Yes, this question is oddly specific.
A few weeks ago, my fiancée and I were checking out some of the local history places around Austin, TX. Many of them deal with the wave of German immigration into the area around 1830s-1850s-ish, especially in some of the outlying towns like Fredericksburg which were majority-German-speaking for many years afterwards. After seeing several different preserved or replica homesteads from that era, one thing that stood out to us was the repeated presence of waffle irons in the kitchens.
This item surprised us. Quite a bit of the historical narrative dealt with how these immigrants had a difficult and labor-intensive life, due to poor growing climates (and in the case of Fredericksburg, sources of funding falling through). They were very no-frills by modern standards, with a small stove and not much equipment.
A waffle iron seems... like an inefficient investment. It's not mechanically complicated, but it has a complicated shape and it's solid so it takes a decent amount of iron. It's a very specialized piece of equipment, compared to other large metal implements in the home (like pans). And if you can make waffles, you could make pancakes with basically the same recipe and no specialized equipment.
So I don't get why they all went to the effort and expense of making/acquiring a waffle iron. Where they not as difficult to make as I'm assuming? Am I missing something in the comparison of waffles to pancakes? Was this one of the few luxury items that the Germans embraced? Was it a Continental tradition that they refused to give up?
To understand the popularity of waffle irons, especially in the 1700s, you'd have to relate it back to the rise in affordability of sugar when prices were cut nearly in half by the beginning of the century. Even though waffle irons date back to the 1400s, usually reserved for religious wafer pressings, in the 1700s Germany became the leading producer of waffle recipes. Because of that, waffles easily became a very integral part of their food culture. As with any immigrants, the Germans brought their food culture with them and the waffle iron and its sometimes impossibly intricate designs.
In terms of being "difficult to make", I'm not familiar with forging. So hopefully someone can answer your question. But in terms of culture, it was ingrained and was worth the investment.
I get the distinct impression you've never cooked over an open fire or with a brick type oven. You do not want to get your hands near those things. Not to mention flipping the pancake. What are you going to use? a spatula? good luck with that. Try finding something thin enough to get under a pancake but strong enough to not break every time you use it in 14th century Germany or for that matter 18th century Germany. Maybe a fork? Ouch man way too close to the fire. Not to mention it's just not easy to flip a pancake with a fork. In 14th century Germany pancakes would be the ones that required special tools.
The waffle iron allowed you to stick your batter into the fire flip it over and be done easiest thing in the world. Also consider that the waffle at that time was not a specialty item ordered at restaurants every once in awhile. Waffles were eaten once or twice a day every day. For breakfast maybe a waffle with cream for dinner maybe a waffle wrapped around sausage.
Lastly waffle irons were made using sand casting. Those intricate designs would be carved into wood. The wood with design would be pressed into sand and molten metal poured into the depression. It would be just as easy to make a fancy shape such as a waffle iron as it would to make a simple cast iron pan. Sometimes easier especially if you were making a deep pan. Sand walls sometimes collapse in and if you don't lift the mold just right you bump the sand and deform the wall of your pan. deep thin parts like to trap air that could ruin your pan. for a plate with a design (like a waffle Iron) you just push down and lift straight up.
So I think to understand this, you need to know two things: Where a lot of these German immigrants were from in the German states and the relative history and popularity of waffles.
So, most of the immigration by Germans to Texas was driven first by a group called the 'Mainzer Adelsverein at Biebrich am Rhein', or the Adelsverein. This group was organized in Hesse and sourced most of it's immigrants from nearby overcrowded areas in Hesse, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Baden-Württemburg, the German BeNeLux, etc. This group established the 2 most populous German settlements in Texas: New Braunfels and Fredericksburg. They also happen to be the focus of study for German immigration exhibits in the Texas Hill Country.
As for waffles, they were really in their heyday around this time. As a cheap to make breakfast pastry, the continent--especially the Low Countries--was eating waffles as almost a staple pastry. Compared to other pastries which are more popular today, waffles were easier to make because they require much less sugar (which was fairly expensive at the time). More importantly, the heart of waffle eating Europe was very near where most of these early German immigrants were coming from.
So, they packed up anything they thought they'd use in their new homeland and that often included a simple waffle iron that was fairly commonplace in their areas.
Cast iron items aren't all that difficult or expensive to make (though this varies slightly by casting method). The metal is, as the name suggests, cast. This requires a mold, and different techniques for making these molds exist. I'd have to look more into waffle irons when I get to a computer, but a lot of cast iron pans are sand cast, which has a high output and is relatively easy to do. It's also cheap, as you just have to reform the mold after with the same sand, rather than using new sand.
Follow up question: what parts of modern Germany did German American immigrants tend to hail from?