Hello everyone,
I'm a blacksmith and steel fabricator in Hampshire, I have gotten a bit bored of making gates and railings (everything is just ANOTHER variation on a rectangle) and I am looking at having a go at making something a bit different.
I have a fascination with the old advertising posters and newspaper ads from the early 1900's, mostly machinery that is used with traction engines or horse, ploughs, harrows etc but also manual scythe sharpeners, log mills etc, one of my particular favourites is the Champion forge all in one with build in vice, anvil and blower, they even sold peripherals like a manual mini lathes for thread cutting etc.
Mainly what I'm wondering is if there would be a market for making these things, most of this kit I'm assuming has had the patents run out and most of the companies don't exist any more, and whilst I do understand that there probably isn't a big market for it, I have pretty low over heads and would only plan on building in the 10's a year (if even that much).
What I thought is that a lot of this equipment was designed to be used for small farms and homesteads in the first place so the equipment itself is relatively small but also build simple, sturdy and easy to repair.
One of the complaints I hear a lot from farmers when I do welding repairs for them etc is that a lot of the equipment there using now has so many electronic controls that theirs nothing they can do to get them up and running again without having to call up the manufacturer to get an engineer out and that can take days even weeks to get out there, now, I'm not saying I could build simplified versions of millions of £'s combines but a small plough or a harrow I COULD build.
Anyway I would be really interested in your thoughts please, negative or positive all welcome.
Many thanks