The first items you sold for profit?

[Gromgor]

Hi guys,

 

   I'm just curious and wondering what the first items you sold for profit was that got the thought of blacksmithing for an income as something that might be viable.I recently did a small job for a buddy that had a new house built. He had a wood fireplace installed and wanted a set of tongs to grab hot logs with, a poke and a shovel. Figuring it would be a fun little exercise, I took up the job. He bought some stock I made him what seemed to decent enough pieces. I wasn't planning to charge him for it, but he flipped me $25.00. My first paying commission.

 

   So what was it for the rest of you guys?

 

[windancer]

Knives...................

Dave

[Aden Cassidy]

Small primitive style knife for a blokes black powder kit. Weighed less than 100 grams.

[jmccustomknives]

Lol, no such thing as a profit.  I'd have to be at $40-50 an hour.  Now as a hobby it is self supporting, unlike fishing and hot rodding. ^_^

[Neil Blythin]

Define 'making a profit'?...

 

You can make a hook from $0.05 of mild steel and sell it for a few dollars, and it won't have taken long or used much fuel to do so.  But it'd sure take a while before you've paid for forge(s), anvil(s), tools, books, courses, association memberships, etc.  I'm making some money on things that I've made, but I'm not yet to the point where all of my smithing activities are paid for.  A lot of knife makers seem to have success turning a few dollars of material into something that can fetch a good price .... although I can only imagine it takes a fair bit of time doing all the finishing work. How much are they earning broken down to an hourly rate?

 

As mentioned above, it can certainly become a self-sustaining hobby.  But it's a big step to jump from that point, to an actual working professional.  

[Neil Blythin]

But in answer to the original question, mine was some plate/clip things I made for a stone mason. I still don't know what they're properly called, apparently they were commonly used in Europe in centuries past. The client had seen them in a garden wall at Versailles, took a photo, showed it to my mason friend, who asked "can you make something like this?". "Yes. Yes I can".

 

 

[Dan C]

Bottle openers, I live in a college town which means lots of beer drinkers!  After that the dreaded RR spike knife was what I got started with.

[SpankySmith]

 I still don't know what they're properly called, apparently they were commonly used in Europe in centuries past. 

 

In woodworking I believe they're called bowties or splines, not sure what they're called with stone.

[Frosty]

I won't live long enough to turn a profit. However the first thing I got paid for was a tent peg puller I made in Boy Scouts from a piece of found steel using the camp stove fire place thing found in S. California campgrounds at the time. Dad had a single jack sledge and a ball pein hammer in the pickup for my kit. The other scout master Jerry B. paid me $2.00 for it.

 

Any idea how hard it was to remember that far back? Seriously, dirt was still the new thing. <grin>

 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Eddie Mullins]

I don't really have any thoughts of blacksmithing as an income source, but I believe a dinner bell was the first item I actually sold.

[dakotarios]

boot knife (I had some experience before I started selling items)

[Gergely]

This was my first sold item.

The cashier girl of the local scrapyard ordered it for her boyfriend's birthday. It's his name. Starting stock was 6 mm round, the letters are 11,5 cm high, the bottom is 32 cm long 4 x 30 mm flat.

The price (about 15$) paid for a good 40 kg of coal. It maybe was a low price, but later when I took some scrap steel to the yard and she was in charge of scaling it a surprisingly big weight was measured. :)

 

 

[VaughnT]

 I still don't know what they're properly called....

 

Those are called "dutchman" or "dutchman's plug".  In woodworking, they are used across the grain to stop splits from growing.  Nowadays, they are as decorative as they are functional.

 

In stone, they were often a nonferrous metal poured in place.  I don't know that they functioned too well, though, considering the exposure to the elements and the freeze/thaw cycle.

 

My first "for profit" project was a hook made from a 12" nail.  They are very manly to look at, but they also function exceptionally well.  If you have a garage, barn, industrial motif, a spike nail turned into a hook fits right in and won't bend out of shape any time soon.

[Nobody Special]

http://www.iforgeiron.com/gallery/image/36988-cam00119/

A spearhead.

[HWooldridge]

I started in production making piece work for another smith. When I first began, my wife told me that my "hobby" needed to pay for itself. I saw an ad in a trade paper that a fellow smith who lived a few hours away needed someone to produce a steady volume of craftwork for shows. I got an order for a couple hundred ringers for triangle dinner bells at $.50 to $75 each - which wasn't too bad in 1984. That began a relationship that went on for several years before he quit the business and I went on to other things.