Horse shoe art??

[fun4now]

Bert,
a few helpful hints from what we learned selling on e-bay, personal mileage may very.

keep in mind that if you have a store and list stuff in it for $.30 it dose not show up on the auction floor so to speak. so people just browsing will never see it. so you need to list your biggest seller out on the floor for $4.50 and then people will hit your see my other stuff to see the rest. we listed our MM210 cover and torch cable covers on the main floor and then all the little stuff like our tank and gage covers all went in the store for $.30 along with a few other covers for different welders. it was working well. we also had to start accepting pay pall and C.Cards. its best to go to the bank and open a checking account just for the e-bay/pay pal stuff. we did not want our house $$ to be at all connected to our e-bay $$ as the wifes e-bay account was hacked several times. they always just used her account to try to make a quick fake sail using her good feedback to sucker some one in. but i don't see them getting $$ info being much harder to do if that had been the purpose. we never had much e-bay $ in their anyway but if my SSD check was attached in any way we could have been in a bad way fast. you should also set up a postal account, if business starts up good too many trips to the post office get expensive at $3.20 a gal. for gas.
also a buy it now option really picked up sails for us. lots of people (myself included) want it now and don't want to bid on it for a week only to get snipe bid at the last minuit. i have ended up with several of the same thing due to bidding on several at the same time just to make shore i could get one only to have them all win. i only do that with saw-sall blades and its no biggie to get some extras of them anyway but a buy it now is always what i look for first. so keep some B.Now options in there.
best of luck with it, i hope you get the $5,000 a week the infomercial offers.

[jonnymag]

fun4now,

I like those flowers. Great paint job too. Been trying my hand at making some flowers.

The attached photo was my first attempt so don't laugh too hard. Used some scrap sheet metal that was lying around the shop. Still haven't gotten around to painting it yet. Terminal laziness I guess.

Also started a few using soup cans figuring I'd go green and try to recycle. No photos yet cuz they're still in the cutting and shaping stage.

[fun4now]

The attached photo was my first attempt so don't laugh too hard.
no chance of that happening, i still cant get a rose started ?? and my first attempt was way bad.
i just got some metallic teal paint yesterday i'm looking forward to using on some flowers. i got it cuzz it was rustoleum and on sale for $2 a can. just got it as a rust proofer for my watering tank cart i made but as soon as i sprayed it on i knew i needed to get more for flowers and who knows what else, its really cool looking. it also sprayed on really nice, lots of metallics don't spray well out of a can. this did great. heck the wife liked it so much she said she would buy me some more when she gets paid..........i wonder where she is going to make me use it??? i bet i will be building some thing for her soon.

[jonnymag]

Are you using just paint or primer/paint/clear?

i still cant get a rose started ?? and my first attempt was way bad.

Not sure how you did it, but I sorta cheated. Basically, I cut cardboard templates and traced them onto the metal -- 5 circles, each 1/2" smaller diameter, divided into 1/5ths for 5 petals, with a hole in the center so I knew where to drill to attach the stem. Attach the circles to a mandrel (welding/brazing rod), biggest circle on the bottom. Then fold petals up layer by layer in overlap circle. Being lazy, I used the welper to bend the tips of the petals outward, so it left a lot of teeth marks. I'll try to remember to use a needle nose the next time. My wife calls it "caveman art"

[Bert]

James, thanks for the e-bay tips!!!
Jonnymag, looks pretty darn good!!!

[wireburner]

here is a pic. of a thing I made for my Grand-parents for there table to put hot skillets and pots on .

[jeeperjohn]

Some more horseshoe art.

[wireburner]

looks good

[Bert]

jeeperjohn,
wow, good imagination! looks great

[KBar]

Here is another, quite simple to make.

[jeeperjohn]

A few more.

[Bert]

your imagination is astounding!!! FANTASTIC JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ClarkDaniels]

Just starting out

Hey everyone,
Saw some really great posts here so decided to be a noob to it all and ask a question. I am just starting out with thinking about doing some horseshoe art , have a couple suppliers I believe can supply with some good used horseshoes for free and would love to know your thoughts on some decently cheap welders that would be good for starting off with . I did some welding in high school, just not sure what type of welder would be good to start this kind of project on. Your thoughts and tips are greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Daniel.

P.S. Would love it if I could get away with only having to buy small tanks of gasses from places (If thats possible lol) hate having to rent them out and have to have a steady fee of renting gasses and tanks lol.

[PTsideshow]

Not to rain on your parade, going into business isn't easy as pick up a couple of shoes welding them together and doubling the price.
You have to factor in the cost of your tools, assorted supplies, wire/rod, electricity other stuff that you will use in producing the items. Then you add in the profit and come up with a price for wholesale and then retail.
That is one reason that the income tax agency, says a new business can take a loss 3 out of 5 years.

The other thing is there are 1,000's of people that are already making and selling horse shoe art on the net. I just did a google search for "horse shoe art" over 15,000,000 hits in (0.19 seconds)

You would have to find a wholesaler of shoes and buy them direct, or have a number of sources for used/worn shoes.

The stories you hear about people, making money with their shop created art. Usually don't talk about the problems, and the PIA it was till they got going.

So if your not going trying to support your self or family, right of the gate.Not going to happen. Then you should also be looking into the small business administration web site for information and direction in starting a business.
And do a google search you will have more ideas for projects, and an idea of what people are trying to sell them for. They may or may not be selling any items at those prices.

Plus the economy isn't the greatest, for the extras people use to buy in most area's of the US.
And there is a reason why hot foot uses all kinds of items other than horseshoes in his art. and he is in the center of the cowboy decor world. To many other people making things with horseshoes!

[Nitesky]

Wow, what an old thread