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

[Peter Fels And Phoebe Palmer]

As a kid, i was terribly insecure. It occurred to me that i could 
acquire value if i could "make something out of nothing".
Now, 50 odd years later, you'll find me happily rooting around in 
the junk pile.
Even when it's not economically justifiable, i still will 
preferentially use junk iron......pf

dan tull wrote:
> 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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