traveling blacksmith

[connor bachmann]

I have been curious about making a living from blacksmithing, and I'm thinking of driving around the country, going to camp sites, trailer parks, etc, to make and sell my wares there. Any thoughts?

[the hangman]

I do alot of camping with my family. Two years ago we were at a campground and a woman had set up a demonstration in the outdoor pavilian. She was selling dutch ovens and related camp cookware - like tripods. She had a very well organised demonstration where she was showing an amazing variety of dutch oven and open fire cooking. Stuff like pinapple upside down cake in a dutch oven, baking cookies in a foil lined cardboard box, bread sticks baked on twigs, etc. After the demo - she took orders for the equipment. The cast iron cookware is too heavy for her to bring it along. She had brochurs and you could contact her at home later if you didnt want to order right away. I don't know if she was married / if she actually made money or just covered her vacation expenses or whatever ?

I would think you could sell some stuff in campgrounds and the like . . . and maybe make anough to cover your camping expenses - but not enough to live on. Maybe if you were retired and just wanted to suppliment your income . . .

Just my thoughts

[Marksnagel]

Connor,

Sounds like something I would love to do. But I don't know how practicle it would be for a steady living. As a side job it would probably be good. My family used to camp a lot and I cooked with a complete Dutch oven cook kit. I baked breads and pies and roasted everything possible. It always gained a lot of attention at the campground and fellow campers would always stop by to see what I was cooking, peach cobbler was like a magnet, but I don't know if there was enough interest to generate a fair living off of the cooking gear.

In the US, most state, federal, ACOE campgrounds are cheap enough that one sale would pay for your night but you still need to eat and travel. A lot of places may have policies about operating a business on site but if all you did was take orders from curious passers-by and word of mouth then you may get away with it. (until word got to the ranger)

A commercial well established campground like one of the major chain campgrounds, may enter into an agreement with you to have a working (portable) blacksmith shop on site during certain times as a draw to their campground. This could aso be an idea to mull over.

Living the life of a gypsie has it's ups and downs. In this economy there are too many downs for me to venture away from a secure job. But if the secure job goes south, you may just see me in the next campground.

Whatever you do good luck. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Just my thoughts for what they're worth.

Mark<><

[basher]

are you serious?
Hand forged metalwork is not cheap . if you want to sell it aim for the people with the money.
good work deserves to be paid .
all the best owen

PS I may have a mis understood view of trailer parks being british.

[pkrankow]

are you serious?
Hand forged metalwork is not cheap . if you want to sell it aim for the people with the money.
good work deserves to be paid .
all the best owen

PS I may have a mis understood view of trailer parks being british.

Camping is "roughing it" on vacation. People are from all walks of life. It is an inexpensive vacation, but all economic groups participate.

"Trailer parks" are often very cheap permanent housing, and often tend to draw people needing cheap housing.

Phil

[urnesBeast]

You should talk with Brian Brazeal about the road trip he went on. There is a thread about it on here. Brian is an incredibly skilled instructor, demonstrator and blacksmith. I think it would be difficult to be more successful in an endeavor like this than he was.

[pete46]

If you can talk and work at the same time you are ready to go.
No really try it some time. ;)

[MattBower]

Could you eke out a living this way? Maybe. Is it a great plan for making a good (or even decent) living? Probably not. I gather (not having done it) that establishing a successful business is a headache at the best of times -- even when you have a fixed business location, reliable supply chain, known overhead, established customer base, known places to advertise, etc. And when you go gypsy, all that goes right out the window. Every day you're worrying about where you can set up your forge, where you're going to get your next load of forge fuel and steel (not to mention a little refractory for repairs), where you might be able to find paying customers in an unfamiliar area -- and what those customers might be willing to pay for -- how to get the word out to locals about who you are and what you're doing, etc., etc. It seems to me you'd waste a lot of unnecessary time and energy continually reinventing the wheel. It doesn't particularly sound like a winning formula to me. You may be able to make it work if you already have a very well established reputation, like Brian Brazeal, and can set up teaching gigs and the like in advance. But doing it by the seat of your pants, just starting out? That sounds really rough.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

The other thing is that in some campgrounds open fires are not permitted, or need a permit due to drought conditions. Someone may also ask to see your business license, which you would need for every locality, not to mention insurance, etc..Sounds fun, but bureaucrats can mess up you plan.

I think you would have a better chance making items and peddling them locally first.

[MattBower]

One other thing that perhaps our resident pros can chime in on, because mine is very much a non-expert opinion. But I don't get the impression that selling trinkets that you whipped up in your rivet forge is the way to make a decent living in smithing. People can buy trinkets made in Pakistan or China for 1/20 the price of what you'd need to charge in order to make a living, and for most people the Chinese and Pakistani versions are close enough to the real deal that price wins out. If you want to make a living at smithing I think -- think (this is why I hope the pros will chime in) -- that you really need to get into industrial smithing, or high end art or architectural smithing. (And I'm counting things like bladesmithing as high end art smithing.) I think those are the fields where you find people with the money and inclination to pay a living (American) wage for quality work. (But note: you have to be able to make the quality work! The fact that something is hand forged may lend it an air of quaintness and charm, but most people aren't going to pay a big premium for it unless it's also good.) Otherwise you have to beat the Pakistani or Chinese guy on his own terms, and that's a very, very difficult thing to do.

If I'm basically right, then you need to ask whether whether you can do those types of work on the road, out of the trunk of your car.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

It isn't just China, and other Far East countries. Mexico is churning out some inexpensive goods.

I agree that to make a living in smithing that you should lean towards artistic endeavors. I would think that industrial smithing would take far more capital(equipment, insurances, certifications,building, etc) than artistic smithing. Most people think that smithing is a dying art, so it does have a uniqueness.

Something else to consider is traveling with something like a Renaissance Faire. The one I went to a couple of years ago had a traveling smith.

[MattBower]

I agree that the art stuff definitely seems more feasible to get into, on an ownership level, as an individual. I was just noting that there are shops out there that still stay solvent (and I assume at least a little profitable) forging on an industrial level. Probably shouldn't have mentioned industrial smithing first, though.

[FromGriffin]

Hello! I found this old conversation. However, If you still in business I think it is great idea to come to Griffin GA for Doc.Holliday festival.  Great location for demonstration. It is huge Wild West reenactment every year in second weekend of September.

[rockstar.esq]

Connor,

Most enterprises discover that finding buying customers at a profitable level for the business is more complicated than simple proximity.  

Human nature leads to lots of recognizable patterns.

People tend to protect their patch.  If the patch is valuable, people will find way's around that protection.  If the newcomers are successful, they will put new protections in place.

For example, let's say a local restaurant district is booming during certain hours.  Rent is high, and it's expensive to build.  So chefs buy food trucks and set up shop in that district.  If the local restaurants have enough power to run the trucks off, things stay the same.  If they don't, the barriers to starting a food truck business in that area will increase.

Conversely, people will not invest in protecting things they don't value.

It's up to the individual to look at these patters to decide if they're looking at an undiscovered opportunity, or a bad idea.  

It's also worth pointing out that most opportunities are only viable as a business when combined with excellent timing.

Applying all of this to your idea, I think it's reasonable to suggest that your welcome at any given market will be inversely proportional to the viability of that market.