And worse,there is a good chance his income would be much lower than currently even after he finished his training.

With that said, I used to go to some of the SCA meetings while I was in college. I met more than one excellent craftsmen that did their crafting on the weekend while maintaining a "normal" job during the week. Some made a decent second income off it.

You can do both.

Here's a shameless plug for a friend of mine. Of course he is more interested in art than functionality, but I am commissioning at least one piece from him:

http://www.jloose.com/

Also, I live in Eastern Europe. I don't know anyone who currently does anything like this and would accept trainees.

I do have a long-term plan of starting a small workshop of some kind though.