The Armour Archive

Well my trip to the specialist was not a good experience, I seemt o have what is likley a career ending issue, I will know better after my trip to Bostome to see a neurologist, sooooooo
If a WMA kettle is something you have wanted this is a good chance.
I have been told that I need to stop what I am doing to keep this (issue) from progressing.
Supposed to avoid the keyboard and mouse as well so I wont be posting here much, I will likely read stuff here but it takes along tome to hu8nt and peck a keyboard with my left hand.
In an effort to keep the stainless kettle at a more affordalbe price I have made the removable grill from mild and it has been texture painted black.
Just makes sense anyway I always painted even the stainless grills.
This grill comes of with just 2 bolts instead of the usual 4 so its faster and easier.
I dont have a pic at the moment but it looks like all my standard kettle, round top, 13/14 ga stainless fully welded construction, brass rivits for the brim.
Will fit a 23 to 23.5 in grape.
650.00

This is dire, dire news, Adam. My thoughts are with you and yours.

And my helm rocks, thank you.

Master Magnus a true armoring master and a great gentleman. I am so sorry to here the news. Your one of the best armorers and buisnessmen ever to be in the SCA. You and the Priory of St.Colin have inspired me and countless others to improve their kits and overall presentation. God Bless and hope that one day you will feel better.
Rannulf

My heart goes out to you and yours. Your art is beautiful. Im jealous of everyman that owns a piece of your work. I wish the best for you .

Dang, I am sorry to hear such news.
Is this what dishing 12ga. Stainless Steel does to one?

Any advice to us beginners to avoid such stress?

We wish you the best Adam and best of luck with your exam.
Your art will be sorely missed.

Hal

_________________
Safe Metal Pounding

Halberds wrote:Dang, I am sorry to hear such news.
Is this what dishing 12ga. Stainless Steel does to one?

Any advice to us beginners to avoid such stress?

We wish you the best Adam and best of luck with your exam.
Your art will be sorely missed.

Hal

_________________
Safe Metal Pounding

At some p[oint I likely suffered trauma to the brachial plexus, this is often a sports injury, a common injury for people launched from the front of a sport bike, If you fell out of a tree and grabbed a branch on the way down you could drive your shoulder into your neck damaging the brachial plexus.
If you went down on the battlefiled falling onto your shoulder you could do the same as above.
There is no way to tell what did it, based on the muscle atrophy in my hand it happened 2 years ago.
I would liley not have noticed some of the symptoms of the actual injury as it would not be possible to tell the pain from that injury from teh pain of my torn rotator cuff.
Continuing to fight and work long hours prevented it healing and only aggrivated it more.
Vibrating machinery is bad, snow blowers, weed wackers all add to the stress.
The amount of time spent holding a mikita angle grinder is defiantly part of the problem.
Playing drums certainly did not help.
Alot of it is up in the air at the moment but there is not an operation that can fix it and when sever it can take a couple of years to heal.
Shaping 12 ga stainless, grinding and cutting almost every day for some 10 years has alot to do with it.
If it is not addressed I can and up with aclaw for a hand. If addressed now I could be fine but it is not known if the muscles I have lost will return.
The muscle loss is easily seen and pretty extreme but I ne3ver realy looked, and with carpal tunnel and tendonitis and the torn rotator cuff I had no realy way of being able to identify that something was wrong untill is get bad.
I have been told that I have as severe a case of it as it gets, and the most severe they have seen.
I will likely finnish upa few odd projects working only a few hours a day.
It will suck looking for work as using my hands is the only thing I know.
For people armouring, think about air tools, they lack the large vibrating rotating mass of an eletric tool.

Man, this is rough. I wish you the best of luck, Mr. Berry. You've shown me several times that you're not only a savvy businessman and an excellent artist, but an absolute pleasure to chat with in person, and I'd hate to see your kind of craft leave us for good.

-Ed

For the world of armoring this is one of the darkest of days. Adam is one of the very best in this craft. I am proud to wear his work, and honored that he was one of my "chosen" (best in the biz) armorers.

I truly hope you can recover Adam. Armor be damned, you had one of the best attitudes I have ever seen in the SCA in regards to combat. I was overjoyed when you won my Baronial Champions Tournament, and it couldn't have gone to a more honorable man. You inspired me to get back on the path I had lost in the SCA. As I got more and more sucked into the sport path, you and your steadfast following of the path of actually BEING a medieval soldier steered me back onto it. I have since sworn off plastic and sport armor because of you, your awesome priory and the example I lost trying to be the best SCA fighter.

I hope that you heal and can take the field again some day. If not, you will be missed but not forgotten.

I know this might not be the best question, but you have the eye, the soul and the hand for knowing what needs to be made. Any posibility at taking on some apprentices to learn and train to carry on the tradition? The market seems to be opening more and more along with needing someone with a good reputation and skills to provide for it. I know I'm one of the good three dozen high end 'customers' that have higher end jobs and don't mind dropping a few grand on projects/pieces out there and we're just the hard core group. We haven't even touched on the non-fighter ('civies') that want copies of museum pieces that take even less work to produce for similar pay.

The loss of you and your knowledge is a very very bad thing in my eyes (similar to loss of other high end armourers we've known and worked with over the year) and I'd love to be able to help out keeping the skillset flowing along.

Iain Ruadh wrote:I know this might not be the best question, but you have the eye, the soul and the hand for knowing what needs to be made. Any posibility at taking on some apprentices to learn and train to carry on the tradition? The market seems to be opening more and more along with needing someone with a good reputation and skills to provide for it. I know I'm one of the good three dozen high end 'customers' that have higher end jobs and don't mind dropping a few grand on projects/pieces out there and we're just the hard core group. We haven't even touched on the non-fighter ('civies') that want copies of museum pieces that take even less work to produce for similar pay.

The loss of you and your knowledge is a very very bad thing in my eyes (similar to loss of other high end armourers we've known and worked with over the year) and I'd love to be able to help out keeping the skillset flowing along.

Good point.

Adam/Magnus this is indeed sad news and my heart goes out for you. As I mentioned on the St. Colin board, I would gladly apprentice to you. It would be a shame for your talents to simply fade away. Let me know what I can do to help. I am sure it may take some time for the dust to settle, but when you get things figured out, i would gladly come in and pound some steel.

Perhaps if you get enough of us to apprentice, you could continue production to a certain extent. It seems like the next possible evolution to your career.

In your service,

Brother Aranon

Well that just plain sucks.

I dont know what else one can possibly say that hasnt been said or you dont already know.

crap

WOW! That is really bad news!
I have often wondered myself about the ramifications of armouring (among other things) on a regular basis after having put my body through alot of wear and tear. Over the years I have aggrivated old injuries and have often thought about quiting all my physical activities and just being a couch potatoe. I have agrivated my body so much at times that I could not lift my arm past my waist, stand up straight, close my hand enough to hold on to something, etc, and yet I keep pushing my luck (stubborn like a mule). Hearing this really has me wondering what awaits me in the future.

I don't know you, nor do I have any of your stuff, but I wish you well in the future. I know there are a ton of happy customers who will miss you and your work....

O.o

Oh... @#%$... What a lost to our craft and sport...

I'm glad I got this bitch'in kettle hat from you...

Just don't be a stranger...

Adam,

Call me if you need to or just feel like shooting the breeze.

Is it just armoring you must stop, or fighting as well?

This is dire news indeed. I used to look at Adam's helms as a newbie saying "One day I will have a helm like that!"

Thanks folks, ya'll are to kind
Leo, thanks a bunch, you have been a big motivator for me aned my peeps as well.
I will armour again, and will figjht again, I hope to fight in our upcomming Baronial Championships, its a few weeks away and I doubt the Docs will get to work on me by then.
Thyere are a couple of "if's" I have to deal with.
One Doc says its ulna nerve entrapment, at the elbow and wrist, both require surgery, the other Doc is positive its the brachial plexus injury, and that it often mimics ulna tunnel entrapment.
The only realy way to tell is to start by cutting open the wrist for a look so I think I am going to let them do that and keep my fiungers crossed thats the issue, then they can repair it and cut open the elbow and fix that as well.
Recovery could take some time, maybe a year, likely less.
If its the brachial plexus I am hosed in a way as they cant operate on that and it could take 2 years or more of PT and light duty to mend it.
I ahve had to give up alot to armour for a living and I just want some of those things back.
I will likely continue to make some armour, but not as my source of income, its just to hard on my limbs.
I am trying to get my brother to work for me, he is an amazing talent. If he will I might be able to keep my buisness open, if not I will likely end my buisness, but will keep my site up untill I am out of lamella plates.
Ulnal entrapment or brachial plexus injury either way I am done for some time and should I return it will likely be the occasional high end helmet or gauntlets.
Again thansk for the good words, it nice to know I have had a pos impact with some folks

Praying hard here....

There is the COTT that needs inspirations like you to keep it alive! And, I would hate to see you have to type with one finger!

DAMMIT!!!!!

That sucks!!!!!!!!!!



Really hope your ok man

Adam, I hope all goes well, the armor that you have created awes me.

And your "look" with the kettle and CoP have started dragging me (kicking and screaming ) into the 14th century mafia.

Adam, I can state with absolute certainty that we are NOT being "too kind"; you are, in truth, one of the best armourers in the US. One of the benefits of having been apprenticed to Max Engel is that I have met, and know, pretty much every armourer in the US, from Valerius to Bob MacPherson, Eldrid to Jeff Hedgecock to Anshelm. You do rank among their number; your helms carry a reputation that many armourers would kill to have. Hell, many fighters would do murder to own one of your helms. You certainly were the first person I have always recommended to people who are looking for helms, always telling them, "while he has a wait list, he's worth the wait."

The loss of you as an armourer, at the same time as Mac is undergoing a similar medical crisis, is a loss for the armouring community as a whole. Please understand that our prayers and well wishes for you are heartfelt and honest.

As is mine. I hope that your doctors are able to do miracles for you and that this becomes only a vacation for you, rather than a career ending injury. And please, for the sake of our craft, do your best to make that happen. A year or two of not fighting or making armour is a small price to pay for not ever being able to do so again.


Frederich

Adam,
You and the Priory are the direction I point newbies in when they ask me why I think real armour is the heat. Best of luck.