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This is a new and exciting area that we here at Hilton Handcraft
of the Ozarks are entering into starting in 2008. Well, I say
"starting in 2008" but, really, we've already started. You
see, in our discussions with renfaire (that's a shortened version of
renaissance faire which we'll be using in order to save a little
typing from now on) event coordinators, performers, patrons and
other merchants over the past couple of months, we've already been
hard at work making mugs, tankards, goblets, weapons racks, unique
gifts, custom furniture and period wooden products of all sorts.
We think this will be quite an exciting new venture for us.
So, over time, you'll see this page fill up with news, articles,
pictures, videos, unique handmade products and all that you've
come to expect from the rest of our site.
- Enjoy!
Faire Event Coordinators
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Above is our basic workshop / demonstration setup with pole
lathe, shave horse and riving block/tools.
Obviously, overalls aren't ren-period but we're still working on
garb for the renaissance period.
The canvas tent has been taken down from the frame there in the back
in order to see the pole for the lathe too. |
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Currently, we're evaluating several faires and festivals here in the
midwestern USA in order to best present our products and demonstrations
to the renfaire community. That means a whole lot of traveling,
walking around fairegrounds, and talking with other vendors and event
coordinators. We've found many fantastic people and events.
It's tough to decide where we'd like to go in 2008 but we will be making
our decisions within a couple of more weeks. The renfaire community
has really responded to our products and how we make them! Since
we've been making inquiries on the web about various aspects of the
renfaire scene and letting people know what we do, we've had several
requests for goblets, tankards, custom furniture pieces and lots of
period items that we never knew even existed (but we're hard at
work researching those and will be making them over the coming weeks)!
We're even working with an award winning stage act to design and produce
a line of unique, handmade products for their company. Not bad at
all !
April, 2009
Please note that we will not be at the Greater St
Louis Renaissance Festival in Wentzville in the Spring.
Many people have called/emailed us about it and we couldn't get
things organized for this year. We are scheduled for a few
other faires, however, so ask us about where to find us.
October 15, 2008
We will be demonstrating our traditional craft
of Bodging (greenwood woodworking and general woods-land type of
living) at the Louisiana Renaissance Festival this coming
November. Come see us working hard and entertaining the
crowds for the 2nd (November 8-9) and 3rd (November 15-16)
weekends as well as the 3 student days between those weekends.
We'll have a very limited product selection there to sell but do
come on out and save on shipping for the fine handmade
furniture, art, kitchenware and ren-ware.
October 1, 2008
Here are some pictures from the Greater St
Louis RenFaire in Wentzville, MO from some online (and now
'off-line') friends of us and our booth setup. Thanks to
Lord & Lady Alberon!
(click the pictures for
larger versions)
August 1, 2008
What a busy and interesting Spring / Early
Summer in Renfest-land! We're done with traveling back in
time for awhile and trying to get everything cleaned up, dried
up and rested up. It looks like the summer months are
going to be very busy with filling orders accumulated over the
past few months along with seeing what we might be doing for the
Fall in Renfest-land. All of your orders have been saved,
copied and push-pinned to my workshop wall. I guarantee to
get them all done this summer ... just as soon as I get a little
sleep. <grin>
May 26, 2008
Here at the Greater St Louis RenFaire in
Wentzville, MO and we're wet. Lots of severe storms and
rain rain rain. Yep, it flooded the grounds here and
washed away a couple of vendors tents along with drenching
several others. There are deep ditches all over the lanes
and we were notified that faire is cancelled today (only).
As soon as we can get out of here (stranded on-site until the
water goes down), we're going to go home and prepare for next
weekend. Details and pictures
here.
February 25, 2008
The Spring season is almost upon us and we're
very excited about it. Our applications for the Spring
faires are in and we've received acceptances to all that we've
applied to (so far). It's looking like quite a busy time.
We're ramping up our production of items to take to faire right
now so that we'll have enough to last us until Summer comes ....
we hope. There's a couple of custom furniture orders still
out there that we'll have to finish up but, overall, we're going
to be working hard over the next month to get enough made.
Were we a bit overly ambitious in this new adventure? Time
will tell.
February 2nd, 2008
It's not exactly what we do daily, but we got to talking about
renaissance things the other day and decided to give building a
trebuchet (ancient siege weapon) a try. Well, here's our first
try at one. It's just made from scraps that we had lying
around and in no way an accurate or period-appropriate rendering of
one. But, it works amazingly well! The main
beam is 38" long with a long end of 30" and the short being 7.5".
The whole thing is about 2' tall. The projectile is a tennis
ball (about 2 ounces) and the counterweight is just lead shot (22
lbs). Getting the release point correct was quite tricky and
there's lots of adjustments to be made to fine-tune this thing.
As of today, we were consistently firing the tennis ball 80' (yes,
feet) and able to hit within a 2' circle each time. A
little fiddling with the release angle, and I think we can pick up
another 10 to 15 feet as the arc of the ball is a bit too high.
It's not going to knock down a castle wall, but it ain't bad,
either. Good fun.
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Renfaire related products for the patron or playtron in all of us.
Some of these items you'll be familiar with and some will be completely
unique that you've never seen for sale anywhere before. All
products on this page are as close to 'period' as we can make. If
not, we'll note that. In fact, most historical items are even
made in the same way with the same type of tools that they were made
back in the 1400's, 1500's and 1600's ! As always, if
there's something you'd like and don't see listed here ... doesn't mean
we don't make it. Just let us know what you're interested in, be
it a different style of something listed below or a completely different
product, and we can make it. No problem! |
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