[TheForge] Working alone in shop

[Ries Niemi]

I feel positively safe in the shop. With the forge fired up, its nice 
and cozy, and I have never cut myself so badly I needed stitches, or 
even a butterfly bandage when working by myself. Usually the worst 
injury I get is bruises on my legs from bumping into junk I should have 
put away.
Woodshops scare me lots more- carbide blades spinning at high rpms- I 
have had my shop in the same building as woodworkers several times, and 
I have patched up a few late night cuts when THEY were working alone.
My scariest experience alone was in a junkyard- I found a stack of 4x8 
sheets of all kinds of cool patterns of perforated metal- unused, the 
kind you have to special order for $150 a sheet, and it was maybe .15 a 
pound. The sheets were standing up the 4 foot way, leaning on something 
big, and I started paging thru them, pulling them towards me as I 
looked thru the pile. Got real excited, didnt pay attention, and the 
whole stack fell over on top of me. Luckily, it was a junkyard, with 
lots of junk on the ground. If it was a nice clean floor, I woulda been 
jam. I ended up pinned but unhurt, with about 5000 pounds of sheet 
metal holding me down. Lay there for a minute, reassuring myself all my 
parts still worked. Then I sorta squeaked- help. did that for a while, 
and finally worked myself up to yelling HELP! Finally the grumpy old 
junkyard guy came over, scowled and shook his head at me, and went away 
for another five minutes to find his helper, so they could stand up the 
sheets, one at a time, until I was unburied. I did buy about 10 of em 
and I even have a few scraps left, 20 years later. But I am a lot more 
careful around heavy stuff now.

ries