Most metal craft people, i.e. hobbyists, overlook a potential gold mine sitting right in front of them in their own workshop. Have you ever thought of supplementing your income by doing outside jobs repairing metal utensils and articles.

Many of your friends most likely have metal items in desperate need of repair, these articles generally lay idle and not used because most people do not know where to take things made from metal for repair work.

You could start out by doing work on speculation; you might need to do some footwork in developing your "expert" reputation; but a few "freebees" done here and there for the right kind of people will quickly get the word around about your "expert" metal craft skills.

Think about how you could apply the same techniques used to create your own metalware, to set up and repair the metalware that someone else has made. In doing so you could provide a valuable service to your community, and generate a significant income at the same time.

You could even develop the enterprise to a point where full-time metal craft services could be provided, if you are good at your work it won't take long to develop a solid reputation in metalware repair work, as word spreads, people will start to seek out your services.

It would not really matter if you were located in a hard-to-find, out of the way place, word-of-mouth advertising generally will be enough to give you more work than you can handle. You could even build a small web site with examples of your repair work displayed.

Anything made from metal will eventually need care and attention. Metal gets dented, crinkled and cracked. It gets torn, broken and tarnished.

All of those problems, and more need the attention of a skilled metal worker. Many valuable metal work pieces are simply scrapped; because of the lack of people with the skills to effect repairs.

Could you become the local metal repaired expert?

If you work with metal, chances are you already have most of the skills and tools to provide this service, you will be helping to preserve the products of fellow metal workers and make good money doing it.

Your foundry skills and general metal work skills should provide you with the confidence to explore this avenue of being rewarded financially for your skills & efforts.

There is an acute shortage of all kinds of trade's people these days, and this is happening all over the western world... the day may not be too far distant where skilled trades people will have far higher incomes than many so called "elite professions", in fact this is already the case in some countries.

Col Croucher.