Where to from here???

[mcraigl]

A few days ago my mentor asked me "where do I want to go with this stuff from here"? Now, I know that this is really a deep personal question. Maybe I should let you know where I think I'm at. Most of the smithing I've been doing for the last couple of years has been in the making of tools kind of with the thought process that my skills will develop while at the same time I'll increase my tool inventory. I can make a workable set of tongs in under and hour. Punches and chisels no prob. Bottom tools for the hardie, etc. I have done some decorative stuff too, lots of candle holders, bbq tools, a few small sculptural pieces, etc. I finally feel like if I can see what a piece should look like in my minds eye, that I can forge pretty close to what I envision.

The reason I throw this post out there is that I was unable to answer him. I've obviously got some deep and serious introspection to do. I kind of took his question as a hint that I need to move forward. I still feel like a rookie most of the time with the occasional errant hammer blow, or fish lips, or cold shut, etc. Some times it takes me twice as many heats as it should to get where I'm going etc. But there is a deaper question here. I have a good job, and couldn't duplicate the pay and benefits by trying to become a full time smith. I am getting a bit bored with candle holders and steak turners. Just not really sure where to focus my creative energy.

I'm not really looking for an answer, since whatever I come up with has to come from my own heart. More looking for your stories. What did you do when you came to this type of threshold in your smithing career. Advice to help guide the introspection. That type of thing. What y'all got to say?

[ThomasPowers]

Do you want to make money smithing or to do it to satisfy a creative urge?

Do you want to do production work or explore making a lot of different things not becoming an expert on many of them?

Do you see this as transitioning to a by-job or retirement pursuit?

Do you want to explore the history of the craft or just make use of the modern aspects.

I spent a year apprenticed to a swordmaker and found out that it was a lot more fun as a hobby than a job and so have let a job pay for my fun ever since.

[mcraigl]

Ahh... Thomas, those are the exact types of questions I guess I need to be asking myself. Here's my of the cuff answers...

I wouldn't mind making money, but the desire is much more about satisfying my creative urge. Or rekindling them.

I really don't enjoy production work. I made a dozen steak turners in a single sitting last summer and was pretty "anti - steak turner" for a few months afterwards. I feel that I want to eventually become and expert in techniques and methods more than specific items.

I could see a retirement pursuit if time, place, market would allow me to make some money at it while not getting too locked into production work.

Are exploration of the history of the craft and the more modern aspects mutually exclusive? I love my old Peter Wright, Western Chief blower, leg vice, etc. etc. But I also have a vertical mill. Wouldn't trade either. Some things I try to do the "traditional" way, but others I'm pretty darn sure our blacksmithing forebearers would've used the modern method if it was available to them. I have no problem drilling the hole for my tongs as opposed to punching for instance.

Excellent questions Thomas. Thank you. I think it's about satisfying my creative urge. Now I have to figure out where I want to spend that creative energy.

[gerald]

Sometimes, our beloved AVOCATION takes on the look (and smell) of a VOCATION. This can be recognized by the recurrance of the dreaded DEADLINE (for delivery, for a demo, for a donation, etc). As we age, we generally tolerate deadline less and less. Sometimes I have to play mind games with myself so that the deadline doesn't get more attention than it deserves (from an old dude).

[rthibeau]

I too have a full time job that pays the bills and allows me to do blacksmithing work more for enjoyment than making a living. I do try to make expenses so that in the long run it doesn't cost so much to satisfy the tool urge and desire to get into the shop, but I don't feel the need to compete in the marketplace. Blacksmithing is also an outlet for the creative energies. Overall, it is a very satisfying endeavor. Even though I work a full time job, it's at a retirement level of effort and I consider myself mostly retired. My answer to your mentor would be that I don't want to go anywhere, I'm happy with it right where I'm at. If my attitude changes in the future, I can ramp up, or down, with little difficulty. JWB wrote a nice piece a while ago.....sometimes it's just about sitting in the shop....:)

[mcraigl]

I hear ya Rich. Mike-hr is the mentor in question here. And I don't think he was trying to get me to do more or less. Just to try some different stuff. I hear ya on the expenses part. Especially since I haven't "made" my expenses on anything yet. I did one commision piece for a local taxidermist for the semi-annual world taxidermy competition this spring. I was left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth in the end of the deal as he didn't want to give me much for it (I felt quite under appreciated), I had 14 hours in it, and he wanted to give me a hundred bucks. We did agree to trade labor in the end, he's going to build a really nice "habitat" for some ducks I had him mount. In the end he ended up winning his category at the world comp. with the thing and has won several other competitions since then with it. After that experience, for the most part I'd just as soon give stuff away to people that will appreciate it.

Hey, on a different note, I got the flatter the other day. It's a beauty! I really dig it. Did a little fine tuning on the face and some polishing and she's ready to make stuff flatter... I also quite like your touch mark. Too bad it's gonna go away the first time I use it, but I see that there wasn't anywhere else big enough. So, how did you make it? We were speculating that you started out with square stock, drilled for the handle, then turned the struck end down on a lathe? Also, what steel is it made from? Will be using it tonight, can't wait!

ML

[Bentiron1946]

For a lot of years I tried to juggle silversmithing, bronze casting and blacksmithing with a full time day job. That is until I got married. So I gave up bronze. It cost the most to do and folks weren't paying me enough to keep up with costs now that I was married. Then along came children. Guess what? They were nuts! Wanted to kill each other every time I got a tool in my hand and they were pyromaniacs too. Now that they are in young adulthood I can practice my metalsmithing at home but I have become rather eclectic in what I do and I do it for me. I have had a bellyful of dead lines and due dates. If I want to make a knife or stake turner I make it, if art I do that. I'm sure that your work is of a quality to sell and sell well but do you have the internal drive to make a living banging iron for ten hours a day for six days a week for the rest of the year? If not then enjoy your hobby, make enough stuff to sell at a couple of craft fairs a year, hone your skills and enjoy.

[rthibeau]

You guessed most of it.......1045 steel, pilot hole drilled then the eye was punched and drifted, and it was turned on the lathe before finishing with a flap disk and heat treated. Always nice to hear from a happy customer, enjoy!.....:)

[habu68]

Two years ago, I took the best job of my 59year life, it was also the lowest paid since I was 16 years old. It was the blacksmith at a living history park at the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. At the foot of Pikes Peak, we dressed in funny clothes (1770 for the Ute Indians through 1900 for the new comers). I blacksmithed 35 hrs a week for the youngsters and their folks, told the same lame jokes, answered the same questions over and over, and made 1000's of s-hooks and leaves. I had a 4 year old girl pick up a iron rose made by our master smith and smell it and then give it to her mother to smell, and the look on the mothers face when she got a whiff of the rose oil in the wax finish was worth it all. We formed a folk band of guitars, bass, dulcimer's, fiddles, Saul tree, and banjo. We worked the farm with Belgian draft horses, kept sheep, pigs, chickens,and a milk cow. I restored a great bellows, made fire tools for the houses, repaired horse tack, helped design and build a brick forge, built fences, planted fruit trees, helped rebuild a smoke house after it burnt down(also helped put out the fire). we had deer, elk, bear, fox, coyote, duck, rabbit, rattle snake (taste's like chicken), as visitors and sometimes for dinner. We played baseball to 1903 rules, where the "Cranks" (fans) are allowed to "assist" in the game.

I made friends for a lifetime, I lit a new fire for some young smiths, I burnt some steel, and have coal dust in my heart.

You don't always have to work for money.

[Daryl]

So, what you are saying is you have the Blacksmith equivalent of a GED. Consider post-secondary now.
If your mentor is quite successful as a Blacksmith, the obvious answer would be to stay with him and learn the hardest skill - the business of a Blacksmith.
We ALL can eventually learn the mechanical skills and the little tidbits from which we develop our products, yet few of us (including myself) pay much attention to business. It is more than make something and sell it. Many successful businesses (not just Blacksmithing) are started and run by people whose only real skill is business.
You can be the most talented person in world and still not be successful without sound business practice.

The more successful Blacksmiths out there, the better it is for all of us.

[J W Bennett]

Mcraigl,
I have a full time job that supports my addiction. I work at that job 12 hr days, 3 days one week 4 days the next. I feel lucky because that allows me to feed the addiction on a more or less full time basis.
I have a plan laid out in my head and on paper. It's not set in stone and I reveiw it and change it constantly. I took the time to set up a legal business and I run it as such. By doing so it does pay for itself but barely.
If I want to take a day off I do, If I want to sit in the shop and talk with my dog I do. If I want to go eat lunch with the other characters at the local general store and have an ice cream I shut everything down and go.
Will I ever get rich? No. Will I burn out and give up? not likely. Do I enjoy myself and feel a sense of pride when someone I don't know says "Hey, aren't you the blacksmith fella that made Joe's......" ?Most definately.
I am as busy as I care to be and I try to avoid close dead lines. I don't like to be hurried when I am working for me. I fully realize that if my addiction was actuallly my ownly form of income that I would have to approach it completely different....I am thankful for my day job that allows me to have such a melancoly approach to my addiction.
I like to try new techniques and to use them in projects. I find I read more on the subject all the time. If I took my addiction too seriously and just watched the bottom line I fear I would lose the time to try what I want to try. I don't mind small production runs and I forge alot of stuff that if I didn't have a business I wouln't have forged for me. But in doing so I have learned more.
I have alot to learn and I only wish that I had pursued my curiousity about the craft much earlier in life. Of course if I had other things would have probably gotten in the way.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I have a plan. It is not an aggresive plan, I am not bound by it. I'm not as fast as alot of smiths, matter of fact I have a hard time thinking of any I've meet that are slower....But I have a plan and I take work I know I can do and I turn away work that I feel it better for someone else to do. I pay for everything as I go and if I don't have the money then I wait.That way it's not "eating any hay". This is my approach and I am happy and I wish you luck on your soul searching.

John

[mcraigl]

More sage advice. Thanks all. Going to a hammer-in / workshop this weekend. It'll be nice to see what other folks are doing, get a few beers in, and brainstorm with more folks. I really appreciate you guys giving me this kind of input. It does help guide my thought process. As John said, maybe I should be putting some stuff to paper. My memory sucks, so if I come up with some great idea and it don't get captured in my shop book, it's as good as gone.