Your customer expected hand made at cookie cutter prices and had no concept of the difference.
Learn to recognize them and direct them elsewhere quickly.
Cause like, any yahoo with an arc welder can make quality tools like you, right?
They wanted a helmet not a HALBERDS.
Either make what you want and let your rep & skill back up the pricetag or make what your customers want by the cheapest and fastest means possible.
Not knocking anyone here....
I got a set of Bohemonds boots... and I plan to buy some of the imported ones from Viking Leather very soon. The Bohemonds are hand made The Viking Leather ones are made by hand too, by a Company in Pakistan.
Can I tell the difference at 15' ? Yup. Can most people? Nope.
The Bohemond's are superior in almost every way but both work. The Bohemonds cost 2-5 times more.
So who can afford a Halberds' and who's shopping at Kult of Athena?
Jonathan Baird wrote: If the way were meant to be easy it would teach you no lesson.
Rhyance wrote:Seek excellence the way a man with his hair on fire seeks a pond. Rinse and repeat. Every day.
Halberds wrote:Not any klutz can make tools with an arc welder. One must know how the tools are to be used. Thank you for your inspiration.
Hal, you do great stuff and have advanced the armouring community with your tools and kits, so failure should not be a word associated with you.
You know custom helms are not your deal for cost reasons, but if making something like this on occasion makes you happy then do it. Put it up for auction before you trash it, shoot it or throw it in a creek. Have fun and at least make some money off of it to continue to but materials, etc.
agree with blackoak about auctioning it, there are many out there who want a Halberds. and as someone with an arc welder ( amongst other things ) who makes tools, I often make them without a clear idea of what use they have but rarely have unsold tools and make use of the hive here to find uses ( in fact I have a new one today and will start a thread soon ). you make tools with a purpose and that is a better way to do it
Bender I have a direct drive double acting hydraulic system that's probably 5x faster then your air over system. That being said I could make the same thing you could make but even faster. You know what, its not worth it. One day I was welding up a helmet going over the numbers in my head and I could make more money by just by being a full time welder. Not only that, I wouldn't have to worry about a season, or someone stiffing me, or them getting a bug up their ass about it being made on a press, or one of the thousands of other things.
I think that helmet is AWESOME. The reason why, because Hal likes what he does and does what he likes. If your just doing this for the money, then you picked the wrong thing to do. Hal you have been making helmets before I started and after I quit. When I look at your helms, I see quality in both work and character.
Strike while the iron is hot. Steel is strongest so say we all.
