Ironhorse Armoury

Ironhorse Armoury I'm a small scale hobby producer of SCA armor, soft kit items, and misc geeky stuff that amuses me.

I do merchant, but mostly I make things for myself and friends.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Mooselmas in the Shire of Tymberhavene. What a tremendous local event with chi...
07/31/2026

Last week I had the pleasure of attending Mooselmas in the Shire of Tymberhavene. What a tremendous local event with chill vibes!

The format for their A&S Championship was to display works in progress, perfect for my scattered self, so I elected to enter my Lorica Squamata project. I still have a long way to go on it so the item itself isn't much to look at just yet, so I took a few hours to generate a display that laid out my process with some shiny displays of reference materials. I don't have any written documentation yet, that residing still in my head, so I brought some of my books and sat for a few hours as interactive documentation, answering questions for all comers. Quite conveniently, displaying my process meant that I had all of my tools with me so I was able to get a fair bit done all the while.

In the evening I participated in the Bardic Championship, presenting "Madamina il catalogo รจ questo" from Mozart's Don Giovanni and "I'm Just Fel," a filk of "I'm Just Ken" from Barbie, which poked fun at the tendency for people to confuse me with a certain be-hotpanted Landsknecht friend of mine. The other entrants were very talented and it was a very good Bardic circle to be a part of. It took place where the list field had been so all of the camps surrounding got to listen in from their campfires, upping the ambiance and cozy vibes. I don't have any video or non-blurry pictures from this, sadly.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day for these and the other activities that went on, and I was surprised and quite honored to be named both the Tymberhavene A&S and Bardic Champion! I'll keep plugging away on the Squamata and hopefully be able to enter it as a finished project in the next A&S event I attend, until I'll keep looking the fool on the field as I slowly gain protection.

Making scales is slow, so I made a tool to speed up the step where I emboss the medial ridge. I was hitherto lining up t...
07/23/2026

Making scales is slow, so I made a tool to speed up the step where I emboss the medial ridge. I was hitherto lining up the blunted chisel over the groove manually, so this just lines it all up for me. The spring creates enough tension to hold a scale in place for any nudging for alignment. Way faster, I'm a fan.

Finished up the year's shearing, 21 sheep spread over 3 days because my back ain't what it used to be. Anyone want to pl...
07/21/2026

Finished up the year's shearing, 21 sheep spread over 3 days because my back ain't what it used to be. Anyone want to play with Finn sheep wool?

Next up, slaughter and processing 15 more. That will take muuuch longer, but no real rush; the Roman military method of storing meat was to keep it on the hoof as long as possible too.

And now for something completely different.Fixing the baby boffers for the Youth and Family Activities area. A disturbin...
06/28/2026

And now for something completely different.

Fixing the baby boffers for the Youth and Family Activities area. A disturbing amount of bite marks on these.

Today on a lark I jammed out 10 basic leather demi gauntlets for the Youth Armored Combat loaner pile so I never run ou...
06/28/2026

Today on a lark I jammed out 10 basic leather demi gauntlets for the Youth Armored Combat loaner pile so I never run out and have to raid the heavy gear. Mostly lefties since I suspect that a lot of kids will be wanting to use the scutums at War.

It cooled off yesterday so I fired up the forge, jammed out some hooks for the campsite. Nothing special, just square an...
06/27/2026

It cooled off yesterday so I fired up the forge, jammed out some hooks for the campsite. Nothing special, just square and round stock shaped on my anvil and bending jig, then twisted. I did a bunch of different sizes to see what we like.

Today's side quest: a captured stone circlet.I don't really like wearing my awards, and I don't particularly like wearin...
06/22/2026

Today's side quest: a captured stone circlet.

I don't really like wearing my awards, and I don't particularly like wearing things about my neck anyway, so I decided to try making a circlet for my Gutte de Sang GOA for service. In part to honor those people who took the time to put me in for the award, but also to help my wool hat look less like a stylish womens' hat from Nordstrom.

Roman awards were primarily of a military nature, with armbands, torqs, and phalerae (medallions attached to belts or a staff) typical awards. However, coronae, or wreaths/crowns, were the the top tier awards given out by the Roman Republic and Empire. Coronae were given for being the first to surmount an enemy's walls or enter an enemy's camp, for example, but the most exclusive were the Civic and Grass crowns, given for saving the lives of Roman citizens, and of course the Triumph. Roman crowns and the Greek ones that came before were often vegetal in nature, with laurel, oak, olive, and celery being common motifs, but laurel leaves are off limits in the SCA for me. Further, doing any sort of leaf crown would be problematic because people wouldn't be able to tell the differance at a distance, a GOA only permits a 1" band, and leaves are freaking time consuming. I decided that a simple, decidedly non-Roman band would be sufficient for my purposes.

I began with a strip of stainless from my lorica squamata project. I marked the center, then traced the outline of one of the glass teardrop gems I got for the project. I stuck the band on my pitch pot, and went to work creating a pocket roughly the same size as the gem. Unfortunately in attempting to anneal the first band I inadvertently melted it in half, but I carried on with my newly dubbed "test piece" before resetting and trying again.

After the pocket was repousse'd to about the same diameter of the stone, I went around the edge with a small dome to sort of mushroom the pocket out to be slightly wider than the aperture. It cracked a bit during this process, but it'll all be hidden once the stone is set. I flipped it over and chased the edges just a bit, then back over to planish the edge to be a bit more crisp. I sanded the whole thing to a dull gloss then it was time to mount the stone. The gem was placed in the pocket then the band set face-down on a tape-covered A*O. I used a dull straight edge to chase all around the outside of the pocket. This closed the aperture just enough to clasp the stone in place without a need for adhesives.

I acknowledge that I'm using the terms repousse and chasing backwards here vis a vie the face of the project, but the ways I used the tools just make more sense to me like this. Anyways, a couple of punched holes for lacing finish the project, and it's ready to go. I rather dig the look of the flat facing. This method creates quite an indent which would be a pain if I were to wear it just as is, but since it's going on a hat I'm not worried. I've seen this method used on Roman era rings where the setting was just raised high enough above the finger that the indent didn't matter, but I've not gone down the rabbit hole enough to be able to state definitively if it was used in other forms of decorative or wearable metalwork of the age.

I was legitimately surprised at how quickly this came together, I probably spent more time typing this all out (twice, thanks Zuck) than actually making the thing. I'm looking forward to rocking it at War, it really catches the light nicely!

In other news, I'm also jamming out a crapload of squamae in all my free time. Woohoo.

The journey of a lorica squamata begins with a single squamae.Figured out my pattern (sizing based on one of the Dura Eu...
06/05/2026

The journey of a lorica squamata begins with a single squamae.

Figured out my pattern (sizing based on one of the Dura Europos finds), my process (cut blank, mark & punch holes, clean up edge, stamp ridge, dish, assemble), and assembled the first test pieces. Time to mass produce a bajillion of these things.

Got the boys helping with event prep, some long overdue maintenance on my almost 30 year old boffers.
05/16/2026

Got the boys helping with event prep, some long overdue maintenance on my almost 30 year old boffers.

Could they stop growing, please? I'm not that good at sewing.
05/14/2026

Could they stop growing, please? I'm not that good at sewing.

Address

Central Point, OR

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ironhorse Armoury posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Ironhorse Armoury:

Shortcuts

Share