Scale Work by Silver (Alex Stroyan)

Welcome to my webpage, where I will post pictures of my scale work and offer work on commission.

I have been working with scale mail and other scale and ring projects since 2020. I started with a banner to test my patience with the material. After a week I had run out of materials and needed to order more. After another banner, I designed and assembled a personalized vest, the project which motivated the whole endeavor in the first place. I thought this project would be a year or more of slow incremental progress. It turned out only to have taken roughly two months, during which time each time an order of scale supplies arrived, I knew it was time to order more to arrive before my current supply ran out.

After exceptional reception of the banners and vest in Amtgard (my LARP group of choice) I opted to continue making additional small items and banners. Before I knew it, I had a brand. People would often ask if I had sold any of these pieces (or would want to) and I respond each time, “Yes, I would, but scale is *very* expensive.” Once one develops the skills there is little challenge but lots of labor. Like many handcrafts, it entails spending hour after hour doing the same steps over and over again, which quickly adds up to a lot of hours of skilled labor. If you look at the price point of any item here and find it extreme, you’re not wrong. Until scale mail can be mass manufactured, it will stay relegated to being an expensive and niche art, with all of all the economic inaccessibility that comes with.

I can’t decrease the amount of time and labor needed to make it, but what I can change is where the money goes. Ultimately my financial stability isn’t in question, so I would rather leverage my skills and hobbies for good.

As such I accept payment in the form of a donation to GiveWell (any of their charity funds or top charities). GiveWell is a nonprofit which focusses on finding outstanding giving opportunities that save or improve lives the most per dollar. They conduct in-depth research to determine how much good a given program accomplishes. I’m of the opinion that GiveWell is a solid bet for finding charities that can effectively utilize any money donated. If you disagree or think another charity is more capable of efficiently converting money to human happiness, let me know; I’m curious about other charitable avenues to explore.