G'day I'm stuck I have a small shop in a craft village in OZ.
It's 4 days a week and we get coaches come in for a look but all i'm doing is larger items,I am trying to do keyrings-necklaces and small trinkets .
Can i please get some help on any ideas as i'm to smithing 3 months,i have been doing it cold with machines. But i now have a coke forge and are trying to think of things to make? . I have tried small leaves snake necklaces and i am blank at the moment
If anyone could help that would be great if u cant that"s Ok too
Cheers John:confused:

An arrowhead is just a leaf shape with hammer marks to make it look knapped. Good for keyrings and necklaces. Small horse shoes are popular with kids.

A lot depends upon the whims of the people coming through.

One of the simplest things to show/do/sell would be forged nails. Nothing very fancy, just a basic forged nail. With a little practice/experience they can be made very quickly - so people's attention span isn't taxed too much. And for a buck a piece, you will be amazed at how many "souvenirs" get picked up every day. One friend at a 3-day weekend event sold $400 of just nails! And he was just ... tinkering around a bit. But he did have a bunch pre-made to refill his bowl if he was not keeping the production up to meet demand.

And most everybody can think of a use for a hand-made nail - usually as a tacked in coat hook.

For a bit of flair, you can always curl the end of that forged nail, and turn it into a necklace.

But mostly it meets so many of the requirements of a demonstration. Something that can be made in a pretty short amount of time, can serve a purpose the people can see, and can still be inexpensive souvenir of the visit/experience.

I've also turned standard horseshoe nails into small keyring hooks. They can be done cold. Just hammer the head flat to spread it out. Then use scrolling pliers to put a tiny curl on the end and the bend the rest of the nail into a hook. Now use a small drill to put a hole in that flattened head. With a small nail or screw, you can then mount that keyring hook wherever they want.

S hooks for hanging plants are also a nice item. A quick taper and small scroll on each end, and that larger hook/bend in opposite directions on the ends finishes the project. Vary the lengths - from 3 inches total up to one foot long "bar" hangers. And you can always make up a number of the S hooks, and then link them together with the ending loops tapped tight - to form short (or long) lengths of decorative chain. 3/16 inch square or round stock works very well.

Hope these few humble rambling thoughts help.

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands

Edited May 15, 200917 yr by Mike Ameling
bad spellin

hooks are a good demo also leaves made into keyrings ...nails like mike suggested . dinner bells are a good seller and dont take too long .. good luck!

A friend makes an overhand knot of 1/4" round with a hole for a key ring. Gives the shape of a heart, supposedly an ancient symbol of the blacksmith.

Coat hooks are pretty quick to make and can show plenty of variety of design.

Then there are the smashies or smooshies, maybe they're squishies or . . . (I forget) Anyway, cut slices from a piece of sq stock, 3/4-1" is a good size range and you can use round or hex but square is my preference. Make them around 3/8" thick, much thinner and they don't take marks as well and much thicker and they're kind of heavy for the ladies.

Now, you'll need a few chasing punches: a selection of ovals, rounds straights and wedge shapes. For some things like one I'll mention in a sentence or so specialty punches can save a lot of time.

Anyway, you heat the slice of steel, put it on your anvil and using the punches and a large hammer make cool stampings like puppy, kitty, koala or roo, horse shoe foot prints, etc. In Alaska, folk like moose, cariboo, "wolf" and lynx foot prints along with the standard ones.

One of my favorites can be made with a wedge shaped chasing tool. Looked at on end it looks like a narrow wedge think of a long narrow arrow head, etc. Anyway, you drive the chasing tool into the hot blank twice with the wide ends touching at almost 90*. This is a blacksmith's "forged check." You can make a single tool to do this from angle iron to speed it up some.

You can use copper, brass or bronze as well but you'll need to charge more. These are one of the few things where material costs are a large % of the price. Usually your labor is such a high percentage the material costs are pretty negligible.

Punch a small hole in one corner and they make nice key fobs.

Frosty

Edited May 15, 200917 yr by Frosty

To All
Thank you very much for your help,i will return the faver when i can
onya mates John

Leaf keyrings are nice. I sometimes use ends of square stock and forge into mini navils to use as a paperweight. Nice souvenir of their visit. You just whack a horn by drawing out one end having first put a deep shoulder on it using the anvil step. Doesn't have to be 100% accurate- they won't remember what your anvil looked like anyway so don't worry about a hardy hole! Make up plenty of such things in advance.

Most of the suggestions so far can all be made from scrap which is an added bonus.

Check the early blueprints.