Lets talk smithing

I would love to use steel or even ebony rather than iron in dragon armor.


Note: I meant to word it "why does dragon armor use iron and not steel"

Hmm, perhaps, perhaps. An interesting why to improve or decorate your armor.

Maybe because Dragon's aren't made of metal and Iron is easier to manipulate and use for other things than steel.

I don't know. The above sentence could just be all nonsense.

I was thinking about that a few hours ago. I guess that you need a metal to help mold and fit the Scales or Dragon bones to a human form, but somewhere along the way I got it in my mind that Dragonscale/bone is like the pinnacle of the Nord warrior way. And Nords really like Steel and Ebony. Guards laugh at you if you’re using Iron. Ebony is a strange metal in TES and does a very strange thing if you add the heart of a Daedra so maybe ebony shouldn’t be used.

Well if ypu look at it it does seem like there is iron used in the construstion of it. Although this is present on ragonplate aswell and that doesnt use iron. That may be an oversight though by the dev's

I don't know about the game...but in samurai era blades steel swords were forged with iron to make the armor more flexible. Iron is a softer, more flexible metal while steel is harder and more brittle. The iron frame in a forged blade would allow the steel to move with the force of impact and not take as much force from a blow as a pure steel blade. This helped the swords to survive impact with the armor of the day, as well as allowing it to pierce with a hard edge.

Maybe dragon bones/scales are the steel in this case?

I do see the iron in the construction, i just thought such a valuable material such as dragon scales and bones, would be better complimented by steel. As the other user said, I think Ebony would be strange (even though its used in weapons)

Iron is for Riveting the Bone Plates together.
EDIT Iron has a problem with hardness, it can be very brittle. Pouring Molten Iron into a hole to fuse pieces of Dragon Bone is how they would construct the Armor. IMO Steel would look better for the Helm facepiece and visible metal, but Iron can be a very tough Metal when it is allowed to cool slowly and evenly, if Iron cools too quickly it becomes lots of small crystals instead of a large solid piece of uniform crystal.
Steel is superior to Iron because it does not rust as easily, and can bend more before breaking.

Probably this.

Wouldn't the leather play a role in that?

MORE riveting!

Leather is for binding individual sections of Armor together, and providing a lining between the wearer and the metal work.

The katana is actually a very bad sword for hitting anything hard; once the brittle edge breaks, the soft spine of the blade bends in on itself. Pure steel swords were far more effective because their blades were of a more uniform rigidity, making sure that the impact was spread over the whole sword. Katanas were sharper than longswords, but they were also shorter, heavier and more delicate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Hy_A9vjp_s#t=5m55s

I guess they both have situations where one is better suited to the job than the other. Katanas obviously weren't meant to parry medieval European swords.

Like the padding in plate mail, to give the user improved comfort wearing the armor?

I think cause Iron is common material in Skyrim. Well, Ancient Nord Armor made out from Iron Ingot, right?