Well, I am rested enough from a three day crafts fair...

[beammeupscotty]

to write a bit on how it went.  Originally I had intended to sell at the November Treasure Island Flea Market.  This is a rather unusual once a month event with a mix of about 25 to 30 percent crafts and the balance actual flea market stuff albeit, really good quality stuff.  It was supposed to be a rain or shine event and I put all my spare time for the previous six weeks into producing items for sale.  All the reports I had from other crafts people who sell there indicated that the November event, the last before Xmas, was huge, by far the biggest sales day for all the crafts people who sell there.  Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the organizers decided to cancel their "rain or shine" event, ostensibly because of rain,  leaving hundreds of vendors with no where to sell that weekend, and for those who only intended to sell at a single holiday event (like myself), no where to sell at all.  Needless to say I was xxxxxx, especially when they emailed all the vendors to tell them there would be no refunds and that everyone had to do the January show instead, probably the WORST one of the year.  After I raised XXXXXX xxxx they finally agreed to refund my money and I started looking for another event to sell the roughly 100 bottle openers I have made up.  I raised such a fuss, I doubt they will let me take a space at a later show.

 

The only place I could find that was of any size at all (sixty vendors), was local and would accept me at that late date was in Lafayette, a fairly wealthy suburban town about 25 miles east of San Francisco.  It was a 3 day event that operated at their community center in sort of a weird way (I won't bother going into that)  but beggars can't be choosers so I committed to do the show.  

 

When I arrived to set up Friday morning I was immediately concerned because pretty much everyone selling there was either a middle aged woman or grandma type of crafter.  Now mind you, I have nothing at all against these people or the crafts they make but their dominance of this show suggested to me that I was in the wrong place to sell my metal work. Lots of soaps and smelly stuff, things made from fabric, things made from cloths pins... you know what I am talking about.   As I wandered around the show however, I began to realize that although the work on display was aimed at a different audience than I thought my work was intended to reach, much of these lady's work was of the highest order of skill.  Really nicely made stuff by really nice people.  I was the ONLY male craftsperson at the show.  

 

To my great surprise, when I totaled things up at the end of the day Sunday, I realized that I had managed to sell $1100.00 worth of bottle openers.  I had other, more expensive things to offer as well, but although I got very positive feedback on all of it, No one wanted to drop $350.00 on a sculpture, however nice it looked.  They were however, willing to spend between $26.00 and $67.00 on a nice, hand forged bottle opener and the bulk of the openers I sold were in the $40.00 to $50.00 price range.

 

I have to admit that I really love selling my work.  I love talking to people, trying to figure out who was really interested in buying and who was not, who was shopping for them self and who was shopping for someone else.  I had several customers buy two openers and one guy bought three.   The most entertaining encounter was when a 75 year old lady came up and started looking intently at my wares.  I approached her with my usual opening question for someone of that gender and age..."Do you have a craft beer drinker in the family"?  She looked at me with a bit of a twinkle in her eye and responded, "Yes, me"!  Then she picked out a $50.00 opener and bought it.

 

All things considered I am very happy with the results.  A small show like this would probably not be worth the time of a professional smith... certainly my sales would not be enough to satisfy a pro, but as a hobby smith who was intent mainly on making enough to rebuild my propane forge with commercially made burners  and new insulation, I think I did pretty well.  In addition to rebuilding my larger propane forge I wanted to also build a new, smaller and lighter one that can more easily be transported so I can begin to do some demonstrations.  I had previously met the gentleman trying to keep the industrial arts program alive at one local high school and who wanted me to come and do a demo for his classes and at this show I met another gentleman tackling the same problem at another high school who also wanted to have me do a demonstration for his students.  It looks now like I will be ready to do that in another couple of weeks.

 

I am going to use a 1" hybridburner for my larger forge and a Z burner for the smaller one.  I am quite interested in seeing how they compare because Rex's burner is more than twice the price of the Z burner.  Both forges will be constructed the same, in cylinder format with 2" of identical insulation and the larger is just about twice the size of the smaller... about 650 cu. inches vs about 350 cu. inches.  I will write something up comparing them once they are both complete.

 

 

Hopefully you will read the Terms of Service before you post that write up, the parts about acceptable language would be very nice

[VaughnT]

I think sales like that would be very nice for a pro smith.  If you factor in the amount of time you actually spent forging the openers, I dare to guess you don't have more than 80 hours of actual smithing time in the game; you just spread it out over six weeks.

 

And once you get bigger reputation in the area, you'll be able to sell those bigger ticket items.

 

Congrats!

[DSW]

Nice. If you have any picts of what sold well I'd love to see what you made. Sadly no way around here I could get $25 for an opener, let alone more.

[njanvilman]

Perhaps  a 'Craft Beer Festival' with multiple breweries presenting their product would be a great place to sell your openers.  If you ever do an outdoor festival that will allow you to demo and make the product, I am sure sales will increase.  Congrats on your sales.

[SpankySmith]

Thanks for the report, I love hearing these.  Congrats on a good sale but I agree with the other poster, no way you could get $25 on an opener in these parts!  Any pics of the show and of the openers?

[beammeupscotty]

Here are some of the sorts of openers I was selling.  I found the keychain openers sold better than any others, likely because they were the least expensive but they only accounted for about 25% of sales. 

 

 njanvilman:  Craft beer festivals is where I normally sell these things but there are no more until the spring in this part of the country. I did one in May where they liked my openers so much they waived the $250.00 booth fee and I sold $650.00 worth in 4 hours.   There are a lot of beer geeks here in the Bay Area and the income level is pretty high.  I was just surprised to find so many at a crafts fair like this one which mostly catered to older women.

 

VaugnT:  Really, my comment on a professional smith's sales expectations are actually pretty accurate. An opener that I spend an hour on I get about $40.00 for.  After you figure in materials, fuel, the cost of the show and the hours I spend selling them, I probably make less than $10.00 an hour.  

 

DSW:  You might be surprised at what you can get for a bottle opener, assuming it is professionally made and depending on who you are trying to sell it to.  I always get a few people who are incredulous at the pricing but I still get plenty who are happy to plunk down $50.00 or even $65.00 for a unique opener. 

[Farmweld]

Lots of very well done openers there, doing all the QA testing must be difficult and time consuming!

[SpankySmith]

Very nice!  I have to confess I still really don't understand people buying bottle openers, since most are twist offs anymore, but hey, in a craft beer market apparently they're a big deal.  Those are some sweet openers, I'd be proud to own any one of them.  

[DSW]

Beautiful work. I can understand why you can get so much for some of those. Thanks for posting the picts.

[Crazy Ivan]

Those are awesome openers! On the ones with a textured pattern to them, were they finished over expanded sheet metal or did you forge weld expanded metal to them?

[01tundra]

Your leaves look wonderful.

 

Are you using a chisel to get the edges shaped like that and then a fuller for the veins?

[beammeupscotty]

Very nice!  I have to confess I still really don't understand people buying bottle openers, since most are twist offs anymore, but hey, in a craft beer market apparently they're a big deal.  Those are some sweet openers, I'd be proud to own any one of them.  

Craft beers never have twist offs.  They all require openers.  I have seen some of those craft beers in 22 oz. bottles going for $18.00 around here.  That's why there is a market for these openers. 

[beammeupscotty]

Those are awesome openers! On the ones with a textured pattern to them, were they finished over expanded sheet metal or did you forge weld expanded metal to them?

I posted info on that texture in the "Show me your bottle openers" thread... here:

 

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Mine is the last post on 17 and continues on 18.  Those are quite new openers for me as I have only been experimenting with textures for a few weeks but I think I sold about 9 of those openers at either $46.00 for the more simple ones to $50.00 for the ones with the finial ends.  I think though that I might only have sold the flat bottom ones at the show.

[beammeupscotty]

Lots of very well done openers there, doing all the QA testing must be difficult and time consuming!

Believe it or not, that is exactly what I do and as a result, I consume a lot more beer and hard cider than I probably should, but heck, we have to suffer for our craft, don't we?  

[beammeupscotty]

Your leaves look wonderful.

 

Are you using a chisel to get the edges shaped like that and then a fuller for the veins?

I use a guillotine tool with single bevel dies in it to get the serration, veining chisel for the veins and a fuller made from a small ball pein hammer for the rest.  A guillotine tool or a spring swage is a better way to do the edges because it does both at once and in more or less the same place and to the same depth on each edge.  I use the G2 guillotine tool.

[beammeupscotty]

Beautiful work. I can understand why you can get so much for some of those. Thanks for posting the picts.

Thanks.  The ones I get the highest prices for, usually around $65.00, are the ones with the leaf, hops cone or flower, the rubik's twists, the skulls and the dragons.   

[01tundra]

I'd like to see how you're doing that, I've had my G2 for six months and have yet to actually use it.

[beammeupscotty]

I'd like to see how you're doing that, I've had my G2 for six months and have yet to actually use it.

I find my G2 extremely useful though I hate the steel the stock dies are made of.  They mushroom on the hammering end very quickly and need to be heated up and forged flat again all the time.  I broke down and bought some 4140 in the right dimension, to solve this problem.  The  4140 dies hold up very well.  I harden them but do not temper.

[nonjic]

Wow, Great bottle openers !! At some point in the dim and distant future I'm considering doing a craft show / country show or two with my wife (who is getting into glass crafts) - stuff like this would be just the ticket ! thanks for posting.

[beammeupscotty]

Wow, Great bottle openers !! At some point in the dim and distant future I'm considering doing a craft show / country show or two with my wife (who is getting into glass crafts) - stuff like this would be just the ticket ! thanks for posting.

Craft shows are great fun if you are selling and really depressing if you are not.  I did a beer festival this year that was a 5 hour drive away, I had the expense of staying over night and I only sold a single bottle opener.  That sucked a lot.  Make sure you do some informal market testing before you commit.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Nice job on the last twisted ones.

Looks like the texturing hammer is working good.

Which show was the poor one?

[beammeupscotty]

Nice job on the last twisted ones.

Looks like the texturing hammer is working good.

Which show was the poor one?

If you are asking which show I sold only a single bottle opener at, it was the Hops in Humboldt beer festival back in August.   It was not a complete waste of time because I did my first two years of college up at Humboldt State and took the opportunity to check out the town (Arcata) and the campus, both of which are entirely changed since I left there in 1978.  

 

After I did the craft fair that this post is about, I also did another smaller affair locally in Pleasant Hill.  That one looked like it really was going to be a complete bust once I got there to see what was what, but I was lucky enough that some guy came by with his wife and bought 5 bottle openers at once for a total of $285.00.  I sold two more to two other shoppers and left there  a bit more than $300.00 richer, after subtracting the booth fee. It was only a 3 hour event with about 14 vendors.   The big spender must have thought there was something wrong with me because I was so shocked when he handed me 5 openers and asked me, "how much".   I just stood there with my mouth hanging open for several seconds before I could respond.  

 

The texturing hammer is indeed working very well for me.   I sold quite a few of the full sized openers with the texture. 

Also, before the first show, I took all of the keychain openers I had already made, 15 in all I think,  heated them up and textured them as well, though I did remove the scale on the keychain openers and heat color and wax them as is my normal finish on openers.  Between the two shows I sold all of them except one and I really think that texture was what made them sell so well.  I had offered them for sale before with just a peined texture around the perimeter of the opener and though they sold, I felt many people had trouble justifying the $25.00 price because they were so plain.  It is my feeling that nothing more than the texture, a process that takes about sixty seconds to do, is what elevated their look to the point that the price became less of an issue.

 

All in all I am super happy to have been able to do these two shows last minute.  I made far more money that I had hoped for and all the parts for my two forges are on their way.  I ended up not buying a Zoeller burner simply because after 3 days of trying, I couldn't get a hold of the proprietor.  I started looking again and found a burner made by Thermal Art Design that looked pretty good.  Unlike Zoeller, the owner, Jim Fox, responded to my email within 1/2 hour.  We emailed back and forth a couple times pinning down the configuration I needed, then he fired off a Paypal invoice to me which I paid on my phone and within another hour after I had paid I received an email indicating that the burner was already in the mail.  I think I did this on Thursday and I should have that burner on Monday.  Had I not already ordered a burner from Hybridburners I might just have gone with two of Jim's burners, but it will be interesting to compare the two of them.  

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

As I recall Humbolt is pretty small population wise, and known for growing something else. Pipes may have sold better :)

I used to work in Concord,and yes the Bay Area has a lot more people with disposable income than Humbolt. I took a big pay cut when I moved out of CA, but I can persue my car,gun,and smithing hobbies easier here where I have lots of space on my 2ac.

The texturing is probably helping with the perceived value of the openers. If some items looks too simple the customers think they are simple to make. With the texture it appears that more time was put into them. My frîends who are potters have this problem constantly.

What do booth fees average? Here they can be from $30-$500 depending on the event.

[beammeupscotty]

Booth fees are pretty much the same here.  The Lafayette show was $110.00 plus 15% of gross.  In the final analysis that will probably end up at about $260.00 for a three day event.  That was actually a pretty weird way to do a show but I think I actually liked it because the initial booth fee was reasonable and it only increased if you sold product.  The smaller show I did in Pleasant Hill was only $40.00.  Beer festivals are all over the map.  The first one I did last year in Martinez was $125.00 for a 5 hour event.  The one I did in Fairfield was supposed to be $250.00 but they waived it for me because I resisted the price and they wanted my openers in their event.  Fortuna was supposed to be $120.00 but they took a couple openers in exchange for the booth fee.  I developed the hops cone opener specifically for that event because it was the, "Hops in Humboldt" festival.  The Treasure Island Flea Market, which I did at the end of September is $152.00 for two days.

 

I don't have a car hobby but I have no problem pursuing my own smithing and gun hobbies here in Concord.  Most of my neighbors are either druggies or illegal immigrants, both groups unlikely to call the police because of noise or smoke, and having the USI range 10 minutes away makes it pretty easy to go out and shoot when I want to.  I used to be pretty heavy into Skeet and that is hard to do without a range nearby.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

I grew up in Fairfield. I had a friend with a vineyard 7 miles away with a 450 yard range out back. My firearms interest is mainly historical military which end up having features CA disapproves of, and it was getting tougher finding unmolested examples of some I wanted that also wouldn't run me afoul of the laws. The gunsmith I worked for was a past president of the ATA,and did his shooting at the Martinez gun club. It is the oldest trap range west of the Mississippi established in 1888 IIRC. Also the only international trap bunker on the West coast. I worked on everything from Perazzis to 870's with quite a few Model 12's tossed in the mix since they were Eldon's favorite.

Haven't done much shooting since the ammo prices went through the roof, but I still do some gunsmithing for coworkers and friends.

Smithing wasn't too bad, but new neighbors were causing issues by the time I moved. Out here I can pound away pretty much anytime I choose as most of the neighbors are 100 yards away.

Hmmmm, did't know Ol'Squarefield even had a beer festival. Las Vegas hosts several beer related events, I may have to inquire into them when they roll back through. The big arts and crafts fair is the Art in the Park held in Boulder City with around 400 vendors. It draws people in from several states.

Do you only use steel in your openers? Some appear to be bronze, or are those just oxide colors? I have been thinking about doing one with the beryllium alloy we use at work, then heat treating it.