[TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron

[dan tull]

Woodturning takes free firewood, and turns into $100 bowls.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Hirst" <saltydog335 at aol.com>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 10:36 AM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron


> Y'know, I was thinking about this just the other day as I was working on 
> an order for some lamps (the ones with the cast iron balls).  Aside from 
> the balls,(which the customer doesn't want on half the order)  my material 
> cost (mostly 1018 CR) is 4 percent  of my price.  And these things are not 
> particularly labor intensive.  because of the minimum forging and detail 
> in these things, it would not be particularly technically advantageous to 
> use anything but the what I am using. ( I could even use all 1010 / A36 HR 
> and save another 1 percent ) But with any more scrolling and leaf work, 
> forge weldng,  etc I can see a big difference being made by using pure 
> iron or WI. I imagne it could even reduce labor time significantly.  With 
> all the additional labor charge, -- say double the price -- a material 
> that costs 5 times as much as 1018 only increases my material cost to 10 
> percent of my price. So if I can  get only 10 percent more by marketing my 
> work as pure iron or real wrought iron -- which would NOT be a hard sell 
> in these parts -- I am actually ahead on the cost of the superior 
> material.  Can anyone think of another craft where top quality materials 
> represent less than 10 percent of  price?  So yeah, for the next order I 
> take, where the extra quality will show, I am definitely in the iron 
> market.
>
> I would be interested in knowing how other smiths'  economics --or math --  
> compare to mine.
>
> Keziah
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David E. Smucker" <davesmucker at hotmail.com>
> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron
>
>
>> If there was a market it would be made.  We all (blacksmiths) like 
>> working with things like pure iron and wrought iron -- but we don't want 
>> to pay for it.  Pure Iron is the perfict example.  Everyone seems to 
>> bitch about A36, but most were not ready to pay 5 or 6 times the cost of 
>> A36 for Pure Iron. We get what we pay for.
>>
>> Stainless steel, gets paid for because of life cycle cost.  For many 
>> industrial uses it really pays.  In a number of applications we could do 
>> the numbers and it said that if mild steel lasted 7 years it was a better 
>> deal than stainless -- but it was really hard to put a price on downtime 
>> for replacement of the mild steel -- in the end we went with stainless 
>> which we guessed had a service live of at least 20 years -- still working 
>> fine and that has been 19 years now.
>>
>> Dave
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Andrew Vida" <osan at netlabs.net>
>> To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 23, 2008 9:09 PM
>> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: File Making, sniffing up wrought iron
>>
>>
>>> From my perspective it is a shame that nobody is making it anymore.  It 
>>> has some very good qualities and I would imagine it would be a lot less 
>>> costly than stainless.  I guess some of the troublesome working 
>>> characteristics made it unworthy of further consideration.
>>>
>>> ries wrote:
>>>> As I understand it, this type of pipe was the last product made of real 
>>>> wrought iron, and was made at least into the early 70's.
>>>> I have heard the last mill making it was in Sweden.
>>>> It had certain chemical plant uses that kept in production until 
>>>> various alloys of stainless and newer metals finally did it in in the 
>>>> mid 70's.
>>>>
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>>
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>
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