With Captain America’s movie releasing in theaters, the hero is once again rising in popularity. The same can be said for his mighty shield, quite possibly the most iconic comic book weapon. Superheroes tend to have powers, not weapons, with some exceptions being Iron Man and Batman (and even then, their weapons are quite limited). Captain America fits into both categories, his body enhanced to be a super-soldier while he also carries around a circular, red-white-and-blue shield which is more than just defensive.
Seamster on Instructables is no stranger to building awesome stuff; he also built the Mario Bullet Bill Rocket and this Iron Man Helmet. Now he’s crafted a Captain America shield using a satellite dish that one would normally use to receive television channels. A circular shape was cut out from the slightly-oval dish and then, once everything was smoothed out, bolts were added to the back to mount the handle. You can see in the pic above that even with just a coat of primer, the shield looks pretty nice, and usable for other costumes or renaissance faire fun. This one, of course, will be painted with the concentric circles and the star of Captain America’s shield and the end result is really amazing. This results in a strong shield with some weight to it, making it pretty realistic even though it won’t actually do much in the way of deflecting swords or bullets. Due to its weight, it likely isn’t very throwable either. Even if one was strong enough to really hurl the disc, it’d probably end up breaking something or someone.
The creator then decided to make a Captain America shield which really could be thrown, Frisbee style, without requiring that you be a super-soldier. To accomplish this, the shield itself is made, quite simply, out of cardboard wedges taped together into a curved circle. Rope circles the edge to provide some weight for proper soaring, and that is taped over next as well. The end result isn’t as shiny and pretty as the painted satellite dish, as it’s quite obvious that this design is made up of colored duct tape, but you have to admit that it looks damn impressive for something made out of cardboard, rope, and duct tape. The fact that it can be chucked Cap-style makes it, in some ways, even more awesome than the first shield.
