News at Age of Armour
Update. 10Oct2019
It's been a busy year!
I've moved half way across the country to Oklahoma. It was quite a journey. Last summer I packed up, hit the interstate and drove all over the country visiting old friends and customers, went to a few renaissance fairs and searched for a quiet place to live.
It's going to take a lot of work to fix up the house and get the shop set up but I'm enjoying it. I don't think I will be taking custom orders again but I do certainly have ideas for getting back into making stock items and masks.
One reason for moving was to find a place with a bigger shop in the hopes of having armour making classes. I'm still working out the details. If you have any suggestions let me know on Twitter.
I also hope to start making more armour and 3d videos so please subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Small update. 15Oct13
It's been far too long since my last update. This is a small one but hopefully more tutorials are to come.
I added a series of large photos of an original, 16th century gorget to the tutorial section. There are photos of it repaired and also in pieces before restoration. I know how hard it is to find detailed photos of armour so I was sure to include images from the back and from the inside. I hope enthusiasts find these informative.
Deviant Art Interview. 7NOV09
The lovely and talented Myana over at DeviantArt has been doing a fascinating series of artisan interviews. I am so flattered to have been chosen as one of those interviewed.
The article was published a while ago but I got so wrapped up in orders I forgot to post a link until now.
Read the interview at DeviantArt.com
White Christmas 07JAN09
Happy New Year Everyone!
I hope the Holidays were great for everyone. I had an absolutely wonderful Christmas. I didn't do anything special but I was just in a superb mood.
We had a white Christmas here in the Southern California desert! I have seen snow here a few times in the decade I have lived here but never before Christmas and never this much. I was a bit surprised when I opened the blinds in the morning and saw tundra LOL!
Usually I work on holidays, not out of disrespect or anything but rather because they always seem to be very productive days in the shop. The storms this year caused a number of power outages and collapsed one of my porches, a few water pipes broke and, unrelated to the storm, I had a small electrical fire. It was a mess but, in a weird way, it was kinda a nice distraction from the daily armour grind :)
After all the pressing things were finished and the power came back on I cooked myself a rather unorthodox but good Holiday dinner and listened to Christmas Music. I wanted to watch A Wonderful Life and Christmas Story but I don't have them on DVD. However, I did have Groundhog Day... Not exactly a holiday classic but still along those lines and a very good movie in my opinion.
When I was able to get the car out I went for a drive and snapped a few photos from atop a nearby hill. The view was surreal... It looked like I was living on Hoth hehe. Here are some of the pictures.
With all this excitement I have fallen way behind on email. I think I still have 161 of you to reply to and I hope to get caught up soon. If you haven't received a reply yet please know that you are all important to me and I not dismissing your interest and questions.
Breastplate VS Atlatl. 21SEP08
The good people at Half Yard Productions purchased a cuirass of mine to test against the Aztec Atlatl for their television show Weapon Masters. I haven't personally yet seen the episode and am anxious to see how the breastplate stands up.
From what I've read this test has stirred up a bit of controversy in the Atlatl community. I will post more in response here and in the Atlatl forums after the show airs.
The episode airs tonight, 21 Sep 2008 at 9:00pm on The Military Channel.
Updating Website. 10AUG08
I am learning a lot while revamping the website. After trying out a bunch of content management and WYSIWYG HTML editors I have given up on them for now as they all seem to generate bloated code. So I have decided to stick with hand coding. I am pretty slow at this but eventually I should have the site looking a bit better and make it easier update. Hopefully soon I will be able to spend this time writing more Armour tutorials and making 3d freebies.
On the armour front things are selling faster than I can make them. I have a ton of custom orders I am working on but I am trying to set asside a little time each week for stock items. I should have a few stock helmets and some Gothic arms finished next week.
Armour Video Page Added. 18JUL08
For several years I have been planning on filming armour related short videos for the site. To start things off I uploaded a totally self absorbing short movie
of the Heroes and Villains Joust show which I performed with for a season at the Bristol Renaissance Faire.
In the near future I hope to produce more videos about arms and armour including some short tutorials.
Connection problems. 05JUN08
My internet connection continues to get worse and actually went out for the better part of 2 weeks. I am able to check sales and such through various other means but I am backed up pretty bad on emails.
I have been spending extra time in the mornings and evenings trying to get back to everyone but still have quite a few to get to. My apologies to everyone.
Since my connection was moderately fast this morning I took the opportunity to upload a 3d tutorial video I made a while back. It is about making anaglyph 3d images with free software and you can see it on my movie page in the 3d section of this site along with a few sample 3d images. It is also available on YouTube in Comment-O-Vision ;) in the hopes of making it a little more entertaining. You can see that version on My YouTube Channel.
Getting things done. 23APR08
Well it has been a hectic couple of months but things are getting crossed off the "to do" list. I'm still overwhelmed but I'm making headway and starting to feel a lot more creative again. I am still not taking new orders at this time but will definitely try to get a few more stock items finished. The showroom is looking pretty barren hehe.
added a few more free 3d models for download which can be found here. I updated a number of the pages on the website mainly to touch up messy code. The changes aren't too noticeable. I have some plans for the site that I am very excited about but I expect it will be a few more months before I get a chance to implement them. Those changes will definitely be apparent :) My site got switched over to a new server (same host) which went with a few minor glitches but I do know that service was hit and miss there for a few days. My apologies if some people got "Server timed out" messages earlier this month.
This is rare for me but I actually took a few days away from the shop and went out to the Southern California Renaissance Faire. I had a great time! I am expecting to be out there many of the remaining weekends helping some of my regular customers with their show. Feel free to say "hi" if you happen to see me. My apologies in advance If I appear kinda loopy... it is just the 100+ degree heat cooking me in my armour LOL!
New Section Added. 22JAN08
I am very excited to add a new section to the website. www.ageofarmour.com/3d. This
Isn't directly armour related but is a hobby of mine that I though others may be interested in too. I don't have much time to
put into it at the moment with everything going on but I hope to have some more free armour related 3d models in the future.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
Merry Christmas! 24DEC07
Something about Christmas that makes us reflect on our lives and those that have affected us. I don't think I can convey how much all of you mean to me. So many of you have given me the ability to have a dream life of creating. I thank you from the bottom heart. Merry Christmas.
New Email address. 18OCT07
I just became aware that some email messages were not being recieved by me. This is a temporary side effect of the site being prepped for transfer to a new server. I decided to set up a new email address at gmail to take up the slack durring the transfer but I may just keep it active as my primary address even after the server transfer because Gmail appears to have superior spam filtering. The New email address is posted on the Contact page.
Expect delays. 15OCT07
Unfortunately, just this week, I have decided to abandon the site update. I am completely overwhelmed trying to keep up with work and manage various other events. I have been selected for jury duty while at the same time trying to finish the probate after my father passed away and also working with police in an attempt to recover some of my armour which was stolen by 2 unscrupulous customers. I am unsure how long the jury duty will last but the court clerk is insinuating that it may be quite a long drawn out trial. Now with having to delay the delivery of orders until after my jury service I feel I have no choice but to close down the shop indefinitely.
It is possible that the situation will change. The trial for which I have been selected as a juror may end before it begins with a plea bargain. The attorney who is handling my fathers probate is working hard to to try to get some of the government fees waved as the court fees alone are more than I make in an average year. I try to keep hope that things will work out in a way that allows me to keep the shop up and running. Things always do seem to work out somehow :)
After all these issues are resolved I will have to reassess whether or not I can continue as an armourer or if I should pursue another line of work. I have more potential orders than I can ever handle but the difficulties associated with maintaining a one man, custom order business simply makes it unprofitable. In either event I will most likely continue to make armour as a hobby and I intend to write more tutorials.
I will continue to work nights and weekends on current orders while on jury duty but I will not be taking any new custom orders. All in stock items are still available though they may take a bit longer for me to process and ship than usual. I expect more along the lines of 5 days to process shipping rather than 2. Please forgive me but I may be slow to respond to email for a while.
Thank you all for your support and understanding.
About the armourer. 28SEP07
I have always felt the site should be about the armour not the armourer but a lot of people have been asking about me so here it is :)
I’m William Hurt the owner operator of ageofarmour.com. Some of you may know me as “Cory”, my nickname. Why the change? Well, my bank and all the various government agencies one must deal with when doing business scoff at nicknames. If your not my bank manager or from the IRS etc. you may call me by what ever name makes you happy hehe. I respond to William, Cory, “hey bangin’-on-metal-dude!” and whatnot. I have even been called “Mr. President” and “Elvis” but that’s another story.
I began making armour in 1990 or there about. I started with chainmail but got the bug to try plate armour shortly after. I made a Halloween costume out of aluminum roofing and modified a snow disk for the breastplate. It wasn’t too pretty hehe.
Well, a few years later I was planning on proposing to my girlfriend and I thought doing so in shining armour might just help add to my chances that she would say yes. Of course proposing while wearing a snow sled may have the opposite effect so I decided to hunt down a real proper suit of armour.
It turned out that armour wasn’t very easy to find so I decided to just make it myself. I thought “How hard can it be?” Well… 2 years later I was still working on that suit. My beloved and I broke up shortly before I got the suit finished but I had found a new love in making armour. Before I knew it I was a full time armourer.
I pretty much eat, sleep and breath armour though I do have a few other hobbies. I like to do programing and web design though I am pretty rusty at both. Lately I have been doing 3d modeling in my spare time. When I was a teenager I really wanted to be a filmmaker. I would have never guessed that I would grow up to be an armourer. Fortunately, making armour has kept me doing some work in the film industry from time to time.
I have jousted a bit here and there. I had the best time of my life working with Heroes and Villains as the Knight “Don Diego” at the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin. I want to thank Bill Birch, long time customer and then manager of H&V for giving me that wonderful opportunity.
Thanks to all my customers who have given me the ability to have such a great job!
Finally Getting the Updates Uploaded. 24SEP07
Well... Armourers aren't known for being speedy.
I finally got around to updating the website or, at least, starting to upload the new changes. I have rebuilt the site probably 4 times locally for testing but each build had some unsurmountable hurdle. The last version I was pretty happy with but I just couldn't get it to look right in all browsers. Some of the discrepancies were hardly noticeable in all browsers except for Internet Explorer. IE seems to like to do its own thing for CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).
The previous version of the site used tables for its layout. Tables are very outdated and make it pretty much impossible to make site-wide layout changes without manually editing the code of every single page of the website. Using tables for layout is also a bad idea as it makes viewing from portable media difficult and isn’t very friendly to navigate for the blind. Tables also use a lot of messy code that can be replaced by by CSS. The good thing about tables, and why I have used them for so long, is that they appear the same in just about every browser without using any “work arounds”.
It was time I moved my code into the 21st century and used 100% CSS for Age of Armour's layout. By using Cascading Style Sheets I can change one file and instantly have every page on the site update. This site has been using CSS for all the colours, fonts and such going back years but not for layout. I think I finally found a nice tableless solution that will work the same in most browsers though it still does look the best in something OTHER THAN Internet Explorer. Now that CSS is (or will be soon) determining the site layout I should be able to spend more time with graphics and content instead of digging through the HTML code.
As of the time of this writing I still need to upload the new site and debug any glitches which may take a few weeks. The site may not look much different after all the changes are finished but it should be MUCH easier to update from then on.
Thanks for visiting the site and I hope you like the changes. If you have any trouble viewing the site or have any suggestions that you would like to see please let me know.
William
