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.

Some days you make cool armor, some days you upholster a seat for a bulldozer because a bear stole the original one.
03/29/2026

Some days you make cool armor, some days you upholster a seat for a bulldozer because a bear stole the original one.

After over a month of back to back travel, it's cathardic to hit metal again. The belt got a finial while I watched the ...
03/29/2026

After over a month of back to back travel, it's cathardic to hit metal again.

The belt got a finial while I watched the Coronet live stream, a Dominate era amphora style after an example found at Carnuntum.

Got to display my Cingulum Militare (late Roman military belt) and Wandsworth Shield WIP at the Principality of the Summ...
02/16/2026

Got to display my Cingulum Militare (late Roman military belt) and Wandsworth Shield WIP at the Principality of the Summits' Alpine Festival of the Arts this weekend. I also presented a class covering new data and interpretations of the Adventus Saxonum, the 5th century coming of the Angles, Saxons, et al to Roman Britain. Got some good feedback and learned some lessons that will hopefully help me out next go-around.

Lots of newcomers at Fighter Practice this fall, so the loaner gear needed some attention. Wojtek and I did an inventory...
11/11/2025

Lots of newcomers at Fighter Practice this fall, so the loaner gear needed some attention. Wojtek and I did an inventory and a ton of little repairs a few weeks ago, but I just finished some simple spaulders to augment a couple of old hauberks. Might as well get some more practice with bluing!

Halloween! We always do family costumes that double as cosplay for cons down the road, and the littlest chose Kirby for ...
11/01/2025

Halloween! We always do family costumes that double as cosplay for cons down the road, and the littlest chose Kirby for this year's theme. Being me, I chose the guy (ball?) with armor, Meta Knight!

Most cosplayers would make his gear out of EVA foam but I hate that s**t, so metal it is! Did some hot work to raise the tips of the pauldrons and found a pattern for some basic sabatons, but then a laurel poked me to try bluing for the first time instead of painting, so screw it, I watched a vid, asked some questions, and blued all the things! Better to experiment with a costume than something with a ton of hours into it, right? Thanks Michael Keith Hoie! (Before someone asks, Meta Knight's sabatons are sometimes ridged in media but not on the model I was using as reference, so I elected to not do them ridged and pointy.)

My mask is printed TPU rubber because I'm not actually a ma*****st, and everyone else's props are mostly PLA, a dash of TPU and wood. Headwear is all fleece this year. I modeled the mallet from scratch; PLA staves mounted on an 8" concrete form tube with TPU end caps. It came together so well! The Beam wand is also 100% me and turned out pretty dope, look at the reflections you can see in it!

I'll get back to SCA things soon, but in my defense, this falls under the "misc geeky stuff" I warned yall about in my description. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

It's been given so I can post it now, here's what I've been up to lately. My Barony has an affinity for cow-related punn...
10/26/2025

It's been given so I can post it now, here's what I've been up to lately.

My Barony has an affinity for cow-related punnery and dispenses notional "Heads of Cattle" as attaboys for people doing good things. 155 heads have been granted thus far, and with our founding B&B stepping down at Samhain, some friends hatched a plan to gift them a treicheln, the giant cowbell traditionally worn by the lead cow in Swiss flocks.

Wojtek and I each dished a half, he forged the clapper, and I dished the top, made a handle in brass, and did the assembly. Learned that 18ga steel is a lot harder to weld together than 12ga helmets, but it turned out well and sounded great as Wojtek rang it in court!

Reaching back into recent projects, the Stoplight Belt! (Breaking this up into multiple posts bc it involved so many ste...
10/12/2025

Reaching back into recent projects, the Stoplight Belt! (Breaking this up into multiple posts bc it involved so many steps)

To honor the peers that have taken me on as squire/apprentice/protege, I made a belt to match my period that reflected all three peer relationships without having to look like book version Dobby with too many clothes, err, belts.

I found that there's some late Roman military belts that have a distinctive three circle design on some of the fittings. I've done baletei before and even entered my Dorchester balteus into a comp, but those were chip carved which wouldn't do for this design. I haven't done casting since Iraq 2008 but why not, full send. I modeled what I had in my head in Tinkercad and printed it on one of the Ender 3s. I first tried casting into kinetic sand which worked for my aluminium banana, but it didn't have the detail I wanted for this. So, I ordered some actual casting sand, which is so much nicer and worth the expense.

The brass was a mix of scrap brass from other projects and range brass, melted in a crucible in my forge. I work alone, so I didn't get any pics of the pour, but there's some pics from immediately after I opened the mold. There were a number of failed pours (it's been a while..) and a fair bit of post-production cleanup. The fittings I used on the belt aren't perfect, but they have character!

Here's why I'm robbing the trees of their pitch, I'm making chaser's pitch! The trial batch mixed up nicely, and the dif...
10/10/2025

Here's why I'm robbing the trees of their pitch, I'm making chaser's pitch! The trial batch mixed up nicely, and the difference in working with it is profound!

Historic recipes are all over the place, so I found someone's master's thesis which included side-by-side comparisons of a ton of different recipes with various modernly available emolients employed at varying ratios, all with tidy charts for comparing various attributes. Bloody brilliant! I chose a recipe with pine rosin, brick dust, and raw linseed oil with a good balance of adhesion, ductility, depth, and control.

I need to make a ton more, and a bowl to hold it all that's large enough for the big project, but, yay progress!

I tried out some chasing tools that I made and the set from HF, but I think I prefer the ones I made! The HF will do som...
10/10/2025

I tried out some chasing tools that I made and the set from HF, but I think I prefer the ones I made! The HF will do some things but with just spheres it's not very versatile. Need to make a couple more shapes for the project I'm planning, but I have enough to get started.

Test run on scrap copper with leather and foam backing.

Pine beetles suck, but they do create a wonderful source of pine pitch! All of this took about 45 minutes to gather toda...
10/09/2025

Pine beetles suck, but they do create a wonderful source of pine pitch! All of this took about 45 minutes to gather today. Refining it to rosin will take waaaaay longer.

Look, I'm terrible at posting updates. I know it, you know it, my Laurel knows it. I get behind and the stress of feelin...
10/09/2025

Look, I'm terrible at posting updates. I know it, you know it, my Laurel knows it. I get behind and the stress of feeling like I need to catch everyone up keeps me from jumping back in. So, screw it, I'm going to give up on continuity and just post stuff when I think of it. Really. Swearsies. Why are you looking at me like that?

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Central Point, OR

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