Reinforced Wooden Shield

You are chopping trees far from home with a hatchet when an arrow thuds into the trunk beside your head. Turn toward the treeline with this shield on your arm, and the next few arrows hit wood and road sign instead of you, long enough to reach the rocks or the archer. The game text limits it to single-handed weapons and tools, so the hatchet and a revolver work with it, a bow or a rifle does not.

The reinforcement is one of your road signs, on top of 200 wood and ten cloth at a Level 1 bench. The plain wooden shield needs no bench, and its text admits it won't last very long. This one promises to keep you safe, but not for long either. All three shields list 300 durability, so the real difference is how much each hit takes out of them.

Research is where they split: 60 scrap, the same as the metal shield at Level 2, while the plain one is a default blueprint that every player can craft from the start. If your group is close to a Level 2 bench, put the scrap into the metal shield and keep the sign for a kilt.