Fall Fair

[Dave Murray]

Had a booth at our local fall fair today. Was beautiful weather  and great turnout.sold about $350 worth of stuff.  I did good considering there were over 65 vendors. I was the only one with metal items .found people are very careful about spending  money. Seems no one wants to spend much over $20.i did sell my crosses but lower than my usual price.  But people took a lot of my cards and got some orders for  Christmas items.local newspaper took a photo of me in front of my booth  so my get a little write up all in all had a great day. 

[George N. M.]

Dave, for a general craft fair (as opposed to something horsey) IMO you did pretty well.  There is an truism that anything that sells for $20-25 or less and will look good in a double wide will sell well.

As a suggestion:  Most, if not all, of your stuff appears to be welded horseshoe related items (and very nice they are).  You might want to broaden your inventory with actual forged things.  Also, at general craft fairs I have found that a broad and general inventory results in the most sales.  At a specialized event such as a horse show, ethnic festival, Ren Faire, SCA event, art fair, etc. you can tailor your inventory to the demographic and theme of the event.

BTW, have you ever thought of mounting any of your crosses on a stake so that they could be used as a yard/garden decoration?

"By hammer and hand all arts do stnd."

[Dave Murray]

Thanks George,  your right most of the places I go are horse shows and Rodeos. Would love to have some handforged items and plan to do so.i just always seem to be rushed to produce enough items to take to an event so go with what I can get together fast.i get the shoes cheap .steel for forging is expensive here and so is propane so I worry if people would pay the extra .putting the crosses on a stake is a good idea,I have mounted them on wood before. Arthritis in my hands wrist and shoulder also slow me down for hand forging ,working on making a press from a logsplitter for drawing out stuff,that should help save my arm.

[George N. M.]

My thought is that more folk would use your crosses for outside decoration than hang it on their wall.  It would probably take someone who is a very committed Christian and has an equestrian interest to be attracted to your work for wall art.  Maybe not but that is my impression.  Your crosses are lovely but I'm not sure they have really broad appeal to the general public. 

Also, for something that specialized you can saturate a local market pretty fast.  Forged and welded stuff is not exactly consumable goods.  If you sell a widget to someone one year it is unlikely they want/need a 2d one the next year unless they want to pass it on as a gift.

GNM

[Charles R. Stevens]

If you take a shoe and place one branch so the inside edge of the up facing heel is on the heel of the anvil and strike just off anvil with a rounding hammer you can back bend the heel and form a double coal hook. I close the tow up. You can weld it to another shoe, a horse shoe heart of bent the to over and punch it to form a stand alone coat hook. 
horse shoe sun wreaths are also nice. Use the same trick and then draw the heals to a point. Close the toe up a bit and then lay them toe in to form a ring of the desired size. Now forge another set of shoes with the opposite bend and creat a second ring and then tack the two rings one on top of the other.
don’t forget horse shoe trivets, hoof picks and hearts. Garden tool hooks are another one as are drawer pulls from shoes and toilet paper hangers from cheap curb bits. Or towel rings from snaffle bits. 
I have also seen shoes straitened to make strips for horse sculptures. 
 

[Dave Murray]

Good idea Charles, this all started when a friend of mine who is the manager of the local feed store, they also sell farrier supplies  sent me picture of a cross and asked if I could make her one. I made it and she put it onher facebook page and suddenly I had orders for 6 of them.then she said I can get you a deal on some new shoes we have in the warehouse, some are a little rusty.i said what kind of deal? She said $1 a pair. I said I ll take them all .to my surprise they had 420 pairs.so now with what I already had I now have 1000 shoes.so I went on Pinterest and found thousands of things you can make from horseshoes.  So since the fair yesterday I have orders for 6 crosses and 3 Christmas wreaths. I will be busy for a while. The 2 brown dogs with the short tails their bodies are made from railway spikes  I forged the head of the spike into the tail and put a small twist in them.so hoping to make a few bucks so I can build a forging press. 

[George N. M.]

Excellent to get that many orders.  It will keep you busy for awhile.  If you don't mind saying, what do you charge for the crosses?  I realize the larger and more complex ones will be more than the smaller, simpler ones.

BTW, I do like the cats.  Giving them "points" with white paint is a nice touch.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Dave Murray]

The crosses are $60 for the small ones like I sold yesterday  up to $300 for the larger ones. People don't realize how big they really are inthe pictures.  I had a  lady wanted one of the larger more  fancy ones.i said you realize that it is 3ft long and almost 3ft wide. She said oh and ordered a smaller one. The cats and dogs are good sellers I get $35 to $40 apiece for  them.