Iron Wind Metals Foundry Tour, December 8th, 2016
Fantasy, Historical, and Sci-Fi Miniatures

Tour Photos
http://imgur.com/a/YC0YK

Iron Wind Metals
10488 Chester Road,
Cincinnati, OH 45215
https://ironwindmetals.com/

Every few years I like to stop in at Iron Wind Metals and visit with Mike and Melissa, and pick out a few minis for my gaming collection directly from the factory floor. This years was no exception, and the day after Black Friday starting with a bit of shopping for myself, I did the road trip down to Cincinnati, only to find the old IWM foundry over off of highway 747 closed.

After i got home, I just looked up the website to make sure they were still there, ...and yes! They were! Only they had moved to a new location! Derp! So last Thursday morning, before work, I went looking for them at the new location, and was very happy to find them, busy and still shipping last minute orders for the Holiday season! The new foundry and warehouse, which they moved into in late 2014, maybe early 2015 is probably about twice the size of the old workshop. They have adequate space for storage, and the casting stations have been improved with better ventilation, and more work space.

The first people I met when I went in was a group of guys in the mold room. I had met Tim Kelley before, and I also remembered James Issacs, one of the casters. I also met Jay Simmons, and they were all pretty busy casting minis to fill last minute holiday orders, and then I finally ran into Melissa.

Melissa has been the office manager there for probably, going on like ten years now, and she gave me the tour of the new digs. I took a few pictures for you all with my camera phone, and got my picture taken with Melissa and Mike, ...and Steve Saunders as well. Been meaning to do this for years, and just finally took that opportunity today, because there is no better time than now, to get things you want done, done, and every once in awhile an opportunity you had, is simply not available anymore.*

There are more people working there now, than ever before. In addition to carrying many of the older lines of historical, fantasy & sci-fi minis including some of the Ral Partha line. They are doing plenty of new stuff as well, and have in recent years revived the Mechwarrior miniatures line, and have been growing. They also have a contract to produce miniatures for Monte Cook Games, and one of the surprises for me today, was a complete line of 28mm Masterwork Game of Thrones figures they were casting, which they are under contract to produce for Jim @ Dark Sword Miniatures.

The Game of Thrones minis making up the George R.R. Martin Masterworks collection were sculpted by none other than Tom Meier. You can get these and many of the other Masterworks Collection including minis sculpted based on Larry Elmore  paintings sculpted by Dennis Mize, and*Clyde Caldwell Minis, Jeff Easley, and Keith Parkinson minis as well as Tony DiTerlizzi minis and Stephanie Law minis (I think I met her at Comic-Con last year, or maybe if was the year before...) too.*

Dark Sword Miniatures Website
http://www.darkswordminiatures.com/shop/index.php/

I did manage to mostly finish my Christmas shopping early this year, and rewarded myself for being a good Dad with about a hundred or so new Fantasy and Sci-Fi minis from the Iron Wind Metals in CIncinnati. Got some nice new minis for my Traveller game as well today!

Thank you Mike, and Melissa! ...and for all of the rest of the Iorn Winds Metal Staff! Very glad to see you are having a decent Holiday as well! Once I'm finished painting I'll post an article showing some of the finished IWM*minis.

That's really cool!  Thanks for posting it.

Very cool!

When you paint your Xmas gifts, please post pics!!