In a fantasy setting, I have no difficulty wrapping my brain around the concept that the most masterful smiths use rituals in their forging.
Thus, those secret techniques of the legendary dwarven smiths are... their cool rituals.
As for why you can't just rearrange the the scales to make non-magical wyrmscale armor -- perhaps the configuration is too rigid for non-magical metal to mimic and retain the flexibility necessary to be, you know, worn. Or perhaps the configuration calls for joints and attachments that are too fragile unless they're magically reinforced. Since all dragons are magical, neither of these stretches the simulation's rules, though our non-magical minds and experience might have difficulty devising or imaginging what such a configuration (and its limits) might entail.