[TheForge] Real men dont use tongs

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Ries Niemi wrote:
>
> > This goes back to the old "I am too macho to wear gloves" argument.
>
> I basically never wear gloves when forging, but not for
> any macho reasons.  I don't like the reduced tactile
> sensation that gloves introduce.  I don't know about
> anyone else, but I gather a lot of information on what's
> going on under the hammer through each of my hands.  That
> dull feeling I get with gloves is usually intolerably
> annoying to me.

I guarantee that the reason I seldom wear gloves has absolutely nothing to
do with macho, and everything to do with safety. I don't wear them often,
and I don't let my students wear them except under certain very limitted
circumstances.

The difference between wearing gloves and not wearing them is the difference
between burning yourself, and burning the SHIT out of yourself. Gloves tend
to make you careless, and when they do smolder into flame, your hand is
trapped in them- even if you immediately dunk your hands in the slack tub,
that's a couple more seconds your flesh is trapped next to the heat, and
that's what causes the really serious burns, rather than the "dammit" burns.

Similarly, I tend to wear very little when smithing, unless it's cold out. I
still have a scar on my foot from a bit of scale that fell down my boot one
day, in 90 degree weather, with 90% humidity, when I was wearing shorts and
a halter top, and the smith whose forge I was using INSISTED that I wear
boots- I'll NEVER do that again. Either wear the boots with the tops covered
under long pants, or wear shorts and bare feet- in the first case the scale,
etc won't reach you, in the second it falls or brushes off with a shake of
your leg.

I'm prepared to put up with a few minor burns in hot weather, for comfort-
I'm not prepared to put up with one for someone else's mistaken ideas of
"safety"- I know what I can do, figure my risks, and take the consequences.

And, if you don't believe me, ask people who have smithed with me, like John
Husvar, and the guys at the Hancock Shaker Village demo...

Saint Phlip,
CoDoLDS

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....