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Timeline |
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1988
- Lars gets it in his thick skull that he wants to make fantasy/theatrical weapons. While still on staff at the N.Y. Renaissance Festival, he sculpts his first sword hilt in wax and has it cast in autumn at the Tallix Foundry in Beacon, NY. It is his first experience with failing to understand both ergonomics and budget requirements. But, it's REALLY cool, so...
1989
- First commission; a broadsword & dagger combo...for a wedding, of course. Designed for a cartoonist by a cartoonist, the hilts are huge. The ceremony goes off swimmingly, with a surprising lack of bloodshed. Lundegaard Armoury moves into the basement of a 180+ year old farmhouse in Croton on Hudson, NY and begins operations in the summer with its first booth at the N.Y. Renaissance Festival. We open with 7 pieces of stock; a tradition improved on slowly over the years. A temporary location, the booth is torn down for the winter. A new location is scouted out on the ass-end of the site. The Armoury switches foundries from Tallix to its smaller (and less expensive) competitor Argos (in Brewster, NY), thus managing to cut down a little of its massive overhead.
1990
- Armoury puts out first catalog, to vague interest. The first consignment deal is worked out, to Crow Haven Corner (Laurie Cabot's little shop of har hars) in Salem, MA. (As of spring '97, there were still two of the original 10 pieces in the showcase...at triple our prices.) The Armoury banner begins showing up at small regional Faires & events in the NY tri-state area. The New Improved Armoury booth is built at what will become Rogue's Crossing at NYRF. It is the first "permanent" booth with lakefront property of its kind on site: a minor coup. Our first "Hollywood" order comes up when a custom cutlass gets ordered for Dustin Hoffman for "Hook," complete with a ton of acid etching. Not surprisingly, Lars goes to see the film and instead of seeing his work in the movie, he gets to have flashbacks of disappointing childhood attempts at human-powered flight & leaves the theatre in a huff, hating Steven Spielberg EVEN more. The boothe at NYRF gets a nice shingled roof that still leaks conspicuously in the rain to this day. That's what you get from a contractor who asks to be paid in beer.
1991
- The Tragic Bus is acquired at a school bus auction and is driven its one & only time to NYRF for installation as the official Armoury "hacienda in the hills". "Terminator 2 1/2" is shot on site at NYRF during the run of the show, premiering at the cast party to wildly drunken enthusiasm. More small regional shows get added & some removed from the schedule in some desperate attempt to reach a balance, the success of which remains to be seen to this day...
1992
- The Armoury somehow manages to swing a loan for casting equipment, beginning the era of self-sufficient hilt production and effectively ending the majority of Lars' personal outside life in one pen stroke. A second brush with fame occurs when John Popper of Blues Traveller orders 6 identical sharpened & etched broadswords for the first HORDE Tour. Miraculously, Popper fails to kill anyone with his personal piece while trundling through the audience. Lars learns a valuable lesson in time-budgeting on this job.
1993
- Technology enters the fray with a computer to track the orders & mailing list; an IBM 8086 with a 20 meg hard-drive & 512k of RAM. It is hoped at the time to soon move up to something more advanced, like an abacus. Phase 1 of the booth at the New Jersey Renaissance Kingdom (or whatever...) goes up with Lars hanging the roof opening day morning, the beginning of a long-standing tradition of midnight carpentry. Burning both ends of the candle, Lars signs on as Props. Master for NYRF while trying to be a crafter at the same time, a mistake never again to be repeated. The Infamous Mickey B. signs on as Shoppe Troll, eventually attaining the dubious position of Avatar of the Shoppe Trolls after eating his rival and cowing the survivors into submission. The Dark Times begin...
1994
- Lars does a knife show in LA with the flu & on a shoestring; he loses his shirt, thus souring his desire to do California events for some time. J.P. Calvert, the young Turk & babe magnet, joins the Shop Trolls as a school project and gets sucked into the maelstrom of madness, soon becoming the chief Wax God and earns the title of "Buff Vader" for his prowess on the Wheel. Phase 2 of the NJRK booth is built, making it the only fully functioning two-story craft shoppe (or any building, for that matter...) on the site. As usual, the Armoury sign gets hung up as patrons walk in the gate... Carolina Renaissance Festival opens & Lundegaard Armoury is there in a tent, commuting 1000+ miles a weekend in crew shifts. The Renaissance Mercenaries Guild is established in response to weapon bans at several Faires. B-movie scream queen Julie Strain, clad in a skin-tight silver lame mini-skirt, buys one of our Harroc's Head Longswords at a Chiller Convention. And better yet; she paid in cash.
1995
- The Armoury moves out of the house in Croton on Hudson, due to the death of the property owner. Operations move on-site to NYRF for the summer & then to Allentown, PA AND Glen Gardner, NJ as well. The Armoury bids farewell to Mr. Mikey as he lands a job else where in the defense industry. Also, a permanent booth goes up at CRF, christened in Listerine spit from the construction helpers new tongue piercing. How in vogue. Catalog number 5 begins production with the presumably brilliant idea of re-drawing all the artwork by hand from scratch. It will take almost 2 years to complete...sigh. The International Wenches Guild is born of a conversation at one of Lars' daughter's school plays (about hygiene or colors or something...). The first Armoury excursion to the Florida "Grapefruit Circuit" goes off with inconclusive results, with the one exception of Lars re-discovering sushi 10 years after that unfortunate wasabi incident.
1996
- The second Florida Invasion gets hampered by Lars's fencing class injury to his right knee, making him have to hobble about on crutches for half the shows. Thank goodness for those Handicapped Parking spaces... The Armoury Barbarian Bistro & Lounge "opens" at NJRF, making it the preferred hangout for misanthropes & caffeine addicts. As for sales, well... we won't talk about that. Mistress Crickett joins the Armoury team as managertrix of the CRF booth. The East Coast Ren Rag makes the first of its very intermittent appearances.
1997
- The Armoury Catalog #5 finally emerges, the last of its breed. Mistress Crickett gets shipped off to Florida to give Ringling Faire one last chance shwing and escapes with her antennae barely intact. Having "had enough of all that," the Armoury booth is removed from NJRF and re-built bigger & better than ever at NYRF as the first phase of the Lundegaard World Domination Scheme. The International Brotherhood of Rogues, Scoundrels & Cads makes its debut in a hopeless attempt to balance the scales with the Wenches. Pewter casting comes into vogue (sort of) as our spin casting machine gets re-furbished and casting molds for the pins & buttons finally get made. The Armoury finally heeds the siren song of the Internet and Lundegaard.com comes into being with Lars & Uncle Andy the techno-troll doing the web authoring. It's a WYSIWYG madhouse. Of course, when our ISP goes belly up in November, a certain amount of stress over lost Xmas orders ensues, but thanx to the efforts of Chrispy & Da Bronxelf, cyber life goes on at their server till things get normal. Ahh.
1998
- After having been on the advisory council for the Woodstock Renaissance Faire, Lars manages to convince the Wench Guild Singers to do a singing show and Drench a Wench there, much to the delight of the attending male populace. NYRF booth expansion plans get put on hold due to automotive & medical expenses. Sales take a small dive for the first time in 8 years, but then there's the Internet...Between the Wenches Guild Website, up since January (courtesy of the indomitable Red Haired Snipe), and Armoury Web hovel after its second facelift, we see the true meaning of "web commerce": orders triple from the previous 3 years combined, causing a flurry of activity in the NJ workshop. Also, the Rogues get a web hideout of their very own from Squire Burlybear. This was the year that the Trolls discovered SoBe beverages and proceeded to build a shrine to the Lizard King out of the mountain of empty bottles. Renovations and painting spruce up the CRF booth, as the concept of selling it looms in the distance.
1999
- The Armoury website gets its best face-lift ever, courtesy of the most adored Red Haired Snipe. Plans to open a booth at the Virginia Renaissance Faire are under way, as well. As for the rest, you'll have to wait and see...
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