but if the baggies are more work, and or more time to retrofit and adapt , as your statement inferred, i don t get the old and lazy................ not that i m questioning your age or work ethic, or do they make it easier/faster, say 25% of the time! ray
baggies dont fit the bill half the time , when i started everything was handmade and ive just carried on that way , i buy a few mustads that go on some well but for all the technology available nowadays i reckon its more cost effective to carry on the way i know and believe to produce better quality work . time off dont mean a chuff to me , farriery is my hobby as well as my job
There is always a bit of snobbery around hand mades I find. Machine mades alway referred to with just that hint of a superior sneer. I agree it is important to learn and develops one's skill as a farrier, no question about that... and one is capable of knocking up anything to suit any situation. It also impresses the folk, which is why I have a shoe board of handmades in my van. But from a business perspective (and this is an antipodean perspective), it doesn't make sense to do a lot of hand mades. I tell you down here the guys making the most money are platers and those who slap on cheap readymades cold. There are very few places in Oz/NZ that justify the time and expense of making your own. We pay more for tools, and steel... and concave section we get royally screwed on. I've got to go and buy a roadster fuller today in fact, it's going to cost me $150 - $195 http://stockmanssupplies.com/TOOLS/CREASERS/pl.php Making concaves here costs as much as buying them, all things considered and you won't get paid for your time I do a few to try to keep my lagging skills, try improve them, pride in my profession... and I guess it's a bloke thing but there is something about bashing hot steel, but I struggle to find time between my schedule and spending time with my family (which is THE most important thing, right?). 80% of the guys here couldn't give a rat's arse about hand making anything... they still have full books and have way lower costs, no fire, no lpg costs, less tools... and most owners wouldn't know a good job if it fell out of a packet of cornfakes and wouldn'y notice the difference between two different shoes. Hell, the cold shoers even have the temerity to slag off hot shoers as unable to level a hoof, that's why we burn them on see.... and many of the muppets fall for it. I'd love to make every shoe I put on, but it just doesn't make financial sense, so yes, the vast majority of what I nail on are readymades. Sneer away, but that's the reality for most.
Can't speak for other areas, butt around here, bar stock that already looks like a horse shoe is less expensive than straight bar to make a horse shoe.
I have an oxy/acc torch in my truck and I can whip up a heart bar , egg bar , straight bar aluminum bars, patten shoe or any other shoe you want in less then half the time it would take the average farrier to make and fit properly.
I have about 2 pallets or about 1000 lbs. of horses in the basement that I bought out a couple years back for about $1,100. I have about 70% that were made to look like handforged and shaped like one, and is a plain un-clipped. All I have to do is clip them when needed. They are an excellent, excellent shoe with a high carbon, and lasts for a few resets. They take a E-nail; which I have 33 lbs of. They look awesomely sharp on a horse {you can't tell the difference!!}, and once they are gone; I will make my own and making my own now some concave {and still learning how to make my heels for Smitty} . I have some cheap diamonds, equines left over that I use on trail horses; and those shoes are great for that. I have lots of Kerks aluminum {75 prs} and some Victory {25 prs} left over, as well for the OTTB's. Racing Plates~~ I use Victory or Thoro'bred and are American made.
I don t doubt the above statement, but I thought this thread had to do with ,baggies, machine made, keggers etc.. Ray
Anthony, to me anyway,what you have written is very interesting, I ve always wondered why folk tout a hand made ,custom horseshoe for the horse , but they themselves wear off the shelf machine cut and often stitched/ glued shoes themselves! I wonder if there is a shoemaker for humans web blog where practitioners of that ancient craft bitch and wonder why more folk don t practice the trade like it used to be practiced.After all, I m sure they could yell that it is best for the human! course if it s done correct. Horseshoes, for the most part, I still see as bent pieces of metal with holes in it, I hope I can make it suitable for the horse that I' m working on at the time and if I can t then I hope I m good enough to refer the owner to some one who can. ray
Reality check from up north. Shoeing with keg shoes makes financial sense. A forge makes your work easier, and gives you more versatility in modifying keg shoes. Sometimes you need to make a shoe, only because you don't have the right keg shoe with you - I had to make and apply a pair of bar shoes this week, unexpectedly. I went to trim four horses at my last stop of the day at 3:00, looked at one of the horses near hind foot, and said to myself "Oh crap". As far as "Therapeutic shoeing" I would be very happy if I NEVER had to deal with a lame horse or poor hoof. Playing in the forge is fun, recreational, but there's not much financial benefit for me. Regards
Linda sorry, but your full of shyte, this thread is about what folks would like to see in keggars/baggies/machine made shoes etc. . a couple of suggestions, stop posting a comment about everything that is mentioned and finish a pair of shoes that you constantly tell other folk that they should make. from here on I will delete posts by you that are not on topic. ray
No Smitty, had them cut it into 5 ft lengths...so it would fit in my rig.. Hard to get around here, he special ordered it for me..5/16 is easy to get ...asked about Concave and he said he couldn't find any affordable..not awhole lot of other guys handmake shoes around me..I build liteshod shoes for TWHs with the 3/8 more than any other breed.
