Heraldic Escutcheon Template

myminifactory

I enjoy creating illuminated borders and drawings inspired by medieval manuscripts, but the escutcheon shape used for heraldic devices consistently puzzles me. In the past, I've employed a printout of various escutcheon sizes and a light box to trace out the symmetry and curves, but that's not always feasible in different situations or with thicker paper stock. I've wanted to craft a template for some time, so I sat down and created one. This simple drawing template facilitates the layout of scrolls, awards, and other items requiring an escutcheon shape that you don't want to draw freehand. It utilizes the "1/3rd radius" construction method commonly used in SCA documents. The template contains eleven different graduated sizes from 14mm to 50mm tall (approximately 1/2" to 2" high). As designed, it is 2mm thick, with undercuts around the outside of the template to assist in picking it up, but not in the shield shapes themselves. This makes it suitable for use with pencils, silverpoint, and styli, although ink would likely seep under the edge and ruin everything. This is a relatively quick-and-dirty design, generated in OpenSCAD. I ran a copy off in PLA on a new Prusa i3 MK2s that hasn't been fully calibrated yet, but it worked just fine. As long as you can print a thin, flat object measuring about 175mm x 90mm x 2mm thick, then it shouldn't pose too much of a problem. The chamfered edge is a 45-degree angle 1mm thick, and is non-critical to the design, so it won't require any support or affect its use in any case.