[TheForge] Working alone

[Jerry Frost]

I work mostly alone and have only hurt myself when I let myself get too
fatigued. Knock on wood, I've only done a few stitches worth of damage on
these incidents. Now they're available I carry the cell phone though it's
usually on a table or shelf nearby instead of in a pocket or clipped to me,
in harm's way.

I feel far more threatened when there are others in the shop, especially
unknowns. I've never had a student hurt me nor themselves as I divide
activities carefully. First we talk about a process, then I demo it, then I
(usually) sit on a stool close by while they work. I hold off multiple
person activities like striking, etc. till they've gotten a handle on
things.

While a wood shop is a more dangerous place than the typical metal shop, I
grade them several steps safer than a production metal spinning shop like I
grew up in. You don't turn the lathes off when we removed parts and put
fresh blanks in. Opening the tailstock and letting the part off the die was
pretty safe, they'd to drop straight down into the makeshift chutes and into
the box behind the lathe. The shapes kept them from taking off like hubcaps.
(usually)

Putting a fresh blank in the lathe was a whole different story as it's a raw
meat slicer blade, you eyeball center on the die and close the tailstock on
it, pinning it to the die. If you're off center by much centrifigul force
will rip it loose and send it tearing (literally) across the shop. Other bad
things can happen too, say you try pushing the tool too far: the part can
fail catastrophically either from fatigue (rare) or it just wrinkles up in
front of the tool, like a bed sheet being pushed by a broom handle, and
tears itself to pieces in front of you. This is often worse than having a
blank come out of the lathe, at least the blank's path is somewhat
predictable: A blank usually leaves the die and runs up the spinner's left
arm exiting at or near the elbow, then drops to the floor to cut a screaming
curved groove in the concrete floor. Like I say, pretty predictible. When a
part comes apart it's shards of bent spinning SHARP sheet metal ricocheting
all over the place.

Sorry about that, I got off on old memories. Bottom line; I'm not at all
uncomfortable working alone in my little shop. Or felling trees out back or
sanding the hill roads in freezing rain, etc. If my safety is in MY hands
I'm comfortable.

Know your limits, don't work fatigued.  Know the limits of your tools and
materials. Stay on yellow alert, orange if others are there. Watch out for
the other guy.

Play hard, play safe.

Frosty
------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.