Strikers for Flint and steel Needed

Not at all!!! I am a machinist who makes furniture, turns wood, spins metal, pours concrete, and is looking hard at blacksmithing for edge tools and casting for machine tools. Every new trade is easier to learn than the previous ones, and usually adds something to what I know about something I've already done.

If anyone raises an eyebrow about it- here's how I explain it. When I was in school, I took three foreign languages at once. Not only were they not hard to keep seperate, but each one helped me understand the others better- including my native English. Knowing how a sentance is constructed in French makes understaning the Spanish grammar very easy. Just like knowing how to set up a mill makes tuning a bandsaw or adjusting a table saw child's play. Every complicated thing in the world is made of a bunch of simple parts- once you get all the simple parts down, you're free to do anything you like with them.

Or to make it even simpler than that, I like to tell people that if there were more hours in a day, I'd probably make my own boots, too.

(All that being said, I see a lot of familiar handles from the woodworking group here, so it can't just be me.)

Well, I would like to thank everyone for posting here. I have a few things to say.

I did not ask for a hobbyist to make strikers, I merely provided an offer to buy if anyone was interested. There is no need to flame for this. Also, I didn't know that not being a "regular" here made a difference.

For information purposes, Strikers commonly go for about 7.00 each retail, and wholesale for 3.50 or so from someone buying large quantities. I recently received the price I am willing to pay, but I will not disgrace any of you "striker artists" so I am not going to post the price.

Thank you ALL again for your responses.

Prometheus wrote:

Hey, second post here! Almost makes you a regular! :-) There have been more than a few posts that were dropped in and never followed up on, so, I guess, thanks for doing so, as well as the information.

Dunno that "flame" is exactly what went on, I though we were having a conversation and a discussion about the value we place on our personal hobby time, and about our motivations. I found myself not very motivated. And while I was not exactly gentle in my language regarding your options, really I was writing more as a response to grampa's rant, than to the original post.

If you can afford to spend the time, this is a decent group of guys, though we are mainly hobbiests. It's not like there's an initiation ceremony or anything,(gawd! it would probably involve hot metal!) all you have to do is show up and add your two bits worth once in a while.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Initiation Ceremony?

I figure I got initiated the first time I forgot this: It ain't red don't mean it ain't hot!

Hmmmm- It _does_ involve hot metal!

"It isn't hot, it just doesn't take me long to have a good look at one of those!"

:-)

Cheers Trevor Jones

Maybe it was the part about "getting off my ass to find someone".

Trevor J>

Well, I refer to the comment I made in my last post about none too gentle language. I make no apology, though.

I have had to get off MY ass and track down stuff a few times along the way. Sometimes it took a little lift from someones boot to get me moving. It happens.

Now if I had started calling you names or otherwise casting aspersions with regards to your person or parentage, I could see it being called a flame situation. On rereading the post I made, I feel it stands well enough on its content, in it's context.

You are free to be offended, but that really was not my intent!

Cheers Trevor Jones

I do this on occasion myself, write something about myself that's been taken as an offensive attack.

I've used "I have to get off my arse" (Note arse, not ass, we're more vulgar in Oz). There was definitely no intention that I was referring to anyone but myself.

Sometimes it's a typo.

In a club I belong to we had a "Pubic Officer" for a while until someone pointed out the missing "L", from then on we had a "Public Officer".

I had a person wanting to tear me a new one with this comment "I mean to offend", which should have read "I didn't mean to offend".

Spell checker didn't pick up either of these :-(

Regards Charles P.S. I consider myself a noob also ;-)

So, Trevor, you would then suggest I walk or drive and knock on doors? Maybe I missed the meaning here. I thought this would have been a good opportunity to have a starting point, and while most took it that way, obviously some did not.

Chilla wrote:

Yes, if you know of smiths or shops selling wrought black iron good that are not obviously cheap imported goods.

Or the electric equivalent, which is calling the blacksmiths or the retail shops you know of, and asking them for contacts. You want to deal local, or with someone in another country? You have to provide at least SOME information.

Offhand I know of three or four smiths that run a more or less commercial shop, and they know many more. For the most part, though, my contacts are only suitable information for my area, and would do you no good, esp. as you did not provide info that would allow decisions to be made, pro or con, to that effect. Little details like the country you are in, and where you wish to buy from are a good start, the price you would wish to begin negotiating around would be a better one.

Are you in the US? UK? Aus.? Got a website? YOU came asking for people to contact you, without giving any information about yourself that may have allowed a reader to be able to even decide if there is worthwhile reason to follow up on your post. Gmail accounts are NEVER used by spammers, after all.

Back to the thing about being a regular around here. If you were known, and folks knew where you were, like as not suggestions of who would be worth calling could be forthcoming. The last figure I saw in print said that there were some 20 thousand hobby smiths in North America. From the number of posts here on a good week, they are obviously not all watching this particular newsgroup. As I know, or know of, at least a half dozen guys making at least part of their daily bread smithing, I would estimate that there are a fair few scattered around the world that may also be possible suppliers to your enterprise.

As far as I am concerned, YOU want information, so YOU have to put out the effort. That's what I meant exactly when I said you would have to get off your ass.

At the end of it, I don't really care if you choose to find your sources the way you went about it. I was commenting on the rant that was posted in response to the lack of enthusiasm apparent in the followup to your original post. I am actually a little surprised to see that you have actually followed up on this.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Trevor you are being way too nice to this butt-muncher. :/

He doesn't sign his posts (he's hiding his name) he wants you to be "sweet" to him and tell him what he wants to know all served on a silver platter (handmade by a whitesmith and for-sure not plated;) all for free.

Maybe I'm mistaken here tho? :/

...uh... Trevor, are you -really truely- buttmuncher's grandma? :)

If so... sorry to butt in. ;) Carry on.

Alvin in AZ

I hear the sound of a large gong in the distance, but I think it's getting closer ;-)

Regards Charles

snipped-for-privacy@XX.com wrote:

I don't know what kind of people you are used to seeing post here, but I always follow up. I have been in business for 10 years, and deal with historical reenactors. We are located in the USA, and our web site is

As far as hiding my identity? I'm not so sure that using sanctuarytraders in my mail would hide my identity. And I diid not ask for someone to walk me to a smith and get me a great deal. I merely afforded an opportunity for an interested smith to work (if he/she so desired). It's a Conspiracy I tell you! The sky is falling!

What a great group.

Travis

Chilla wrote:

:-))

Maybe someone down the line will read the posts and figure out how to ask a question here that will get them the actual info they want or need.

AFAIK, I still have not actually told him anything that will get him directly where he wants to go, but he has a map, so to speak.

No point in calling anyone names.

Cheers Trevor Jones

If you read through the posts here on a given week, you will find a fair assortment of post from various hacks trying to sell assorted pharmaceuticals, bootleg software, or chinese manufacturing capacity. Untill a poster starts to, among other things, participate, the post is pretty much just more spam.

I could be posting from gmail too. But I don't. Reality bites, but a gmail account with a name YOU recognize, does not lend much in the way of credibility to a post, as about anyone can name their account whatever they want.

Nope. You dumped a message out on the web using a easilly available free webmail account as the only reference as to who you might be. It was treated appropriately. Pretty much the way it would have been had it arrived in the inbox of anyones email account, if they have any internet experience at all, and practice a little safe computing. It was mostly ignored.

Yeah! It is! There are a fair pile of knowlegable smiths here, willing to add to the many conversations that go on. Pretty much all of them at some time or another have given up enough info to give themselves a bit, or a lot, more credibility than the message you originally posted. I have seen spam postings by chinese nationals that had a better chance of getting a response, simply because they managed to give enough information that a potential respondent knew exactly who they were dealing with.

Based on how you reacted to the overall content of this thread, I would be inclined to not wish to deal with you, unless you turned out to be a quite different person in real life. I'll not likely find out, as our paths seem unlikely to cross anyway.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Trevor, I am not sure why my post asking for someone who is interested in making strikers would be compared to selling Viagra or software. Or why you take such an offensive position toward new posters. I was unaware that I had to post my mailing address, social security number, mothers maiden name, etc. to open a dialogue. But Obviously I am not wanted here, so thanks to all the other posters anyways.

Trevor J> > I don't know what kind of people you are used to seeing post here, but

You walked in and said in essence "I want some strikers, whose got'em?" without saying where you were, who you were other than an anomynous email and now you act like were offended by what is for here run-of-the-mill posts. You appearently didn't look at other posts to see the tone here (blacksmith in general tend to speak their minds) or what sort of info others who had favorable responses provided. In other words you brought it on yourself.

From the responses it seems to me many took it to mean you wanted the whole kit and you didn't correct the misconception which would seem to make your origional post spam. I'm glad you found what you wanted but if you think you may want to blanket ask for something in the future maybe you should lurk for a while to see what goes on here.

ron

In simple terms, without some info in your post to give you at least some credibility, it looked like spam. Thus the comparison to the aforementioned sellers of spamwares.

When it was first posted, that was my impression.

New posters are always welcome. An intro of sorts is useful, or at least some participation that can lead a reader to beleive that they are dealing with a bona fide buisnesman. Guys asking for someone to do business out of the ether without leaving any information that could relate back to them, looks like spam to me, and probably to a lot of others.

I don't really give a pinch of excrement whether you stay or go, but you did ask for an answer as to why the reaction was what it was, and apparently you find it difficult to accept that it may have had everything to do with the manner in which you posted your request. Your offended tone of the followup posts leads me to think that you would be a minor pain in the arse to deal with in a business relationship. Apparently I am not alone in that, but I am choosing to be civil enough to answer the questions put forth.

I'm sorry you feel that way!

Cheers Trevor Jones