youngdylan

keep it coming guy's. This thread is SO much more intersting than the nuances of hand cranked blowers and other obscure widgets

Interesting, I like it! If you're into air hammers it might be worth you looking at a thread I started recently about using a controlled pulse of air to give a one off controllable and repeatable blow with Kinyon style hammers. Guess this thread has made me realise what I'd built was a drop (+air) hammer

WOW!!! I'm not into making weapons myself (but totally respect the techniques/work involved). Almost want to now!. I've got a small pile of titanium from the days when you used to be able to roam free round scraps yards. Elf and Safety nazis more or less means its a no no now. LOVE titanium

Michael Am I getting totally the wrong end of the stick re your first post and rates? My workshop is microscopic Low overheads mean £50 (pounds UK) per hour is ok. Always try to get more, sometimes have to take less, occassionally super efficient on job and it will come out at much more but more often totally ***k up on estimating the time and this hurts. Hence always aiming for more than base rate. My biggest problem is I'm a one man band but 30 hours of billing work = 60+ hours of stuff to do with work. Getting older and it's beginning to wear me down. Need to employ soemone but this means much bigger workshop (+ b*** ache of moving). Will then have to cost much more per hour and keep a year in year out much higher turnover to pay for workshop-staff. Aaaaaarrrggghhhh! This is why I like the costing by "percieved value" approach but I've got to try to make my work "look expensive". Good portfolio and samples help, website/ printed material are ok-ish but out of date and badly need revamping. Why is there only 24 hours in a day. Perhaps I should stop getting distracted by this forum ... its a bottomless pit of time ....also wish I could swear more on it, love creative swearing, do you guys get "the thick of it" over there" (precursor to "in the loop") As an aside my website changed mylife. I used to basically just weld bars together using gluegun MIG welder, few months after putting up the website and I getting jobs from Ibiza, enquiries from Romania etc etc. Must find time to revamp it.

1973 I think, older versions are wonderfull but they've got a round headstock, can't leave even a single spanner on them. turrets rock! Even just a lever operated tailstock (without the quickchange tooling) is worth its weight in gold Over here we have things called Ward 3Bs (I think). Ancient old things with allsorts of production oriented slides, collets, quick changemulti tool holders etc. Seem to go for a pittance on ebay. Might get one when I upgrade to a dolls house, when the right job comes along it'll pay for itself in hours. If not, I've got a new toy.

Nice work Michael Wheels on the bench noted! I've got a thing about height and jib cranes. I'm humming and ha-ing about getting a bigger workshop (gonna be a real b***ache moving all my kit). I've already bought a 500kg/3m 360 degree swing jib for it (stored flat at my home garage) Gonna fit out the new workshop around the crane (then a bigger hammer!) It's 3.5m to the underside of the boom but gonna cast a block of concrete for the counterweight (that sits ON the floor) 1.2mx 1.2m x 1m high to lift the the crane upto 4.5m. You just can't have too much head height.

Neatguy/ anyone could somebody tell me what a "board hammer" is .... starting to feel rather thick! If it's what I think it is does it mean the tup drops down under gravity. What's the advantage of this compared to a "normal" oliver/ treadle hammer for small scale work. please scuse my ignorance

Come on y'all were's the advice..... I've done a couple of "spiral" (helical) balustrades but I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve. I'd like to get into the top end market with"grand" staircases. Looking for advice on how to get the lower rail to closely follow the stringer maybe sit on it), then make a matching top rail, then asemble them up as a framework that won't distort to/ from the workshop or with any welding riviting etc that goes on in the "infill" Any advice on wooden/ bronze handrails or companys (in the UK) that supply or fit them. ALL nuggets of information gratefully recieved no matter how small Nuge, if you've any specific questions I might be able to answer thm using my limited experience

Guess the trust comes from having a good portfolio / body of work behind you as well as good samples and previous satisfied customers you can refer new ones to. Yeah, the hourly rate is a good indicator of when to kick the job to the curb or when to take in on a a reduced salary just to keep the cashflow going. There have neen times in the past when a poor salery was better than no salary and I didn't have the b***s to wait until a better job came along. Sods law meant a better/more interesting job would come along soon after I'd commited to weeks of low pay drudge. Crystal balls would be useful .... as would steel ones for parts of my anatomy.

some advice is just good old fashioned advice and well worth listening to

It is surprising how often than voice gets you out of deep xxxx. One good thing being my age in the UK is I am familiar with both metric and imperial so on a job I'll measure once in metric. Then go back over and remeasure in imperial. Back at the workshop, if they don't tally I know I've made a mistake eg measured 3012 mm wrote down 3120mm. On long distance jobs I'll also photo the tape measure as is used against the "measuree"

how about 5.545kg of honey in 2.273 kg bag ?

almost! we go to the timber merchant and ask for a 2 by 4 I'm that of that generation that was pretty much bought up with both. Tend to estimate in ' and "s, engineer in mm. Infinitely prefer the metric sytems. It rocks.

Welcome to my Tardis Guess I'm hijacking this thread with these pictures. Sam, you'll find a better view of the treadle somewhere. Hwool. Colchester is pretty much fixed down .... 13 x 24" all in 20' x 20' !!! dammit, this forums finally got me using your wierd obscure medieval units

Still a bit confused about your numbers. If you've never charged £400 per hour what is the £500 per hour for "sculpture 750 seam" for. Are these your actual rates or are they what you think you should charge. Why is the 750 steam more expensive for sculpture than architectural but the 500 mechanical the same for both very very confused

not quite working outside yet but having things on wheels (or on blocks so they can be moved by a pallet truck) is the secret to working in such a small space. As are a high ceiling and jib cranes so I can hang work in the air for storage or acess when working on it. Problem is I'm spending too much time moving gear around when i should be working. From memory the Colchester has a 6 1/2 " centre height but its a gap bed so I can swing larger stuff. I love it, beds grossly inaccurate but there's always ways round this for what I do. Eats metals. I've got a turret/capstan attachment instead of tailstock so its another of my money printing machines. Will post photos later Sam, I'll take some better photos of the oliver + other kit tomorrow. If you screw your eyes up and look carefully you should just about make it out beside the press (lovely beast of a press, will find a use for it). Pretty conventional, nothing too special about it (the oliver) I seem to remember you posting recently about building a Kinyon with two cylinders (I think). I made something along those line that may interest you.

Just had a look at your website, there some good stuff there. With Terrys attitude of "establish their budget first" in mind, you know your client has a budget of say £30,000 for a stair balustrade. They like the unique one off bespoke work you're showing them in your portfolio. They're unlikely to find a common or garden fabricator to do your work or get quotes from other people for similar work (always assuming your location isn't populated by dozens of others doing the same sort of work as you're showing them). You know from previous work and your hourly rate, the job should cost say £20,000 (lets put in the magic word "minimum" here). How much would you quote them? All that said, there have been times in the past (hopefully not so often nowadays) when cashflow issues have meant that I had to charge less than my nominal hourly rate just to stay afloat. Upshot of what I'm saying is, it's important to calculate your "base" hourly rate = (cost of overheads+salary)/productive hours but only to use as a yard stick, not something to stick religiously to. Looking at your website, I'm sure you already know this.

Grants views are in his thread "thought you might like to see my clock" He says it more elequently and with more authority than I ever could. His example on the bronze bolts is quite thought provoking. Terry Clark has a similar attitude. Years ago I was at a BABA forge in where he expounded on his attitude to pricing. T'was a bit naive back then, piped up with something along the lines of "what about the idea of a fair days pay for a fair days work". Can't remember Terry's exact reply but I was shot down in short order. Glad I was. Years of struggle later and i finally came to appreciate his philosophy. As an aside, it was one of those SO educating weekends. Terrys talk on his thoughts on pricing, contracts, dealing with clients etc; demonstration of industrial forging under 250kg Massey; talk by Anthony Robinson of his forged work in stainless; talk by Alan Evans on using computers as part of the design and presentation process; other stuff that will come back to me ...

Michael Now that's not that easy to answer quickly. I'll have a think on things and get back to you. I'm glad there's some meaningfull threads at last going on about the business side of what we do. I've always found it strange that theres 1000's of posts about different types of obscure widgets, ye olde worlde offeth thee blacksmythe, ....... and up till now 8 on earning our living. 8 for ****s sake! Have you read Grants comments on "percieved value". I'm not sure what thread it's in but if you can find it it's worth a look David

It's always a tricky quetsion when people ask me what I do for a living. I Usually don't say I'm a blacksmith because I'm not (though I do a bit of forging as part of my work) I'm not a fabrictor. Really don't like the term "artist blacksmith" because it just sounds plain wrong to me (and "civilians" just don't get it). Usually mutter something about playing around with metal. I'm not big on being pidgeon holed by a label but there are times when it would be good to have a succinct description that sums up what I do without having to waffle for 5 mins. I can Waffle for England. Oh yeah. My names David and I'm still a tool addict. It's genetic.

Why differentiate between the methods? Rent and other workshop overheads are more or less the same unless you hire a special tool to do a job. Cant really see someone short term hiring a 250kg powerhammer. It's useful to calculate what your hourly rate should be be but I'm totally in agreement with NakedAnvil about charging by "percieved value", over here in known as "what the market will bear". Not quite the same as "as much as I can get" You might luck out and get a superb rate for one job, but chances are if you deal with architects, contractors etc word will get out and you'll be viewed as pricey. As anyone self employed knows, you've always gotta keep an eye on the future. Terry Clark, who'se an extremely well respected "artist" blacksmith over here (runs a 250kg Massey), always says his first question with an artistic project is "what's the budget". He then works around this. The man does very well for himself. Have a peek at his website: http://www.artsmith.co.uk/

Dillon, forgive my ignorance but I'm none too sure as to what these numbers refer to and kinda think it would be quite useful to know

I guess over the years you develop a sixth sense with regard to potential cock ups. There's no short cut to years of building up an experience bank of making mistakes or seeing others do so. We all make mistakes but rarely do the bigs ones twice. Somehow we seem to make mistakes less and less as the years go by. That, and we learn to design flexibility into our work to take account of the oh so forseeable unforseeable site conditions. Things like third party contractors / architects etc making changes on site after you've built the work. I'm big on things like building railings with with over lenth top and bottom rails that are trimmed to suit on site. I normallly build for a 10mm gap where hinge plates mount to posts for gates. This gap is normally filled with a nominal 10mm "shim" but it can be reduced down to zero if needs be or upto say 20mm. If you look closely at the lower gates in the link below you should see what I mean http://www.verdigrismetals.co.uk/gates%20railings/stainless%20steel%20gates.htm Re disasters, one of worse ones I made was in making the helical balustrades in the link below. They were meant to be 900mm high from the line through the tread noses. The job was to a very strict deadline and I was rushing. I normally measure from the 100mm mark on a ruler then take this off the final measurement. Somewhere, somehow in the measuring, cutting laying out etc I must have forgot to take off the 100mm. Needless to say, I made the balustrades 1000mm high. Because I was rushing I didn't notice until I'd taken them to site. ... I'd 2 days to get them back to workshop and "cut out" 100m and respray. This would have been difficult enough on flats panels with a design based on verticals, let alone helical panels with a curvilinear design. Kinda explains why the design doesn't flow quite as I'd intended. Didn't get much sleep over those 2 days. Customer never noticed but it still gives me the willies thinking about how much I stood to loose. I'll (hopefully) never make that mistake again. http://www.verdigrismetals.co.uk/stairs%20balustrades/spiral%20staircase%20balustrade.htm

flat iron grinder ?

My name is David. Part of my condition is I keep scanning e bay looking for ..... thing is I dont have a square mm going spare in my workshop or garage at home or anywhere outside but I keep scanning e bay looking for ....... Must be a side effect of the addiction