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at Tudor Forge
November 15, 2008
Our concluding demo meeting/hammer-in for the year will be at Tudor Forge in Magnolia on Saturday November 15. Bring your forge and tools. HABA will supply the materials!One of the holiday decorations to be worked on is a hook nicely wrapped in a bow, to be demoed by Dave Koenig.
More details to be published soon. Until then, please visit our May Demo web site for directions and typical agenda.
HABA at ABNC Martyn Farm Fall Festival Nov 8 & 9
HABA was at Armand Bayou Nature Center Martyn Farm Fall Festival on Saturday, & Sunday, November 8-9. HABA was in the wood shop providing demonstration of the blacksmithing craft. If you can help out next time we are there please send Les Cook a note.
HABA 'Smithing in Texas at Barrington Living History Farm October 25-26
On October 25 and 26, Barrington Living History Farm is inviting HABA members to the farm for a weekend of forging. Several years ago the farm asked HABA to consider building a steel harrow the team of oxen can pull to till the garden. In the past, several HABA members showed up to make or repair whatever was needed. It is always an enjoyable weekend for the members and the public who stop by to see what is being built.For more information about helping out at Barrington, call Les Cook.
Please visit our page for last years event for directions and information about the Farm at “Smithing in Texas” 2007. Photos from the 2008 weekend event are posted on our Flickr site HABA Smiths in Texas at WOB.
HABA at Bayou City Art Fest October 18-19
Houston Arts Alliance requested HABA for a two day demonstration on Saturday, October 18, 2008, through Sunday, October 19, 2008 as part of Bayou City Art Festival-Downtown in the Houston Arts Alliance Artist Tent. Demonstrations are scheduled for 10:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m. each day. We will be located in the Sam Houston Park area around Bagby and McKinney.
Please contact Les Cook if you can help out.
Photos are posted on our Flickr page at HABA downtown at BCAF .
HABA Forge Fest to feature Bob Alexander October 4 in Oldenburg is CANCELED
We regret we have little choice but to CANCEL the Bob Alexander Demo at our Fall Forge Fest.
At this time we have canceled the formal event due to bad boy IKE the light weight hurricane. Some members may be found there having an informal weekend of forging, but no special arrangements will be provided. Call him Lite Hike if you will, but he has left a big mess behind that we are all working to cleanup and help our neighbors with.
So for now, we are planning to have Bob come back in the Spring for our Annual Blacksmith Round Up in Oldenburg. More news will follow soon.
Plan now to attend the HABA Blacksmith Round Up in Oldenburg first weekend of April. We will feature Bob Alexander from Desoto, Missouri as our day long demonstrator on Saturday April 3-5, 2009!
Bob is an instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School where he teaches Traditional Chest and Hardware and Flowers in Metal and assists Jerry Darnell in Colonial Lighting and Hardware. Bob also teaches regularly at New England School of Metalsmithing.
Bob opened a shop in 1995 offering clients work from colonial to contemporary. He has studied with Clay Spencer, Doug Hendrickson, Jerry Darnell, Tom Clark, Uri Hofi, Joe Miller, and other renowned smiths.
More news is posted on our web page for the event Fall Forge Fest 2008.
Blacksmith Family Day at The Pearl
HABA participated in the The Pearl's Family Day on Saturday September 27 . Dave Koenig, Bob Hensley and Richard Boswell provided smithming demonstrations all the day.
The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts reopened Saturday, September 27 just in time for the Blacksmithing Family Day. Free admission was offered for both the Family Day on Saturday and on Sunday, September 28 to celebrate the reopening of the museum.
The museum suffered no major damage due to the storm, but remained closed last week because of the power outage. The African Gold exhibition was moved to an art storage facility prior to the storm where it remained until the power was restored to the area.
Our web page with information about the exhibit is at HABA Metal Worked. Photos of the Exhibit and Family Day are presented on our FLICKR page at The Pearl Metal Worked Art Show
IKE Blew HABA Schedules
As we all know, Hurricane IKE came to town on Sept 12/13, and caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people.
Our HABA schedule is disrupted for now as we clean up and help our neighbors with the mess, and maybe get some rest. Please stay tuned to this station for the most recent updates on our plans.
Remember to work safely when cutting trees, and wear a hard hat. Stay hydrated.
Hardware Workshop Hammer-In
September 20 at ABNC in Pasadena was CANCELED
This month HABA was headed to Armand Bayou for a hands on ‘Hammer- In’ on Saturday September 20. Last year Dave Koenig, Tee Hines and Les Cook demonstrated a few of the many different types of structural and decorative “Joinery”. We were also there for a work day in September of 2006 , and we return this year for a regular hammer-in style meeting. Steve Arial will lead the workshop.
HABA Chilled with Chain Maille at Kleb Nature Center
Every year about this time, we realize the outdoor venue for a demo gets to be challenging for all, so we will work indoors on a special group project to create a new HABA Banner using chain maille. On August 16 we gathered at the Kleb Nature Center Conference Room for the day (20301 Mueschke Road west and south of Tomball). HABA Chilled with Chain Maille at Kleb Nature Center led by Richard Myers from Corpus Christi and his brother Joe Myers of Dayton in the assembly of patches of chain maille into a handsome HABA Banner that will be more weather resistant than our first edition. You have seen this in the movies, and now you can make it yourself or become a better informed purchaser!
Chain maille is a simple construction of metal rings weaved into a garment used for personal protection since antiquity by many diverse cultures aroud the world. Using different metals, the weaved panel becomes an object of art.
Participants will see a live demo of making maille links from wire, and then assembly to a fabric. To facillitate our project, we will have a bucket of pre-cut links to use for assembly. The banner will be mostly steel links, with brass features to spell HABA and an anvil.
Please join us on Saturday Aug 16 at the Kleb Park, and tour the facillities as well. Our previous meeting and visit are available on our Flickr Photo site.
This announcement contains numerous hyper-links to sites of additional information. Try them out by clicking the underlined words. Enjoy!
Our web page for this meeting is HABA Chain Maille Banner.
Photos are available on our Flickr web site at HABA Maille.
HABA's new Reading Digest
HABA is still seeking a Editor/Publisher for The HABA Letter which preceded this web site. The Archives are still available online, and they have a wealth of information beyond meeting announcements.
To help fill the gap until the return of a newsletter, Board Member Bob Hensley took a collection of Newsletters mailed from other ABANA Affiliate blacksmithing groups, and scanned selected articles for your review online. Several of these have already been re-cycled from the original published newsletters.
If you would like to help out in this effort, please send a note with your scanned (pdf) article and we can expand this collection for your educational use.
Look for the link on the left side of our main page or click HABA Reading Digest.
Metal Worked Art Show Artist Reception was 8-8-08
The Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts hosted a Meet the Metal Worked Artists Reception on Friday, August 8th from 6-8 pm. The event was free and open to the public, and 160 people attended for a fun evening of fellowship.
Members of the Houston Area Blacksmith's Association (HABA) and the Houston Metal Arts Guild (HMAG) were invited to show their work as part of an educational program in association with the new Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts in Spring, TX at 6815 Cypresswood Drive. The Pearl Museum opened in March of 2008 and is a new concept for museums.
The purpose of Metal Worked is to demonstrate the connection of the forging craft as expressed by jewelers and blacksmiths from precious metals through iron and steel.
Members submitted their own works and those that have inspired them.
This second show of the Pearl Museum opens Saturday July 26. This show will be African gold from the Glassell Collection on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. This is a 14 week show where HABA and HMAG members have an opportunity to display their work in a focus gallery directly behind the main gallery.
Previews of the dual show suggest adjectives like "magnificent" ..... what else can be said? Please see this inspirational show and realize what we can do as blacksmiths locally and regionally, and what we can continue to do.
Our web page with latest news and information is at HABA Metal Worked.
The first African Gold Family Day was Saturday, August 2nd from 10am-5pm featuring HMAG demonstrations.
HABA will have a Family Day on Saturday September 13. Join us for unique art workshops and artist demonstrations throughout the day. Free admission to the Museum all day.
Balcones Summer Demo featured Bill Bastas July 26
Bill Bastas demonstrated for Balcones Summer Demo this year and they invited all the Houston folks to come up for it. Admission is free, just like every year.
It will be at John Crouchet's place on Saturday, July 26th from 9:00 until 2 or 3, depending on how much people want to leave! It may feature excellent barbeque from Pete Mesquite for lunch.
More info at the Balcones website later this month, including a map and directions for those who don't know how to get there...........
And more News from Balcones.....Terry Ross was featured in the recent ABANA "Hammers Blow" with an article on his drawing software package designed for and by blacksmiths. You can down load this free and useful software from his website at Metalwork Design.
HABA Nailing at Kleb Nature Center July 19
The July HABA meeting was at Kleb Nature Center located at 20301 Mueschke Road near Tomball but the parking lot and Nature Center are off of Draper Road. Just follow the County, Precinct 3 signs from Mueschke Road. Someone will point you in the right direction from the parking lot. Here is the County's map link. Directions to the Nature Center from where you live are available from this link.
There are two reasons for having the July meeting at the Kleb Woods Nature Center.
The first is that the Kleb Nature Center MAY be a new home for HABA. As some of you who attended meetings this year may already know, HABA and Precinct 3 have been talking. The conversation is about Precinct 3 providing a site for HABA to meet and HABA providing forging demonstrations to the public. There is too much to say about the opportunity here so come to the meeting and get up to date on this project.
The second reason for coming to the meeting is that HABA will begin making nails. If HABA and the Precinct 3 sign a contract, the first order of business will be to make nails to finish HABA's new home. The new home would be a farm blacksmith shop in the Kleb's barn. So it seems most fitting that HABA members need to learn how to make nails and what better place to learn than where the nails will be used.
Photos from a brief visit to the Farm last month are posted at our Flickr site Kleb Visit. Photos from the July meeting are posted at Kleb Demo Meeting.
More news is posted on on our web page HABA Nailing at Kleb. And, here is a HABA handout for download.
Mid Year Update
Special News: HABA is trying out a Flickr site for posting our photos. There are Sets which comprise Collections. The Collection will represent a meeting demo, and the Sets will be the various themes and submitters. You can view the photos in several formats including details, singular views, the whole photo stream, and slideshows. Try this out and tell us what you think of it. Go to HABA Photos.
Be sure to check the photos of recent Bayou Bend Summer Camp! Thenks got to Dave Koenig, Tee Hines, and Les Cook for providing these kids a unique learning opportunity!
The front page begins to get rather long at mid year, so the previous front page for the first six months of 2008 is now placed at Meetings 2008
HABA Meeting Photos are now on FLICKR
HABA is trying out a Flickr site for posting our photos. There are Sets which comprise Collections. The Collection will represent a meeting demo, and the Sets will be the various themes and submitters. You can view the photos in several formats including details, singular views, the whole photo stream, and slideshows. Try this out and tell us what you think of it. Go to HABA Photos.
HABA Pot Rack Hammer-In at Bucksnort Forge in Magnolia was June 21
Tee Hines provided an outstanding demo of forging a wall mount Pot Rack with numerous variations of finial.
We exercised and extended some of the techniques we’ve learned through ABANA's “Controlled Hand Forging” program. ‘Forging a Shoulder’, ‘Forging a Fishtail’ and ‘Splitting’ are a few techniques used and were demoed at our
Spring Blacksmith Round Up. Tee also demoed forged hooks that can be either riveted to the rack or used as adjustable hooks.
A flyer announcement with photos is available to download at Tee's Pot Rack and a meeting web page is posted at Tee Pot Rack.
Photos are at our Flickr page for the Pot Rack Event.
Internet Technology for the Blacksmith
Several websites have been brought to our attention that push the educational frontier further along by bringing it closer and within reach of many who want to learn the skillls and techniques we admire and seek. This HABA website for instance, is simple, almost primitive by today's standards, but is still useful for our Membership. As our computers continue their evolutionary path of increased performance, we can find content that was once not so easy to view. Our Flickr photo site is an example. Another popular technology being deployed is You Tube where we can find educational videos at no cost such as the ones listed below submitted by California Blacksmith Mark Asperry as part of his Smithing School. Once you get there in You Tube, many similar video choices will be offered. And you can search for more on any topic you choose.
- Blacksmithing Forge-welding a branch
- Blacksmithing power hammer making closed die ball tool
- The Forged Acanthus Leaf
Several more have been suggested as worth your attention...
HABA Training Progression
One of the most important tools provided by HABA to the Membership is education, and this is offered in an organized structure within the HABA Training Progression. Steve Arial has volunteered to Chair the committee overseeing this program and welcomes your participation. The document has been revised to print easily and is presently in review for updating by the HABA Board. You may download the current Draft Version and use this to guide your activities and set your goals for the next year. Select either TP-Word or TP-pdf for downloading.
The Progression is defined as four levels commonly recognized within the art:
- I. Introduction
- II. Basic
- III. Intermediate
- IV. Advanced
At the conclusion of each phase is a signature block for a designated HABA reviewer and date. When the Progression is complete, the HABA President will sign and date the document, and arrange for appropriate recognition of the Member.
HABA Calendar for 2008 is Online
It's the annual clean-up and revise season here in the web shop. If something seems put away too good please let your web feller know. Last year's meeting schedule and topics have been archived on our HABA 2007 Calendar page. The 2008 meeting schedule and topics are announced on our HABA 2008 Calendar page which will be updated as often as possible. We hope you can attend and contribute to each meeting demonstration.
This front page of meetings announcement was trimmed back in December, and the complete listing for all of 2007 is still available at HABA 2007. Each of these sites contain links to each summary, photos, and announcement page we published for your convenience.
Membership
Please Join and be a part of HABA today to receive the current Newsletter ! Contact Ed Malmgren for the latest information. To receive your Family Membership Card or to update your records please send Ed an email with a Membership Application.
Annual Memberships are due at start of the year! Click Family Membership Form to download a pdf of the application.
Family Membership for 2008 are still only $20. Special offers are available for the 3 and 5 year Memberships. See the Membership page and ask Ed about these for 2008!
Thanks for your continued support!
HABA Events Calendar for 2008
Please visit our Calendar for details. HABA Monthly Demo Meetings shown in bold.
- January 19, 2008 -
Annual Knife Workshop with Cowboy Szymanski in Bellville, Texas
- February 16 -
Bowls and Vessel Making Hammer-In with Dave Koenig at Components in Houston
- March 1-2 - Barrington Farm Texas Independence Day Demo
- March 8-9 - LAMA's Conference "Banging On the Bayou " at Beaver Park in Lafayette, LA.
- March 15 - Tong Making Hammer-In with Tee Hines in Magnolia
- March 29-30 - Balcones Bluebonnet Workshop
- April 4-6 -
Spring Blacksmith Roundup at Oldenburg
- April 19 -
Magnolia Depot Day in Magnolia, Texas
- May 10 -
Guido Schindler at Tudor Forge in Magnolia
- June 21 -
Forging a Pot Rack
- July 19 - Nailing with Dave Koenig at Kleb Nature Center
- August 16 - HABA Maille Project at Kleb Nature Center
- September 13- Blacksmithing Family Day at The Pearl Fincher MFA in Spring
- September 20 - Hardware at Armand Bayou
- October 3/5 -
Fall Forge Fest at Oldenburg featuring Bob Alexander
- October 13/14 - Saltfork Craftsmen Blacksmith Conference
- October 25/26 -
Barrington Living History Farm "Smithing in Texas"
- Nov -
Spanish Tracks and Trails at Goliad
- Nov 15 - Holiday Decorations and Gifts at Tudor Forge in Magnolia
- Dec - Happy Hammer Holidays !
Notes about this Website This website is Under Development and will continue to evolve for HABA Members.
The use any of the material from this site is at your own risk. All persons associated with this material disclaim any responsibility or liability for damages or injuries resulting from the use or application of this information. They assume no responsibility or liability for the accuracy, fitness, proper design, safety or safe use of any information presented here.
The webmaster's spellerchecker does not always work and your tolerance for those items not caught and fixed has been and will continue to be appreciated!
Please send all feedback/correction/omission/suggestions to your webmaster, Richard Boswell .
Enjoy!
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Last updates were on November 12, 2008
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