Ok, I'll put it another way.....$250 for the potrack....I think you're better than that, complement.........Stay in Ky and don't steal my clients......joke.

Nice work.

How did you do the wraps without a torch? Man, you could use a torch. I might have one I could sell. It's the bottle's though, huh?

The wraps were forged down from 1/4-inch round to really small. Then I used a WALMART fat boy torch to heat and bend it. Slow, and not easy.
I have a torch but no bottles. I traded my last welding table to a heavy duty Harbor Freight torch, reglators, hose, and tips. Yea it's HF but it's the nicest set they sell, and I got it for less than $100 cheaper than the website. (Heard one guy call it Horrible Freight.)

I'm hoping to be able to obtain some tanks by the first of the year. Most used tanks on craigs comes with a torch and it isn't difficult to find a pretty good Victor or Smith cutting torch with big tanks for under $500. (for a patient man between $300-$400.) The hard part is making sure the seller has ownership papers on the tanks.

Ok, I'll put it another way.....$250 for the potrack....I think you're better than that, complement.........Stay in Ky and don't steal my clients......joke.

I didn't take your other post in a bad manner.

I didn't take your other post in a bad manner.

I though maybe it was taken a little too seriously that's all. If I hadn't seen the price I wouldn't have commented on it, and didn't mean to imply you should be charging more for you work cause that's your biz....
I don't believe anyone here or in the smithing community as a whole would ever client jump but there is competition, a lot of my closest friends are my competitors as with most all of us. It can get a little tricky but friendship means you can lose a bid and still be friends. Jumping to the top of the ladder isn't a bad thing but it can risky, I've gotten in over my head a few and managed to pull it off, I didn't sleep real well either.......

I'm with you on not having him near me too, MB! The work is worth more. Rich people love guys like Dave, they got a real live one there. What I meant to comment on was the fact he's got it thought out, his business I mean. Thats worth a lot, a lot of folks just let it ride.

I hate it when people ask me the price though. Usually it's never people interested in buying, just the ones who gotta know. Or even worse, guys who are in the biz. I think that's a personal question. I'd rather talk about the metalwork.

I don't mind people asking the price......it's the ones that act like I'm insane that gets me.

I'll eventually work my way up. Even in the past year or so I've gone up considerably on many of my repeat items I do for shows. On a lot of those I can average around $30-$40 an hour.

I'm blessed with low overhead cost as well for the present. That doesn't mean that I'm planning on always having free coal because I know that is not the case. However, to get my business running I can charge a bit less. That gets me a name, gets the contacts, and each year I'm working my way up to that higher level.

What I meant by jumping to the top rung was simply in pricing. I cannot expect to make what a blacksmith with 20 years experience makes. In my mind, if I can CLEAR $25 an hour, I'm doing good. Not a whole lot of 19 year old kids are making that.

Really nice rack. Good photo's too; they really show the design details. It is quite an inspiration.

About the torch, it helps to be patient and one might appear for a real deal. I picked up my set in pieces. I needed a plumbing torch for an unpleasant, but necessary, task. So, I got a turbo torch clone on Ebay. I know, this is not an oxy-fuel torch, but it still can be useful, and it has a lot more grunt than a bottle torch. The BBQ tank came from a neighborhood discarded grill tank. Shortly afterwards, I was buying a large hand drill from a pro tool picker and she had part of an oxy-fuel setup. Oxy cylinder, reg, and handpiece with one tip. She said that she would let it go for a hun. I told her that I was just looking for a drill. She said that she saw me eyeballing it, and maybe I would want it for 60. Well, twist my arm! Since I had the fuel reg and tank already, it was turnkey, and it really helped for the collars and wraps, especially for the big stuff that I couldn't muscle down to the ground forge. Recently, I scored a broken MIG welder on a gas welder cart for cheap. Bingo! Done!

Very nice piece.

I'm with you on the pricing as i too, am at the bottom rung of the ladder.
I guess we have to be careful of doing ourselves a disservice in terms of income whilst not stepping on other smiths toes.

I gather you learn the pricing with experience as much as you do the craft itself.