Augmenting the cost of tools...

[RegionalChaos]

I've got the beard and mustache already.. I'm half way there!

[Thomas Dean]

Originally Posted by RegionalChaos

Thanks for the feed back guys. Its exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks!

Thomas, I'll have to brainstorm and come up with a business / forge / website name. RegionalChaos doesn't really work, and Chaos Forging isn't as professional sounding as I'd like, Eugene Ironworks is available as a domain name, but I'm planning on moving in a few years... I'll have to work on that one... I've thought about putting cards together but didn't want to until I was really ready to market stuff..

I'm not sure why you would want a website but will wait to put a business card together. I have no website, just the cards and I can't keep up right now. I am having to put off some folks til March or April due to my work load, (of couse, this is along with my day job ). I have a friend near Dallas that HAD a website, didn't get any work from it and had some unscrupulous smith using my friends site as his! needless to say he shut it down. (he didn't say what the other smith was doing now. ) IMO, the cards will get you all the work you can do, that is along with a "new baby, wife, 3 other kids and your day job".

[RegionalChaos]

Originally Posted by Thomas Dean

IMO, the cards will get you all the work you can do, that is along with a "new baby, wife, 3 other kids and your day job".

The web site appeals to me because I am computer savvy. My day job is as a programmer. It seems like with the web site I could set it up easy enough, and post pictures of inventory as I have it. Then I don't have to do much work, if people find the site and want something they can purchase it or contact me, etc.. I guess the work I would end up doing for that would be to promote the website.

I'll definitely put together a good card, but it still leaves me looking for a name. I guess with a card though I could just use my name, and not have a business name...

[HWooldridge]

Call yourself, "Form - Out of Chaos" (no charge for the name...:-)

I have a website and it has brought in most of my work - maybe 90%. Craft fairs didn't work for me and I never made more than $500-$600 over a weekend. I know three professional smiths who worked the craft show circuit and all made decent livings - however, they started in the late '70's and are now all doing something else. The plethora of hobbyists and pressure from overseas made it a losing effort for them. It might vary some from place to place but you will eventually get tired of people whispering "I can't believe he wants $10 for a steak flipper!" I now do mostly architectural work and have more than I can handle.

I also have a day job so BS work is part time but I am in the shop most every weekend and weeknights to 10:00 or so in all, I probably put in 20-30 hours blacksmithing and 45-50 in my day job so I don't loaf much. This year, I probably grossed about 12 grand so reckon I made about $10 an hour (I'd be quite broke if I did it fulltime). Of course, my total time includes designing, running for materials, job site visits, installations, etc. and I quote $50 an hour but it's obviously not enough. However, I get a lot of work and stay busy. I have been doing this part time for 25 years and don't plan to stop until I'm dead or feeble.

You need to decide where you want it to go. A hobby is just that - maybe sell something once in a while but no deadlines for the most part. Trying to make consistent income will require an exponential jump in equipment if you hope to get any throughput. You could also go the knife route but that too, will take time and effort to develop a style and loyal following. Decisions, decisions...

[Dutchmancreek]

If you can, get some work out where people can see it, not everyone goes to antique stores or decorator shops.

When a local "rustic" restaurant was installing a dining room with a large stone fireplace, I made them a fireplace tool and rack set to match. I gave it to the restaurant in trade for a custom dinner for my wife and I (yeah, I work for food). Other customers asked where the set came from and the chef always gave them my card. I've got a good bit of work from that one fireplace set. I also had another restaurant asking for a duplicate of the large hanging pot rack that I made for the kitchen, and it's not even in public view.

Also keep an eye out for an oportunity. I went by a winery and saw that they had a crappy small fireplace set (WalMart style) sitting on the hearth of a huge, beautiful fireplace. The next time I went by, I brought an example of a set that I made for a larger fireplace. Side by side with the cheap set, it was no comparison and they ended up with my set.

Steve

[Dutchmancreek]

Oh, I forgot...I've got a beard and moustache too. I actually look a bit like my avatar, except I think I have just a bit more hair. Gee, the jug fits right in too...hmmm.

Steve

[metalmangeler]

I do a number of craft shows, this is the best time of year to do them of course, sometimes we do quite well, also I do home shows if they allow dirrect sales (not all do) the State Fair can pan out also. I have never done the Ren. fairs but have heard they are good. the key is haveing a huge diversity of inventory and a lot of it. A lot of the times those shows that charge more are the ones that you want to be in if you have the stock to handle a large show. In the mean time you might want to do some of the smaller shows to find out about your market, what sells at one show is not nessisarily the hot item at the next. Anytime I do a show this time of year I try to have $10,000 worth of enventory on hand, you want to charge twice what you would be willing to sell wholesale for, as that is what a wholesale buyer would pay you and you are incuring those expences in marketing yourself.
I have tried the web site but so far it has not paid off I don't have your skills there so maybe it could. Customers at the shows like it as they can see some of the stuff or show it to their spouse. I just don't seem to get the new customer there.
This is a significant part of my income and it may not really be what you want to do as you can kill your hobbie and may never make what you do in your day job. On the other hand you could make more than you ever did.
Just some thoughts. Mark

[RegionalChaos]

Great feed back guys. I really appreciate it. It gives me a lot to think about.

Hollis, your site is great, and the suggestion for the name is definitely in the running!

[Dan OHare]

R.C.- Hmmm, you seem to be about where I am at on the road to becoming a blacksmith. Not quite at the start anymore but a long stretch yet ahead in the quest for attainment. If experience and deft ability could be had for cash on the barrelhead then we would soon be awash in "experts". Notice the trend in recent years of the boomer yuppie class such as lawyers, dentists, etc. ad nausea, who on the weekend don leather and invade the countryside on $30K Harleys pretending to be bikers. "Posers" is more like it. I am under no illusions that I can yet call myself a blacksmith. Certainly I would like to enter the arena of craft market vendors and here close to my home is a great open air market each sunday from May to October, some 500 tables and large crowds each Sunday. I am not ready for this but will be by the 2009 season. My wife and I are presently house shopping and realistically I don't think I can cram and get into gear for 2008. Where we now live, a rented farmhouse, a smithy in one of the outbuildings is out of the question, unfortunately so is adding a shed to the property ( increasing the landlord's property tax). My smithy is literally 'neath the spreading chestnut tree, really, an actual chestnut tree. Nice in mild weather but this is New York and I'm not ashamed to say I won't be out there much between now and spring. Of course if we find ourselves a house sooner than later then perhaps I could begin to amass an inventory of forged handiwork within my skill level and realistically priced to move at a flea market ( $20 or less per piece and capable of being carried of by a woman in one hand.) That is an idea I have been entertaining and sharing with you for quite some time now, building up an inventory over the winter, that is. The sooner we get moved and settled elsewhere in our own diggs, the sooner the new smithy goes up. Also, the sooner my skill level continues to advance on the learning curve and that is bought and paid for with time and sweat equity over an anvil.(Period.) Yes I belong to an abana local and attend the monthly meetings (an hour one way) but that is at best once a month so with the onset of cold nasty weather I am relegated to my meager library and my forge remains cold. I need a roof over my anvil! Cabin fever is one thing but cabin fever with a burning itch to continue forging is tough to take! So let's just say the wife and I get lucky and find a suitable house by let's say, February- and I can get a roof over my anvil by then. That gives me about three months to pile up some goodies for sale and I make the beginning of the 2008 season at the flea market and am there each Sunday from 7:00 a.m. when the throng arrives till at least noon when the crowds dwindle, for the whole season, 14 to 16 weeks. That amounts to at most a total of 80 hours of sales time. Could be good if I play my cards right, that is to say if I am offering items which catch the eye and not cause it to blink (wince?) at the price tag. I could be wrong here but my take on it is this- and I,m quoting from memory another members post on this forum from last year-which paralells my thinking, "The woman controls the pursestrings so appeal to her sense, not his", or words to that effect. I will offer small sized items of low price so it moves. I want to go there with iron and come home with cash, not iron. I won't be hauling any 4 ft. diameter chandeliers there or forty pound andirons that take hours to create at the furthest reach of my ability. Display some pics or a photo album maybe of larger wares. Of course I want to begin recouping some gains from my investments in tools and I am pushing myself to immprove my skills, but I am a realist and I know this comes with time. Also I believe in myself and am confident I can reach the lower end of the market with simple items well rendered. I have sunk some money into tools over the past few years and not yet earned a dime from it, the larger items were;
269 lb anvil, $65
114 lb anvil, free
125 lb anvil, $75
92 lb anvil, $230
cone (floor) mandrel, $500
large cast antique firepot, $25
champ 400 blowers (2) $50
champ 101 post drillpress, $75
6" heavy postvice, $90
6" heavy postvice, $50
4" postvice, free
a heap of hammers, tongs, $50 or so?
Plus I'm sure a lot of other little things I'm probably forgetting, not to mention the list of stuff I'm omitting specific to carriagebuilding and wheelwrighting, not directly specific to smithing which would no doubt double this sum, and then there have been the books, some of which weren't cheap. Also I can't omit the cost of the hundreds of pounds of coal I've sent up in smoke, some stock though most of what I heat & beat is skillfully had by scavenging (an art all its own) The time and gas going to sales and auctions for naught, coming home from the hunt without having made a fresh kill, and well, you get the picture- it's like putting a kid through college. That is exactly what I am doing though, investing in my future, but not strictly in that sense; I simply love blacksmithing. It's in my blood almost like I didn't have a choice, as if maybe I've done this before in another life. So yes, that is a pile of cash to have invested so far and I'm not lost on the fact that I've fallen into some sweet deals, but still, beginning to get something back out of it monetarily is going to be nice. So I persevere and do what I can to keep a haze of coalsmoke about my head and my nose at the anvil so I improve. I am and will continue until someday I might hear someone say of me " hey look at that blacksmith, he's pretty good at that". Maybe if that day ever does come I can silently think to myself "finally, I am a blacksmith". Dan.

[ApprenticeMan]

Buy tools that will help you make money, and when you have a bit extra buy the ones for fun.