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Written by Franklyn D. Garland
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Back in the day (mid to late 1990’s) Mark Williams put together a list of
metal craft related suppliers. It was freakin’ HUGE text file of nearly 1000
vendors for everything a metalsmith could want. Soup to nuts. The problem was
that this big text file was not “internet ready.”
So, I volunteered to help ABANA get the puppy up and running as a searchable
index on the ABANA website. I had no budgeted funds and nothing but a fist full
of perl scripts and some time but I managed to get it up and running. It was
simple, a bit kludgey, but it worked. A few years later ABANA hired a
consultant who put the whole thing in a database, but I still think my
home-rolled solution worked better.
Fast forward to 2008; I was searching through some old archived files and
came across the original files for the suppliers index. I have learned a lot
since then, so I decided that I would use this data as the seed for the “EAI”
or “Elektric Anvil Index.” A free index of any metal craft related vendor that
wants to list themselves as well as any metal artisan that wanted to list their
business. Free, dynamic and searchable.
I have just started entering the vendors and artisans I have on file, and
this will take me a while, but if you would like to add your company, a company
you patronize, or an artist that you would like to promote, please feel welcome
to do so!
Visit the Elektric Anvil Index (EIA) and let me know
what you think…
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Written by Jeffrey D. Knight
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I am not really certain when this article actually ran in the UMBA Journal, but the information is good so I felt I should include it here as part of the archive. Franklyn At the November 4th membership meeting, Frank Garland and I presented a brief demonstration of team striking, based upon the "Sledge" articles we co-authored, which have been running (unendingly?) in JUMBA (This acronym sounds a little pachydermish, but I like it!). This article serves as a footnote to the "Sledge" article regarding tools driven by the longhandles. This revision is largely due to the fact that the article series was penned over a year ago, and since that time, new challenges have arisen and solutions found. Central to the development of the tools used for the demo' was a deep conviction to cheap and easy production and an abiding belief that an ugly tool is beautiful if it does the job. |
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Written by Franklyn D. Garland
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I have an old friend, Brian, who on occasion passes along a little gem that is too good to not share. One of them, most recently, struck me as especially poignant given that we are marching headlong into a presidential election year. This years election is historic for more reasons than you shake a stick at and as each side trots out their ideology, shtick and double talk, this little gem from Texas A & M seemed most appropriate. |
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