"Eight Ways to Make A Living as A Blacksmith" by Celeste Flores

[JHCC]

Artist-blacksmith and teacher Celeste Flores has an interesting blog post on Eight Ways to Make A Living as A Blacksmith that's worth a look. While not an exhaustive list, it's certainly a good and realistic summary of some of the basic strategies.

For example:

Quote

6. Become a Bladesmith

This is probably the most common dream for people new to the profession. So many new students take their first class with the hope that one day they can craft gorgeous knives and swords, retire from their desk job, and live in their cabin making blades for the public.

The reality is that while there has been a surge of new professional bladesmiths, it is a very saturated market. On Etsy and online, bladesmithing is often best represented as a race to the bottom. Bladesmiths are selling at lower and lower prices, sometimes cutting corners and often compromising their living to be able to live out their dreams. While this problem isn't unique to bladesmithing (I think it’s an issue with Etsy overall), I think it is something a new bladesmith has to be very mindful of.

 

[Michael]

She's on this forum as Artist Celeste.

[Frosty]

Thanks for the link John, it was well worth checking out. 

And Celeste, please delurk we'd LOVE to hear from you, the more expertise the better. Heck I don't recall you at all but my memory stinks. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BillyBones]

She seemed to have missed one that i would have put up much sooner than "content" creator. That is making blanks, or other items like that. I have noticed a lot of smiths investing in plasma tables lately to make blanks with to sell to other smiths. From frying pans to hooks to Christmas ornaments and even tool racks. 

  

[JHCC]

That’s an interesting one, although it’s arguably more “fabrication” than “blacksmithing” per se. 

[Frosty]

And therein lays the difference between a past time and a profession. Though if I were turning out blanks for sale I'd use a punch press and die blank them. 

He's not selling forged items, he's selling blanks so some poor smith doesn't have to spend what 4-5 minutes chiseling and filing per blank? That'd be after s/he got good at cutting so they didn't need to be filed to shape. 

Punching them out, die blanking, each flower, leaf, whatever, blank would come out of the stamping press every half second or so. From there I'd put them into a tumbler for a few minutes so I didn't have to clean the burr off by hand. The finish flower blank would have a small center punch like divot in the center as an artefact of the stamping process. Right where the stem goes. Could punch a hole in the same step if that sold better.

If he were stamping flowers it'd be fraudulent to call them forged but blanks? We don't make our own sheet metal anymore do we?

Frosty The Lucky.

 

[JHCC]

Get with the times, Frosty: everything is laser-cut nowadays.

[Chad J.]

It's strange to do content creation.   I'll occasionally do a live stream on a website.  You feel like you're talking to yourself even though you get the feedback from people watching, the entertainment factor can be challenging, trying to interact while still making progress on the nights project,  and then topping it off is planning for each stream.  What to make,  can the viewers see it, is the camera working correctly, did that apron make me look fat... but eventually I'll get enough money to buy some propane or coal.  It's also weird saying I do that stuff.  I've been at this over 4 years and I find it hard to beleive some people enjoy watching me as I work through projects and make jokes about how often things fall in the floor,  but it's just demonstrating with an audience watching you from their couch.