Joel OF

Well I'm here and have made a few sales. If only you could charge for business cards I'd be rich already haha. Apparantly it's a very quiet day at the market...otherwise i wouldnt be on my phone!

LOL, a note to self, don't ask family members who are nothing like your target market "what would you pay for this?" to get an idea of what to charge. The worst answer was £25 for one of my 4mm thick 11 inch wide bowls.

Very true. Hopefully I'll start to learn what sells within "my range" as I've made simple VS elegant versions of most things. If not hopefully at least have a member of the public tell me what would be useful. I've got simple straight round bar pokers with twisted loop handles & for double the price I've got square bar pokers with sheppards crook finnial scroll handles and many twists...we'll see what sells.

Sinks? Interesting idea & certainly ticks the functional box. I like ideas like that, I had so many ideas like that racing through my mind before i took up smithing, then I took (and still am) taking my baby steps to learn the basics but I feel I've slightly lost the imaginative spark as I've been mainly copying books & YouTube. Queue the montage sequence where I get The Eye of The Tiger back & hammer something unique.

Taking slight liberties with the topic... In the film Erik the Viking, the blacksmith character "Keitel" is the village heart-throb & none of the women in the village want him to go on the dangerous expedition to end the age of Ragnarok. I think we can safely say that's accurate as all blacksmiths are irresistible to women :-P

Cheers folks. Interesting what you say about profit on top of labour, Charles, especially in conjunction with what Colleen says about niches & big items. Bowls are my thing (aesthetically & functionally) and when I'm starting the sinking process on a 4mm sheet bowl by swinging my 6lbs raising hammer for 2 or more hours, the thought does cross my mind that the price of this bowl should be greater than the hourly rate I have in my head.

Cheers for the tips people. There's lots of horsey people in this area so that's a market I could tap into. I like the sound of bird feeders - very useful but also slightly different! I'd been thinking of towel rails and such - put a couple simple hooks on them & you've got a pots and pans rail too. Yep Thomas I certainly do have a contact in the restoration field - my Dad is an architect specialising in the restoration & conservation of historic & listed buildings. I should give him a handful of business cards to leave with his clients. Colleen, I guess I say that pokers aren't so relevant because I look at my parents & see that they've got 2 inglenook fireplaces - one with a wood burner in it - and how do they heat their house? Central heating. Door stops and backscratchers could be good I think.

I see your point but that's not the case for me, my case is a boring and long winded story centered around 8 years of poor health. I will desperately try not to slip into the Catch 22 you describe though!

Cheers Basher. Yeah I can relate to that. I've found myself asking myself "would I pay X amount for that?" and the answer is nearly always no because I'm flat broke.

I've been making a few generic items like candle holders and fire pokers to go on my first stall this weekend but I've got a nagging feeling that some of the bits I've been making aren't very relevant in the 21st century and (for want of a better word) could be considered as "luxury" items, which isn't ideal during an economic slump. I admit that I'm a pessimist but even still I can't see anyone impulse buying a candle holder whilst we're still coming out of a recession and I expect I'll make more money out of my £4 keyring bottle openers than I will my £10 candle holders - that's if I sell anything at all. For future reference can anyone suggest some household items that are relevant and useful in the 21st century? I think toilet roll holders might be a good one, regardless of technological developments everyone still needs the loo!

I'd put bracing under the firepot. My table is 3mm thick & it's bowed under firepot sides (mainly at the ends, not so much lengthways) because I didn't put bracing there.

As a novice I like the nervous anticipation of reverse twisting & the satisfaction in that moment when you can see it's worked & the twists flow together.

Cease fire ladies and gentlegerms, I think I've cracked it. The one on the far right is a tad lumpy and bumpy but I've got the general idea. These are 1 heat twists done John's way. I haven't cleaned up and finished the pokers yet. Nothing to write home about in the design but I just wanted some simple ones for any customers not wanting to spend a lot. EDIT - actually I didn't do it 100% John's way, I didn't quench the loop. I found that when you quench the loop the heat drains out too much and you loose a bit of twist directly under the loop.

Cheers folks, nice twist Yahoo, I'll remember your method if I still don't get any joy with the way I've been doing it. I've been doing it just like John described & to be honest I don't understand why I'm not finding it as simple as he makes it sound. I only have a coke forge & a hand cranked blower so I've been doing it in 1 heat, but maybe I should just take my time with it and try a couple heats until I've cracked it.

Cheers guys. I don't have any pics to upload but the main difference I've noticed is that I've been forging the loop before twisting whereas it seems drifting the loop later on might be advisable.

Hey folks, can anyone offer me any tips or tricks for twisting handles like this one in the middle? Ignore the leaf. '?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent>> My efforts have been varied and generally pretty lame. I've been running into problems like the loop at the top becoming mishapen and the twists aren't nice and tight. I've been heating both sections of bar evenly and twisting using a scrap piece of bar passed through the loop at the top whilst the bottom sections of bar (the bottom of the twist) are clamped together shut in the vice. Penny for your thoughts...

Cheers, food for thought certainly! In part I've been trying to guage my prices againt what others are charging for similar items, but even then prices vary wildly. Oh well, whatever I get for my stuff at least I'm not bored to tears working in a shop for my money anymore.

Cheers Colleen. Any particular prices you're referring to? What something is worth and what people are willing to pay are two different things unfortunately, a lot of people round here have deep pockets and short arms.

I just thought, will I need Public Liability Insurance or any other type of permit/license for selling at a market or fair?

Gees I'm glad i started this thread, hadn't even thought of bags! Easy to overlook the little things i guess.

Hi Yahoo, I've only sold a few directly myself as I haven't done my stall yet but the way I've been "selling" them is by knocking a few into lumps of oak (as per the pic) and "selling" them sale or return to places like local antique shops. Up till now that's just meant getting paid for my practice really - if they sell then they sell, if they don't then they don't - I had to make them anyway for the practice as I'm a novice. I can't answer that as I haven't met the buyers but the screw-to-the-wall hooks I've made sell better than the nail in ones I've noticed. The one guy I did actually sell a few to directly was an antiques dealer, so again, I've not met the end purchaser. This is the sort of reason I want to get onto doing stalls. The vast majority of homes here are brick and plasterboard, but Kent (and East Sussex where I am also near), does still have it's fair share of old timber buildings with exposed beams and such. There is an area of Kent and East Sussex called The Weald - I need to get a stall in that area - it's an extremely wealthy area with lots of historic homes.

Thanks Charles, I like the look of them. So if they hand wash them they should be ok? They won't wash out/off the olive oil finish? Candle holder display below. The light was a bit bright for the pic but hey ho. The wall mounted ones have spikes, the tea-light ones don't. I'm think £8.50-ish for the tea-light ones and £12.50 each for the wall mounted ones or 2 for £20.

Cheers John. I made another BBQ fork/meat serving fork yesterday. Obviously I've got to food safe finish it but how does the purchaser (fingers crossed there will be one!) clean it without it rusting? They haven't got to re-finish it after cleaning it, have they?!

Mate, I worked in a shop that was on the tourist route for nearly 8 years, I expect the worst. "I know my rights, you have to give me a refund, it doesn't matter that I haven't got a receipt or any proof of purchase". Made this today, struggled with how to fix it to the wall for hours. Tried a million and one variations, none really appealed. This is the least of the worst I guess. Is there a way of making the more typical dish and spike candle holders without welding the dish to the spike? Do they need to be welded together?

Should I put price labels on things? Is it better for people to see the price straight off is it better if they have to ask? On that hook display I'd grouped the hooks together by price so I could just have 1 price label per set of hooks rather than having individual tags dangling off each hook, which would look really messy.