[TheForge] History of The Forge/OT

[Dave Mudge]

Nice to hear from you Dave S,
We both know what a lot of work it can be to put together something
presentable. We are all familiar with your exceptional work and we are all
the better because of it. I'll bet that lots of TheForge members do the
exact same thing that you mentioned, keeping information files of things
that are of particular interest to them. I would be pretty easy for any of
them to put together a document. They could list the names of the people
that wrote an e-mail on whatever subject, then copy & paste the information
into the document. It could even be in the form of an e-mail. They could
then send that to their local 'chapter' editor or to HB or AR or me. Any one
of us would be overjoyed to get anything from a contributor. I think that
any of the editors or web masters would not mind turning the raw information
into a readable article. The volunteers wouldn't have to worry about
formatting or spelling. This could be great.

The suggested task is one that would be educational for the author and serve
the membership / viewers. If I weren't maintaining four web sites and doing
three jobs in my ABANA position as well as trying hard to eek out a living
as a full time artist/blacksmith, I would like to tackle this one. By the
way, I am not retired and I'm not making a dime off of any of the above
work. 

I look forward with great anticipation, to the arrival of your DC.

dave mudge
dave at magichammer.net
http://www.magichammer.net
http://www.metalsmithinghowto.com
 
-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of David E. Smucker
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 7:30 PM
To: Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: Re: [TheForge] History of The Forge/OT

Dave this is in fact a good idea -- but as you know lots of work.  I keep 
files of "theforge" items that are of interest to me and I think would make 
good information for newsletter articles and hope to have of them together 
in the next few years.  Writing articles -- even when using the "theforge" 
as a source takes a lot of time and effort.  I generate somewhere close to 
100 pages of original text and illustrations per year for the AACB 
newsletter and that is a lot of hours at the computer and drawing board.  It

works out to something like 6 hours per page.  (The time is well worth it 
from my view point and I hope to keep it up for a while yet.  There is no 
way I could do this if not for my "retired" status.)  I only wish that more 
of the newsletters could generate original material and that includes using 
the past, current and future issues of "theforge" for some of the 
information.  Sharing Blacksmithing information has been key to the "rebirth

of blacksmithing" and I think will continue to be so.

Dave Smucker

And I still owe you a CD.