit a Captain America Shield.

Its not exact replica of the Captain America shield but I'd call it close enough and my nephew is happy with it.

Here are the tools and Materials you need to make it:

• 2' x 2' of 18mm MDF(you can go thinner or thicker, I used it because I had it stock)
• Circular saw
• Drill machine
• 3mm drill bit
• 3x25mm bolts and nuts and washers.
• 6" PVC pipe of 3" diameter
• Aluminum strip
• 3mm white arcylic sheet for the star
• Laser cutter(or bandsaw or jigsaw would work)
• Spray Paint
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun

Decide on the size of the shield you want and get a MDF piece that can accommodate the size you want.

Mark the center of the circle on the board and draw a circle.

Cut the sheet to size and use a band-saw or a jigsaw to make a circle.

I didn't have any of those two so I use the circular saw and tried to get as close to the circle as possible in straight cuts. I used a sander to smooth out the rough edges, the shape is not a perfect circle in my case, my nephew gave me a green light to go ahead.

I'd really recommend using a router to curve the edges.

Use a 3" PVC pipe with 6" length and place it on the center of the shield and mark the position, on the PVC pipe drill two 3 mm holes 1" from each edge of the pipe, make sure the are in a straight line. Place the PVC pipe back on the shield on the marked position, and mark the drill position on the MDF.

Drill holes in the MDF. Use nut and bolt along with washers to attach the pipe to MDF. Cut out a piece of Al strip and bend it in the form of a handle. Place the hand through the pipe and mark the place for the handle. Drill two hole on the metal strip and place it on the circle and mark the two drill points. After drilling through MDF use nuts and bolts to fasten the strip to MDF.

Now the shied is functionally ready to use.

There are many ways to go about this, I used this method as I had the stuff I used on hand and it works pretty well.

I use a spray paint on this, but you can use pretty much any color you want. If you want to perfect match to Captain America shield use masking tape with red and blue colors.

I used a laser cutter to cut out the star, if you don't have a laser cutter at hand, you can cut out a start using band saw or a jig saw.

I used the hot glue gun to attach the star to the shield.

It took me about 2 hours to build this.

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Further Developments

Adding LED back light in the start with a switch. That would look pretty cool.

Keep on Making!