Hi Brian,
Thank you for outlining your general circumstances and what you
would like to achieve.
You do have a number of obstacles to surmount to become successful,
the main one is your physical robustness. Perhaps too long in front
of a cad screen maybe? However, your young enough to overcome this
with daily practice i can assure you of that.
The next is not the designing or making but the marketing of what
you make.
You need a weekly market somewhere within say a 2 hr drive like a
craft market or even a farmers market or even a regular car boot
sale, where you can expose what you make to a large no of people.
You need to do your research to this end before you do anything
else. Selling on line is not the way to go when you start. you need
the interaction with the customer and the feed back you will get to
develop your ideas for each following week. I kept my family from a
4ft by 4ft display at an open air art market, albeit some 3 hrs each
way one day a week for 7 yrs before moving on to bigger things. bit
younger then!.
People do like to see a regular face, try on the product, your then
half way there.
Next is the product.
Copper and brass are nice decorative metals, look good when polished
but are not really suitable for on the skin wear. Laquering isnt
permanent and you do need to promote the longevity of what you make.
Now there are 2 options id advise,
- making unjoined silver rings.
To give you an example, I had today my 10 yr old grandson in my
workshop, I showed him how to make a 1/8in dia round wire silver
ring in 5 mins. Silver cost here in the uk say ?1. selling price ?5.
Now assuming I can make easily 50 a day taking my time what with cups
of tea etc. thats ?250 a day.
If i work 2 days a week making and 1 day a week selling say half of
what i made in one day, thats ?125 just from that product line. All
you need to do is be yourself.
to make these I used the following tools
- leg vice the 3rd hand 1 med sized hammer, 1 small hack saw the 6
in blade type 1 tapered steel ring stick a steel block to hammer on
held in no 1, and finally a small band sanding machine, 36 in long
belt 1in wide 240 grit. free running vertically to deburr and
finish…
This has a tapered spindle on the top roller to take small up to 4in
dia scotchbrite wheels and polising wheels. A piece of tapered broom
handle to support the ring when polishing. It spins on the wood
polishing the inside as well as the outside at the same time.
You need to be fast and accurate to maximise your time.
- You need to consider 999 aluminium, say in 1/4in dia annealed
rod. you use this to make simple cuff shaped bracelets, onto which
you stamp say the owners name at the market.
Sort of a personalised service. It worked for me for many yrs.
You mention making bags, ladies do buy bags, so to sew them up you
need at least one of the following, singer 29k better still a 45k
with a cyl arm. both will sew leather well the latter when motor
driven up to 1/4in thick!! I have both here so know what they will
do. Source of lots of leather furniture upholster’s off cuts.
Source of metal generally, any good scrap dealer will have copper
transformer wire copper sheet stainless sheet and more. Youll just
have to go out hunting.
They tend to be touchy Till you offer to make something for their
kids for free.
If you can work out how to read all the previous posts ive made to
this forum youll find some more useful info there.
Once you get up and running, then you can develop what you do to
include silver brazing, much more wrought work, but thats all in the
future.
Get back via this forum how your researches progress, then well look
at the next step.
Ted.