[TheForge] ABANA conference

[Justin Fisher]

I've put up pictures from Nahum Hersom's demo of repousse.  Not great pictures, I'll admit, but you do get to see an example of the tooling that he was using.
Unlike the repousse I've done myself (using a supporting medium like pitch or wet sand), Hersom uses stakes and hammers.  He has made hundreds of stakes and hammers for this purpose, as the shape and size of the stake is critical to the effect on the metal, as is the relationship of the hammer face to the stake below.  Apparently this is a popular technique in Germany.  
 
I can't say about poorly organized, the parts I saw seemed to run OK.  I didn't sign up for the meal plan, but it looked like it was decent (if overpriced).  There were at least 1000 attendees, but the location was huge, so it didn't feel crowded.

Never got to eat oysters, or even drink beer (what was I thinking?).  The demos ran until pretty late, and all the demonstrators were willing to answer our endless questions.

As I get more pictures ready for the web I'll describe the other demos I saw.

--Justin Fisher
Massachusetts