[TheForge] Re: Working alone in shop

[Mike Spencer]

> When I'm forging it is so hypnotic and wonderful, but I also
> sometimes feel afraid when I am working alone.
>
> Have/do any of you ever experience this?  Any thoughts?

I worry more about injury when I'm in a shop with other people.  I
seem to be able to focus on what I'm doing and at the same time think
ahead a bit to what comes next as I'm doing what comes now.  But
there's no way you can do that for the other guy.  And you can't watch
the other guy(s) all the time.

I was impressed -- actually fascinated -- by watching the Blenko
Glassworks guys blow glass.  At a glance, there were maybe a dozen and
a half guys walking around carrying  5' blowpipes with big globs of hot
glass on the end.  Several teams of two were variously using chairs,
moulding stands, scrap barrels and other gear requiring a walk from
the furnaces.  But they weren't falling over each other or getting in
each other's way.  No close calls.  That just isn't *normal*. :-)

Point is, it takes a lot of practice (and maybe some pink slips) to
get a team that can do that.  The other guy in the shop typically does
$STUPID_THING and a big piece of $STUFF hits *you* in your $WHATEVER.

Of course, I do one other thing:  If I have a close call, I usually
reckon that it was due to fatigue or some preoccupation or distraction
of which I wasn't aware and I knock off and go do something else for
a while, maybe for the rest of the day.  Slows things down, saves on
body parts.

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer@tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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