Pricing out a forge/furnace.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Is it realistic for blacksmiths to be getting Wealthy or Very Wealthy? They're the stereotype of a poor, hardworking labourer, even if they have their own workshop and forge.

It's not an accurate stereotype.

A village blacksmith, who's mostly a glorified repairman, would be a leading member of his community. Not rich, but in a good position for a peasant. Smiths working in cities would be full-blown professionals doing important skilled labor. Middle class craftsmen, of course, but tending towards the upper end of that middle class. And, of course, there'd be the real specialists. The guys making the really good weapons and armor would get the patronage of the aristocracy, providing them with the tools of the rather expensive trade of being professional warriors or at least looking like them. They'd make money. A Very Wealthy smith would be the exception, but as craftsmen go, they'd be disproportionately likely to reach that level.

[Daigoro]

Fair enough, sort of what I was suspecting.

But still, there's a bit of distance between "owns his own workshop" and "Very Wealthy weaponsmith to the aristocracy". For Varyon's calculations, I would've thought Comfortable would cover your middle-class craftsman, then maybe reaching Wealthy for those tending upward.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Is it realistic for blacksmiths to be getting Wealthy or Very Wealthy? They're the stereotype of a poor, hardworking labourer, even if they have their own workshop and forge.

This is mostly because the rules for wages at low tech are broken (due to broken cost of living). The way the GURPS rules work, your starting wealth is equal to 10x your disposable income (i.e. income - cost of living) if your status level and wealth level are equal. That's not a ridiculous ratio, but because disposable income at TL 3 is only 14% of total income, you wind up with a ratio of assets vs income of only 1.4 months, which is possible but quite rare.

If you set income to a more reasonable $200 for average wealth (requiring cost of living $100) that workshop now costs a more reasonable $2,300 (and note that the smith might either be in debt, or not own his tools).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

So about a year and half worth of an armourer's wages.

Assuming we can go off of a journeyman (Dan's values for apprentice vs journeyman match with LTC3), at TL3 a year and a half's wages for an armorer is going to be around $34,200. Considering Cost of Living, a Master armorer (where we'll use LTC3's ~x2 to income) would need to work for 42.75 months (a touch over 3.5 years) to be able to afford one if he maintained his Status 2 during that time and spent money on nothing but maintaining CoL and building his workshop. If he opted to live "below his means" for a bit, at Status 1, he could afford it after 13.15 months (a little over a year).

If we opt to use this as a standard (it's only a snapshot, but isn't any worse than any other snapshot), that implies you could probably set it to 17.1x the starting wealth of a journeyman. You could round that down to 15x, or up to 20x (I'd be inclined to do the former; this drops the price to $30,000 above, while 20x would boost it to $40,000). At TL 3, this is $7500 for a Struggling job (Village Blacksmith), $15,000 for an Average job (Alchemist), or $30,000 for a Comfortable job (Armorer).

Originally Posted by Daigoro

Is it realistic for blacksmiths to be getting Wealthy or Very Wealthy? They're the stereotype of a poor, hardworking labourer, even if they have their own workshop and forge.

My post was specifically about an armorer - someone who produces arms, that is weapons and/or armor. A blacksmith produces tools. LTC3 lists the Village Blacksmith as a job supporting a Struggling income, meaning a Master would be Average and an Owner would be Average or Comfortable. That puts the cost of a smithy at either $800 or $1600 by my first method.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

So about a year and half worth of an armourer's wages.

The above is just for the tools. A basic forge would be built by the smith himself but a more advanced one would be built by professionals. It would cost at least as much as all his equipment combined. Note also that armourers were paid more than blacksmiths, even more than weaponsmiths. They had their own guild and workshops were often directly controlled by the Crown. I would consider them to be upper middle class. Perhaps on a level similar to jewelers.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Varyon

My post was specifically about an armorer - someone who produces arms, that is weapons and/or armor.

Historically this would not have happened. Weaponsmiths and armourers had their own independent guilds; their jobs were rigidly demarcated and strictly enforced. Any reference to an "armourer" at the time specifically refers to someone who makes armour, not weapons.

Any game involving a smith who makes both weapons and armour in medieval setting would need some fantasy handwaving.

[Culture20]

Hobby? At minimum, the price of two hammers, one a sledge, the other normal sized, and a lot of wood. You can improvise a forge from just clay from the ground, make charcoal, and and use the sledge as an your anvil. Bonus: it's very portable, as long as you don't mind remaking your forge in the ground. If you want to make bloomery iron from iron rich ore or even clays, you can also make a bloomery furnace from clay, and use the charcoal to fire it.
If you don't want improvised tools, then you can spend more time making the forge with the same materials and buy some bellows. The sledge hammer is virtually identical to a stump anvil which would be a professional anvil for TL3. Our concept of an anvil didn't occur until later, when iron was cheaper. Which reminds me: start having your character grab every iron or steel item available. That will be your biggest cost.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

The above is just for the tools. A basic forge would be built by the smith himself but a more advanced one would be built by professionals. It would cost at least as much as all his equipment combined. Note also that armourers were paid more than blacksmiths, even more than weaponsmiths. They had their own guild and workshops were often directly controlled by the Crown. I would consider them to be upper middle class. Perhaps on a level similar to jewelers.

Yech. So, looking at something around the lines of 30x Journeyman Starting Wealth (15x for the forge, 15x for the tools).

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Historically this would not have happened. Weaponsmiths and armourers had their own independent guilds; their jobs were rigidly demarcated and strictly enforced. Any reference to an "armourer" at the time specifically refers to someone who makes armour, not weapons.

Any game involving a smith who makes both weapons and armour in medieval setting would need some fantasy handwaving.

LTC3 handles weaponsmiths, armourers, bowyers, and gunsmiths all under the profession of "Armorer," which is what I was referring to. I considered just using "or," but didn't want to miss out on any historical outliers of craftsmen who made both weapons and armor, if such existed.

From your previous post, it sounds like the version of the LTC3 Armorer that has Armoury (Body Armor) would be one Wealth category higher than the others. The comparison to jewelers implies LTC3's Armorer is most appropriate for someone making body armor (as it already makes around the same amount as - actually just slightly more than - the Jeweler), so a weaponsmith would be of Average Wealth. Would such also be likely to have lower skill? Armoury-12 seems appropriate in that case (and they'd probably lack the Jeweler skill).

Incidentally, for a setting where there are craftsmen who produce both arms and armor (or at least a workshop that has both weaponsmiths and armourers working in it), would they be able to get away with a single set of tools? If not, roughly how much do you think they'd need to augment it? I'm thinking something like +20%, but that's just a shot in the dark.

[DanHoward]

Mail-making requires a lot of the tools and techniques that jewelers use but once the links and rivets are made, assembly requires pliers, a drift, a small hammer and anvil, and a rivet-peening tool.

Plateners require a large workshop of tools, forms, and templates, very few of which would be useful for making weapons. Only a fraction of these are mentioned in my list above.

[DanHoward]

Regarding the jewelry tie-in, there is a good chance that mail was invented by a jeweler. Pliny the Elder wrote that a 4th century (B.C.) Greek jeweler named Midias of Messene invented mail armour and Jost Amman’s Book of Trades (1568 A.D.) supports this claim with the following:

"I am the foreign mail-maker
I make the steel mail shirts
And mail sleeves and mail strips
The ones which are worn openly and in secret
And mail of good Krägn steel
I can also roll and clean mail
Midias, the mail-maker, invented this craft."