Blacksmithing

 What is a Blacksmith?

A blacksmith is a person who works with metal and makes things such as tools and gates, or even creative items which can be sold.  A blacksmith is usually self-employed as it gives them much more freedom and flexibility in their work.

 

If you are a self-employed blacksmith then running a small blacksmith business from home is an ideal way to run a business while doing something that you enjoy.  In addition to making tools and gates, you could make items requested by members of the public and provide a niche market service.

 

Some blacksmiths do work in larger forges though and an added benefit of this would be that you would be part of a team so there would be help available for larger projects.

 

When you’re a blacksmith then you will spend a large part of your day forging metal and using different equipment to create the tools or items, as well as creating new designs to make.

 

There are several ways that you can become a blacksmith and one route is to go to college and take a course in blacksmithing.  There are a few schools that offer bachelor degrees in the subject, but the easiest and most popular route to becoming a blacksmith is by doing a vocational degree which lasts for two years.

 

However, if you are not able to, or don’t want to go to college then you can apply for an apprenticeship.  This is where you work with a blacksmith who will train you while you are on the job.  This is a good way to begin your career as a blacksmith because you are getting hands-on experience while learning from someone who is already a professional blacksmith.  Upon finishing your apprenticeship you could either set up your own business and become self-employed, or you could continue to work for other blacksmiths.

 

 

Salary

Before setting up your business, it is important to remember that you will need the right tools for the job, namely an anvil and a forge, and that these tools can be expensive, although they will last you for a long time, which will off-set the initial outlay some.

 

A blacksmith’s salary depends a lot on their experience and reputation - the more experienced and the better your reputation you more you will earn.  As the salary is dependent on several things, it does vary, and therefore it is difficult to say reliably as to what the salary of a blacksmith is.

 

A good way to earn alongside being a blacksmith is to also become a farrier.  A farrier is someone who makes and fits shoes to horses and although there are not that many people with the experience that is needed to make horseshoes, a blacksmith already has significant experience in forging and shaping metal which would make this a good option for making additional money.  Working as a farrier could earn you an extra $20,000 when doing that job alongside blacksmithing.

 

 

Constant Work

Despite the innovation of machinery taking over the production of many of the tools which were made by blacksmiths in the past, there is still a demand for a good blacksmith as they are reliable and provide top quality work which can be customized to the customer’s individual requirements.

 

A good blacksmith will often have a waiting list for customized items because it is a niche market service that is popular with customers who can request any number of different items which could range from fire pokers to tables.  It is a particularly popular service because customers know that they are getting a hand made item of a good quality that has been designed to their individual needs and specification, and not just something which is mass-produced in a factory.

 

As blacksmith has the ability to work at their own pace and set their own schedule they can work on several items at the same time.  This means that it is a flexible job which you could do around other responsibilities, which even makes it a suitable job to do if you only wanted to work part-time.

 

Blacksmithing is a suitable business to run if you wanted to be self-employed and still bring in a steady income.  You would most likely need to put in some long hours until you built up your customer base and established a good reputation, but once you did then you would be able to set your own hours and decide on the amount of work that you wanted to undertake.

 

 

How Creative is Blacksmithing?

To be a blacksmith you need to have a creative mind and the ability to create good designs and also the ability to take a customer’s idea and make it into a reality.

 

You will mostly likely develop your own style as you become more experienced which will help you to attract customers while also creating projects of your own.  The ability to make signature items of your own in a variety of designs would mean that you could increase your profits by selling them and develop an additional customer base.

 

By creating items that are customized to your customer’s needs you would have plenty of variety in your work, instead of only ever producing the same thing every day.  This means you are unlikely to become bored with your work or get tired of producing exactly the same item day after day.  Even though you are working to create something which the customer has requested, a lot of the design aspects are down to you as you need to use how to create it and decide what materials are the best for the job.

 

Being a blacksmith allows you to create anything you like from scratch and be creative with it, adding your own unique designs.  However, even if you are creating mainly practical objects such as tools or furniture, you can still be creative by putting unique decorations on them which would be appealing to customers.  One of the main aspects of blacksmithing is that you are creating something that will last for a long time, and it will have more meaning if it is unique and also allow you to make more money by being creative.