marzec2005.PDF

MARCH

JOURNAL

2005

CONTENTS

SELLING YOUR

WORK P.2147

“RUSTBOARD”

P.2148

SET TOOL

P.2150

FIREPLACE

ELEMENTS P.2153

PRESENTATION

DRAWING P.2157

A MONTHLY JOURNAL OF ILLUSTRATED TECHNIQUES D 170

#170, March 2005

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BLACKSMITH ’ S JOURNAL ARCHIVE

#19 March 1992

The magnetic note holders featured this month are similar to decorative rivets in the

way they are made. All these rivet head ideas appeared in issue 19.

2146

SELLING YOUR WORK

Not all blacksmiths need to market their

work. Blacksmithing, as a creative endeavor, is

rewarding enough without making a business

out of it. However if you have mastered basic

skills and developed some products, but don’t

know where to start selling them, here are some

pointers that will put you on the right path.

Before you can determine how to sell your

work, you need to know to whom you want to

sell it. The market for selling architectural iron-

work is not the same as it is for folk or tradition-

al work, and the techniques for finding cus-

tomers will differ. You need to target your mar-

ket, then use techniques for finding customers

that are specific to that target. For example if

you want to sell architectural work you will prob-

ably be dealing with people who have expend-

able income available for it. Targeting anyone

else would lead to fewer jobs. On the other

hand, if you are selling smaller, less costly items

your best bet is a store or a web site where you

can sift through a larger number of people.

However, just targeting your customer isn’t

enough.

Lets go back to the less costly item in a store

or on a web site. Just placing or listing the item

and hoping someone will find it isn’t enough.

Rather than putting your work on consignment

here and there, find wholesale opportunities

where you can sell larger quantities at a time.

(Of course this means having to make the same

item in quantity rather than selling original one-

of-a-kind pieces.) There are also juried wholesale

trade shows you can attend that, if you qualify,

will bring you wholesale customers looking for

things to sell in their store.

One of the most common mistakes when

starting a web site is starting too small. The myth

is that if you simply publish a web site people will

find it. You can’t have a web site without a

shopping cart or a marketing plan and expect it

to work. This is where you need professional

help, and hiring a good web site developer can

be money well spent. He can set up a shopping

cart, tell you how to use it and guide you through

establishing a credit card merchant account. He

can also make your site more “searchable” and

suggest programs designed to automatically

increase traffic to the site. Another effective

component is to use your web site address in all

your signage and print advertising. Other oppor-

tunities for selling small items on the internet

include ebay listings and Google ads.

If your interest is in selling larger items like

driveway gates and railings, a web site will also

be effective, but in a different way. The most

important part of this kind of site is the contact

info as opposed to the direct sales that come

from a shopping cart. It is a place to showcase

your work and provide information for cus-

tomers such as updates on their project. Hiring

a professional developer to drive people to your

site is effective here too. Another technique is to

place an ad in the “Ornamental Ironwork” sec-

tion of your local Yellow Pages. Your ad will be

among those placed by fab shops in your area

that probably don’t do forged work. However, a

surprising number of people who answer these

ads can afford more than what a fab shop can

offer and may choose your work over theirs if

given a chance.

Selling your work doesn’t end with finding

customers. If you’re wholesaling your work,

you’ll want to keep your account with buyers by

making your shipments on time and keeping

your price point at an optimum level. If you

need to meet with a customer to sell commis-

sioned work, be realistic about completion dates

and pricing. Often the best approach is to insist

on straight time and material, that way you and

the customer both get a fair deal.

For established smiths, advertising becomes

a smaller part of their needs as time goes on.

Once a few notable jobs are completed, “word

of mouth” advertising leads to new work. There

is a market for forged work and you can make a

full-time job of it if your work is good and you

don’t underestimate the value of marketing.

BLACKSMITH’S JOURNAL 2147

Erasable note and message board

Just about every shop you walk into has some scrap of rusty steel that has something written or

drawn on it. It’s because rusty steel makes an excellent surface for marking with soap stone, chalk

or white charcoal pencil—so we decided to make it official. You might think any old chalkboard

hung on the wall would do the job, but what really makes our “rustboard” special are the magnetic

note holders forged from bar stock and fitted with small rare earth magnets. They can be forged

anyway you please, sawn off and drilled for a magnet. Some examples are shown below.

Magnetic Note Holders

2148 #170 MARCH 2005

USE WHATEVER SIZE 16 ga.

SHEET YOU LIKE AND

BEGIN BY MARKING A ½”

BORDER AROUND IT.

MAKE ONE PASS WITH

THE CHISEL COLD.

½”

SLIGHTLY

ROUNDED

EDGE

HEAT THE COR-

NERS AND SET

TO HALF THEIR

THICKNESS WITH

A SET TOOL

WORK

SET TOOL

MAKE SURE THE

TOOL OVERLAPS

THE WORK BY

MORE THAN HALF

ITS FACE.

DEEPEN THE GROOVE

HOT, FLATTENING

FROM THE BACKSIDE

AFTER EACH HEAT.

CORRECT ANY REMAINING BOWING OF THE

PLATE BY STRIKING THE BACK SIDE COLD.

BLACKSMITH’S JOURNAL 2149

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