Author: DIY Blacksmithing

Posted on

How Much Money Does a Blacksmith Make? Weekly Income Report

Here is a snapshot of what our blacksmithing business makes in an off-season week. Watch the video or read below for the breakdown!

Top Line Revenue: $1726.96

Here’s the weekly wrap-up for my blacksmithing business: Brown County Forge.

In the video, we cover total revenue and where it came from, from February 12th through February 18th, 2023.

If you like seeing behind the scenes like this, give it a thumbs up.

That feedback helps me know what kinds of videos to make next.

Thanks!

Now let’s jump in:

Summary

  • Etsy Sales: $192.60
  • Class Bookings (in-person and online): $1534.36
  • Book Sales: 0
  • Custom Work: 0

Book Sales and Custom Work

We’ll start with the zeros for this week: Book Sales and Custom Work

BOOK SALES

The DIY Blacksmithing Book

I recently removed The DIY Blacksmithing Book and my other books from Amazon after almost 7 years.

I’m experimenting with providing the books directly to people rather than through Amazon.

We’ll see how it goes.

CUSTOM WORK

Custom work comes and goes depending on the season.

Sometimes its a sword sharpening job.

Other times it’s fabricating address plates.

I don’t rely on custom work.

Etsy

ETSY SALES – $192.60

Compared to last year, sales are down 72% for this time period.

Home decor is a seasonal business and not all of my ironwork sells year-round.

No worries here.

Classes

CLASS BOOKINGS – $1534.36

I had class bookings come in on Sunday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week.

It was a mix of in-person classes and the online course.

This is a great result for the second full week of February considering we aren’t too far past Christmas.

TOTAL REVENUE FOR THIS WEEK: $1726.96
– – – – –

Why I’m Sharing This Information

It’s not to brag about what I’ve done with blacksmithing.

My main goal is to encourage others to, at a minimum, make their blacksmithing hobby pay for itself.

Sell some hooks, pay for your forge.

YOU Can Do This

I firmly believe that you reading this right now, can make extra money sharing what you know and creating handmade goods of your own.

You might be in the percentage of people who do astronomically better than me.

That would be awesome!

The more blacksmiths the merrier.

Positive Feedback Welcome

  1. Comment below.
  2. As always, you can email me at diyblacksmith@gmail.com.
  3. And if you want to learn the methods and equipment I use to run my business, check out the DIY Blacksmithing Course: https://diyblacksmithing.com/course
Posted on

DIY Projects That Sell – Turn Brass Into Cash

A Simple Brass Project that Makes Money

DIY Projects That Sell - Turn Brass Into Cash - DIY Blacksmithing

Using one 12-inch piece of brass that you can purchase for $7, I’ll show you how to create a set of hooks that can sell for $30 – $35.

You would net $20 after Etsy’s fees if you’re selling there. For 20 minutes of work.

A dollar per minute is pretty great.

Stay to the end of the post and I’ll tell you where to buy the right size brass stock in bulk.

How to Turn Brass into Cash


Here’s how to make the simple brass hook:

First, cut your 12-inch brass stock in half, each piece equaling 6 inches.

Next, file or grind the corners and sharp edges so they’re smooth to the touch. This will give us a much better finished product.

Then, take your pieces over to your anvil to start the texturing.

You can use the flat space on the back of a vise for this if you don’t have an anvil.

We’re working the brass cold so you’ll have good control over the piece if you need to work on a small surface.

Using a ball peen hammer, lightly peen the brass starting 2-inches from the end of it.

Work your way to the other end, overlapping your peening blows. You can leave gaps if you like, but stacking pebbled hits looks better to my eye.

Next, flare the bottom end that will be the hook tip.

Using the curve on the back of an anvil or other slightly curved surface, hammer down on that tip to curl it outwards.

Then, we’ll use a piece of bar stock bent into a U shape to make the hook bend.

Next, we’ll cut the hooks to length (I cut mine to 3.5 inches long) and flare the top of the hook where the hole will go.

Finally, we’ll drill out a 5/32” hole to fit a #6 brass screw.

Use a little steel wool to polish the brass and bring out its shine.

And that’s it. Hopefully, this gives you some ideas for making your own simple projects out of brass.

Price them correctly based on your time, materials, and customer feedback and you’ll be earning money from your handmade hardware.

To buy your brass stock for this project, follow these easy steps. I’ll also put them in the description below:

To buy your brass stock for this project, first go to diyblacksmithing.com/om

That will take you to Online Metals, our supplier of choice.

Metal Selection

On the home page, you will enter these options:

Material: Brass

Shape: Bar-Rectangle

Alloy: 360

Thickness: 0.125” – this equals 1/8-inch

Width: 0.5”

Then click the Search Now button.

That will take you to a page where you can select the brass bar length you want.

The best pricing when it comes to shipping is on 36” or 3-foot bars.

They ship from multiple locations in the US: Atlanta, Dallas, Seattle, and Toledo are a few.