History of the Dreiburgen Armory

As best as I can recall

written by Baron Malcolm Alberic^RRE2 with minor additions by Baron Eadwynne of Runedun

In the Beginning

Eadwynne of Runedun and Sir Waldt von Markheim

The Dreiburgen Armory can trace its roots all the way back to its first Naron, Sir Waldt von Markheim (1974 – 1979). Waldt wore mail and this inspired others in Dreiburgen to do so. He and others, including Nikolaj Zrogowacialy made a spring loaded mail cutter, as well as shields and helms for new fighters. To help make mail, they made a winder out of three pieces of 2X4 and a 3/8” steel rod with a small hole drilled in it, attached to a power drill. Wire of at least several feet in length would be slipped into the hole and the rod rapidly spun around by the drill thus winding the wire. The coil produced from this device was then taken to the cutter, a wood framed device with a foot pedal attached to a pair of nippers. Here the coil would be cut into rings, thus creating the basic material for weaving mail. Better mail was made from "screen door springs," which were inexpensive at the time, but making your own was even cheaper. They produced a number of mail articles including a baronial suit of mail which could be loaned to anyone in the Barony. Edvin wore that suit at the Caid Atenveldt War 1978. Armoring books were acquired and donated to the armory by Walter of St. Jacobs, including a mail article by Sir Armand de Sevigny, and Arms $ Armor for the SCA, Inc., by Syr Polidor Haraldsson, OL. Later, Edvin made a Mail Loom which helped the mail knitting process, and he used it for a lot of mail demonstrations and several suits. The next advancement to armoring in the Barony was the "Coat of Plates" brought in by Duke Aonghais Dubh MacTarbh who helped outfit a number of Dreiburgen fighters who he absorbed into his personal household.

Enter House Drachenstern

When Sir Waldt von Markheim stepped down as Baron and left the Barony, House Drachenstern realized how much knowledge went with him, and were determined to continue. The Armory as it is today probably owes most of its evolution to Kevin of Aberwyvern who, somewhere around 1979-80, moved to Dreiburgen from The Middle Kingdom with a beautiful cap-a-pie set of plate armor. He claimed that he knew all about armor making and promoted the idea that Dreiburgen needed an effective armory. At the time baronies running their own armories was partially a necessity, since hardly anyone was selling armor. The leaders of House Drachenstern, Lord Eadwynne of Runedun and Lord Elgil Mardil of Dor-Mallos, decided to back this idea and thus the Dreiburgen Armourers Guild was born. The location of the armory bounced back and forth from Eadwynne's and Elgil's garages. At some point around 1981, the armory was being hosted at the home of Wilihelm Roderick FitzLovel of Kerr, with Kevin as Armorer. Although Kevin's enthusiasm exceeded his ability he did motivate the startup. He eventually left the barony. Yet if it weren’t for him I probably would not be writing this article today. Armor standards were also being revised about this time, and so the old freon can helmets and basketball pads were no longer acceptable. The armory became a necessity.

Eadwynne of Runedun smithing at Craftsman Village, Caid's 40th Anniversary and Coronation 2018

Elgil Mardil of Dor-Mallos

Lord Roger de Boeuf

It was during this push that finances were arranged, primarily through the efforts of Elgil Mardil of Dor-Mallos, and the barony bought an anvil and a B1 Beverley shear. An old army footlocker was stenciled with “Property of the Dreiburgen Armourers Guild” and used for small tools and other resources. These items were placed under the responsibility of the Baronial Science officer, which at the time was Lord Roger de Boeuf. Enlisted in the Air Force, he was stationed at March Air Force Base so the armory meetings were held at his parent’s house in Perris. Roger de Boeuf was Guild Master Dreiburgen Armourers Guild, 1981-1983.

AS XVI (1982)

Barrel Helmet by Master Zoltan Kovacs, which became the standard pattern for many, many helmets made by the early Dreiburgen Armory.

This brings us up to somewhere in AS XVI (1982), when I attended my first armory meeting. I had already made my first pair of legs in high school metal shop (oh gosh, were they ugly!) and my first brigandine in my father’s workshop; what I lacked was a helmet. I had heard in Council that the first goal of the Armory was to get people out of freon can helms, and a barrel helm pattern was available that would cost about ten dollars to produce.

It was obvious that they were just starting out. The anvil looked new, the Beverley shear was still in its box. Elgil informed us that the very first meetings had been held at his house and they had just moved the operations out to Perris. The site was just an open dirt space to one side of Roger’s parent’s house with a steel cabinet to lock things up and four 4X4 posts set in the ground to eventually make an awning.

There was nothing to mount the Beverley shear to save a two foot square sheet of scrap plywood, thus requiring someone to hold it down during use. This was an especially difficult maneuver due to the fact that a model B1 is only rated up to 16Ga steel and for helms we were using 14Ga, thereby slightly overtaxing the shear. Cutting one gauge heavier metal than what it is rated for can’t be all that bad for the Beverley shear however, because 23 years later we are still doing it! The meetings continued with mostly just the four of us working at the Armory  myself, my brother Aladric of Litchfield, Elgil and Roger. Eadwynne was starting classes in Long Beach and was unavailable much of the time.

It was in October of ‘82 when the Armory entered a new phase. We started working on the “Great Desert War” site, which involved digging moats, building keeps, grating roads, drilling wells and laying pipe. But most of that is best left to my next article Two Years Before Estrella. At this time some folks started referring to us as the Dreiburgen Corps of Engineers. The most important thing I got out of the GD War was my friendship with Master Zsoltan Kovacs, a.k.a. Kirby Wise, the legendary armorer of the SCA and from whom I picked up most of my skills. Master Zsoltan Kovacs, showed us basic techniques and got us going in the right direction. His influence on the Armory and what we produced cannot be overstated.

Moved to House Montrose

It was around March of ‘83 that the Armory needed to be moved. Roger’s mother (a dear sweet woman who used to bring us hot chocolate) was in the throes of a terminal disease. She is sorely missed. My parents agreed to let me volunteer their house El Rancho del Shurabet Arrih (later to be known as House Montrose based on the history of Montrose taking over the lands of Buchanan in Scotland).

I had already purchased an old Buffalo forge that I had noticed in someone’s backyard while horseback riding, and Santa had given Aladric and me a 50 lb. bag of coal the Christmas before. So Aladric and I took over the Dreiburgen Armourers Guild. We set up under a porch on the side of the house. I acquired an old workbench during a clean up of the machine shop at Riverside Community College, and I set up some shelves that my father had made out of some old WWII packing crates. Roger and Elgil would come out to run the meetings and Aladric and I would host and help out. I believe it was during 1983 that Roger stepped down as Baronial Science officer due to his duties in the Air Force and his family obligations; Aladric volunteered to take the office.

Aladric of Litchfield

Malcolm Alberic

Armory at House Montrose

Meetings were on the first Friday of each month at 6:30pm outside in the weather. I do remember a couple of wet meetings where the attitude was “I don’t care if it is raining, my armor has got to be done by X.” Here is a recent picture of this location.

You can see the old workbench and shelves, which are still there, an oil stain on the wall where the quenching tank was installed, and in the foreground the stump to which we mounted the Beverley shear.

One Friday evening a month does not give a lot of time for armor production, so our main goal was to enable people to work in their own backyard. Most people would come to Armory and do the heavy work of cutting, shaping, and welding. They would then take their project home for assembly. We even had some pieces of track rail that we would loan to help with “home work”. These pieces of track were recently unearthed at House Montrose and are back in my possession.

Then Came Music

Over the next few years The Dreiburgen Armourers Guild’s activity level continued to increase as the barony grew; we even got people from that new group out in Hemet attending. As the Armory continued to grow so did my workload. It was somewhere in 1985 that Aladric’s interest in dance and playing the fiddle started to increase, thus leaving more of the hosting duties to me. In October 1985 with interest in the sciences increasing, my father, Mornay of Anglesey, started a Luthiers/general sciences meeting on 2nd Sundays at noon and joined the Guild of American Luthiers as a resource.

Lu-thi-er; Pronunciation: ‘ lu-tE-&r, -thE-&r ' Function : noun; Etymology: French, from luth lute (from Middle French lut): one who makes musical instruments

It was also in October that Duncan Brock of Greyfeather and Malcolm Alberic set up Dreiburgen Bards to follow Luthiers at 6pm on 2nd Sundays. Needless to say I was very busy. Over time both the attendance at Armory on 1st Fridays and Elgil’s availability to bring his welding torch and help started to decline. By February 1986 I had purchased my own Oxy-Acetylene welding set, discontinued 1st Friday Armory and combined the Armorers Guild with Luthiers Guild on 2nd Sundays. Come March of that year Malcolm Alberic was forced to drop Bardic arts from Baronial Armory/Luthiers/Sciences. Let’s just say bardic activity in the barony went to zero.

Time moved on and I believe it was in the spring of ‘87 that the Barbarian Freehold via Edweird decided to combine its armory with Dreiburgen’s. Now both Freeholders and Dreiburgundians were attending meetings. Sounds like a lot doesn’t it? It wasn’t really; several people were members of both groups, and fewer Dreiburgundians were coming to meetings. So the number of attendees maintained.

Moves to Gallavally and then to Desert March

However, over the next two years the numbers started to decline until by November 1989 no one was left. It seemed that everyone in downtown Dreiburgen had their armor. But there was still a need out in Gallavally. Lord Eadwynne took over the Sciences office again and the Dreiburgen Armourers Guild was moved from my house to the workshops Lord Eadwynne was already conducting in Gallavally. Freeholders had also quit attending and I placed their forge (Eadwynne's original forge made from a break drum, pipe and electric blower) in storage.

In 1990 Baron Leo had contracted House Montrose to make a new baronial pavilion. You know it as Big Blue. I was assigned to produce the top rings, the center poll sockets and pulley assembles. Lord Eadwynne arranged for volunteers attending Armory meetings to make the 40+ tent stakes that were required.

Baronial fighting practices began in Desert March and then Baron Aldred von Lechsend aus Froschheim decided to move the Armory from Gallavally to Desert March at the home of Ragnar Torbjörn. Despite good intentions, a lot of fighting happened, but not much armoring.

Fades into Obscurity

From 1991 to 1997 my connection to the Armory was non-existent; my interest had turned to dance both in and outside the SCA, and I went to sea and was forced (under duress mind you) to sign on with the Brethren of the Coast under Captain Jamie Bellows. So I lost touch with what was happening within the guild.

Somewhere in that period as Mons Draconis was forming I attended a meeting at the Dragon’s Tail, a.k.a. Finn’s house; here I ran into Edweird. I asked him what I should do with the Freehold’s forge and he told me that I should bring it there as they were planning to start their own workshops. So I dug it out of the barn where I had stored it, cleaned off the chicken dirt and delivered it to the Dragon’s Tail.

I didn’t do much metal work again until June 22, 1997 when Collegium Sancti Geronimi hosted a small Hammer-In at House Aquilian. I brought my small Buffalo forge, set it up to demonstrate basic forming skills and give people a chance to try it themselves, and was startled by the amount of interest Dreiburgen showed in metal working. Eadwynne was there and I asked him what was up with the Armory; he informed me that he did not know. He had passed it on and mentioned a few names, but was not sure of its current status. As far as I was able to determine, after Eadwynne passed the Armory on it became very political as to who had it and that usually means one thing, DEATH!

Now that I was living in a house where I could attempt meetings again, I set up my forge and anvil, dusted off the Armory’s resource box which was still in my position, and went to Council to ask where is the Armory? Where the tools? The anvil and the Beverley shear? Are they being used at a location where the populace has access to them? If not may I take possession of them so that I might do so? There was a moment of stunned silence broken by a small voice at one of the tables that said “We own an anvil?” My heart sank. The Dreiburgen Armourers Guild had been dormant for so long almost no one in Council even knew that the barony owned tools. Baron Thurston seemed to be the only one that remembered and told me after Council that he had an idea and would get back to me.

A New Beginning

It was fall of ‘97 when I started up Open Forge. I did not refer to it as The Dreiburgen Armory, nor did I refer to the Dreiburgen Armourers Guild as I was still uncertain as to just what had happened to the guild and whether I was stepping on anyone’s toes. So I just posted that I was opening my shop to anyone in the barony to work on their own projects and make use of my tools and my advice. Hence the name Open Forge. It wasn’t a Hammer-In because an “IN” means that many people are bringing IN their own equipment to show it off or to teach with it. Master Oso’s Hammer-In’s brought in lots of metal workers to show their equipment and techniques.

The response of the populace was overwhelming. People wanted to do metal work so badly that even though it was raining during that first Open Forge people still went out into my back yard and started their first projects. I was quite pleased, considering that when I had handed it off to Eadwynne back in ‘89 attendance was at zero. Open Forge was a success! I continued to schedule meetings for 3rd Sundays at noon. Sancti Geronimi hosted lunch served around 3pm because as Baroness Rowena once said, “Things go better with snackies.”

On October 18,1997 at Dreiburgen Anniversary Baron Thurston gave me the baronial anvil. It was apparently buried in his garage; he wasn’t sure if he had it and it took him a while to find it. Now that I am baron I completely understand how that could happen. A short time later Conan brought over the baronial Beverly shear. He said it had been stored at the Dragon’s Tail and had been used by Mons Draconis in the past. I asked him if he was sure that they were done with it, still not wanting to step on anyone’s toes. He assured me that they were not currently using it and that I was providing better access for the Dreiburgen populace.

Open Forge continued to be a success and on September 20, 1998 at the request of Baron Uillam, Open Forge manned by members of Collegium Sancti Geronimi produced tent stakes for the smaller white baronial Tentmaster. August 1, 1999 Sancti Geronimi used the shop again to refurbish the baronial Marshal’s eric polls.

Back in Business

With the mounting success of Open Forge it became very apparent that my back yard with its car-port tarp was insufficient for the barony’s needs. So after the July meeting I asked everyone in attendance to help me move all the equipment to the other side of the yard to make room for a new 24’X 24’ building. Construction started in August, a time when attendance is traditionally low due to hot weather. Once the building was up we held a small ceremony in which Uilliam and Luighseach cut the ribbon opening the new shop. It was after that event that I asked Their Excellencies if I might change Open Forge back to its original status as The Dreiburgen Baronial Armory. My request was granted and the Armory was back to its old self again.

Since I restarted things back in ‘97 I noticed a major shift in people’s interests. We rarely produced armor any more and the projects seemed to be more equipment oriented. For example we made lanterns, lantern hangers, fire pits, eric polls (including the Kingdom boffer eric), a cannon and tools for the La Villa A Broka, and a mast for the Skull and Compass.

We made pewter site tokens for local events, coronations and Pentathlons, and we expanded into jewelry. The Armory has been twice contracted to provide Signum Reginae. In AS XXXV Uillam contracted the Armory to make the kingdom officers’ chains of state. Prior to my (Malcolm Alberic) stepping up as baron, we made the baronial officers’ chains of state. We madke the Order of the Athena for Angels, the Order of the Flame for Starkhafn, and the Order of the Chiron for kingdom. I used the Armory to make my first sterling silver cornet set with star sapphires for Baroness Rebecca Mary Robynson, and used it to make the Order of the Tower and the Order of the Illuminated Tower. The list goes on.

A Rose For Oslo

Pictured are four of the five active blacksmiths in Dreiburgen in 2009, From left to right, Eadwynne of Runedun, Elzbeta Belz Bear-Crusher, Malcolm Alberic, and Darius von Tannenberg (Damales Redbeard is not shown). There had been a terrorist attack in Oslo and there was a request for steel roses to be added as part of the memorial. We as Dreiburgen blacksmiths made roses for the memorial. It is a reminder that what we do can make the real world a little better.

The Armory continues

The Armory continues to meet and is open to all members of the populace. All participants bear in mind that any one who conducts themselves in an unsafe or unchivalrous manner will be asked to leave. The Amory generally does not run “classes.” It’s actually shop time for you to make the things you need for yourself. What most people do is come with a project in mind and learn by doing. Try to B.Y.O.M. (bring your own materials). The most convenient source for steel in Riverside is K&H Metal and Supply on Main Street. If you want to undertake a specific project ask about the materials needed and the skills required. We’re here to help you, whether you are a novice or seasoned metalworker.

I recommend caution in selecting a first-time project. I very often encounter someone who says “I want to make a sword”, and I have to explain to them that making a sword is an advanced project and perhaps they might want to start with something smaller. When confronted with someone who wants to try blacksmithing but has no idea of what to do first, I usually suggest a set of dining ware, fork, spoon and knife. A simple project like that can give you the basics of how metal behaves, and it is not a major tragedy if the piece gets ruined. We have a number of experienced metal workers who are willing to teach what they know that drop in from time to time such as Miguel Christobar Amadeo de Zaragoza, Roger Wells (deceased), Damales Redbeard, Eadwynne of Runedun, and Darius von Tannenberg. If you are traveling from a distance we recommend you call first. It’s your Armory.

As of 2017, the Armory is now active under Ivar Krigsvin and Hálfdan Snøybiarnarson

The Wappenshaw

A wappenshaw (from the Old English wǣp(e)n scēawian for "weapon show") was originally a gathering and review of troops formerly held in every district in Scotland. The object was to satisfy the military chiefs that the arms of their retainers were in good condition and that the men were properly trained in their use. Lord Eadwynne used the term to describe that rush to build or repair arms and armor before SCA wars.

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