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You think this stuff has a market?

2K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  unit28 
#1 ·
The last thing I did before leaving FC, CO was to visit a brass foundry. The guy wanted some advice on improving his sprinkler art. He used to have a thriving restoration business but Chinese imports have killed it and now he is trying to come up with new stuff. This was just one example. I guess at a high end garden store somebody might pay 50.00 but he needs more like 150 to make it worth his while. Brass is not cheap. I told him that making specialty fountain objects for ponds and waterfalls might get a better return.

Wood Sculpture Table Art Artifact


Wood Sculpture Gas Auto part Metal


Jaw Wood Sculpture Table Art
 
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#6 ·
There's prolly 50 bucks in copper and brass right there. Damn chinese.

Pete I was thinking of you the other day when I was looking at a new wallet at a local sporting goods shop. My existing wallet is a falling apart piece of crap that i've had for 20 some years and
made fun of by everyone that sees it. I need a new one. I saw one I liked, but it was made in China. I just could not buy it because of you. Thanks buddy. Seriously. :drinkup:
 
#8 ·
You know I am not going to blame China.

I am going to blame the US consumer first and Walmart second.
I'll blame the gov't and all the meddling they do to.

A true free market economy does not exist.

Its like the b-day card I got the other day

Front says "The gov't took your b-day cake"

Inside says "They sliced it up and gave it to people who aren't fortunate enough to have a b-day today"
 
#12 ·
There's prolly 50 bucks in copper and brass right there. Damn chinese.

Pete I was thinking of you the other day when I was looking at a new wallet at a local sporting goods shop. My existing wallet is a falling apart piece of crap that i've had for 20 some years and
made fun of by everyone that sees it. I need a new one. I saw one I liked, but it was made in China. I just could not buy it because of you. Thanks buddy. Seriously. :drinkup:
Best way to bring our boys and girls home is to buy at home.
Screw the global economy. We've paid way too much in blood propping it up. We are bailing out everybody and it's all being funded by the "Forgotten Man".

Maybe there isn't a market for high end artisan brass work. Maybe this guy doesn't develop his skill enough to create unique demand. So be it. What is driving him under is chinese knockoffs made with dollar a day labor. For 40 years this guy paid taxes while the govt turned around and screwed him by allowing the chinese to dump cheap crap. He handed me a chinese knockoff of a high end door knob he used to make. It weighed half as much. Thinner and on closer inspection lacked the detail ornate stuff. But it gets sold as "brass" in your local big box. That alligator was heavy. No skimping on brass. I also thought to suggest to him to make a giant oversized brass popup and give irrigators the ability to have their company names put on it as paper weights or just for fun.
 
#13 ·
One of the suppliers - whatever JDL was before it was bought - had for a short time something like that. I bought a turtle that basically had an 1800 top molded into the turtle body. So you would install a 4"-12" body into the bottom, and have the turtle sitting in the garden. The stem popped up from the turtle. It wasn't brass, and I don't know what it was made of. I don't feel it needs to be brass. At the time I think there was also a rabbit and one other animal. But this was 10-12 years ago.
 
#14 ·
There's a cottage industry (probably Chinese slave laborers) making little statuary hose-end sprinklers with a brass full-circle nozzle doing the watering.

and speaking of homemade-looking stuff, I've seen one or two ebay auctions for a hose-end 'swirl' sprayer like the one pictured, but the ones in the auctions were made of some kind of pottery or porcelain. Nelson brand they were, and you could read the L R Nelson name on the items. A sprinkler of such material seems kind of weird. I wonder if it was a WW II item, reflecting a shortage of metal for such frivolities as lawn watering.

 
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