[TheForge] Re: Subject: Didymium? I say "no way."

[Mike Porter]

To Trister,
I doubt that anyone has ever done a study, and I also doubt that old 
blacksmiths have enough eye damage for any particular epidemiological 
evidence to stand out statistically. NIOSH only does safety studies in 
response to perceived--and relevant--problems. Ask them about vision hazards 
among blacksmiths working on coal fired forges and they are just going to 
smile at the absurdity. It would be as ridiculous to them as asking for a 
study on the traffic impact of the horse and buggy. Will NIOSH eventually do 
a study on gas fired forges and furnaces? I'd bet on it, and also that it 
will be another twenty years before enough people are using them to make the 
study look worthwhile. For old guys who don't want anymore government 
interference, this is good. For youngsters...they're on their own.

The big difference between older blacksmiths and the other trades you 
mentioned is coal. Incandescent coal gets plenty hot, but that's down inside 
the fire, with the buried work. There would be a lot of protection from 
radiance provided by the black coal partially surrounding it. When you want 
to judge the temperature of a part, you remove that part from the pile, 
quickly replacing it after a glance, in order to preserve its heat. Since 
all the heat from both fire and work is 'natural'; that is to say, of a type 
we're used to dealing with, the iris will contract properly in response to 
it, the lids  will close down in response to it, and the blacksmith will 
develop a habit of looking at it as little as possible. All this will take 
place as quite natural responses to a situation our brains and bodies are 
trained for. The pumpkin orange heat coming out a gas forge, while it is 
just loafing along, will seem much less threatening to view, but it is more 
threatening because the forge is constructed to create and use a lot of IR 
as part of its function; we even coat them with zirconium, to increase the 
amount of available IR. When you bend down and have a look at the heating 
work inside of it, you are looking into sort of IR portal formed by the 
exhaust opening. The heated work you deal with is the same as that from a 
coal fired forge, but your eyes are already taking a pounding that they 
would not be anywhere near as likely to receive from the coal forge. When 
you run torches, the amount of IR compared to visible light is even more 
extreme. What I'm trying to say, is that the same materials and techniques 
which allow us to work more conveniently create hazards that older smiths 
did not deal with. How hazardous depends directly on "how much." Are you 
just smithing on the occasional weekend, or is this what you plan to do for 
the rest of your life? Are you an old buzzard like me, without all that much 
exposure time left anyway, or are you planning for five more decades of 
passionate art? Near the end of those decades, do you think you'll have 
nothing left to accomplish, or will your aged eyes be even more important to 
you than now?

It is hard to journey without asking questions. It is also hard to arrive at 
the right answer, from the wrong question. I have answered the question you 
asked in the negative, and hope to have created more relevant questions in 
your mind. Life expectancy is getting longer all the time. Health expectancy 
is much less of a statistical matter, and much more a voluntary one.
Mike P.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <TristerK at aol.com>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 09, 2006 10:53 PM
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Re: Subject: Didymium? I say "no way."


> In a message dated 2/9/2006 11:54:17 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> michael.a.porter at comcast.net writes:
> Lots of people can't just look away from the heat source. How do you braze
> or gas weld without looking at the heat source? How do you pound
> incandescent hot iron without looking at it? I'm not saying everyone 
> should
> rush out and get protection from IR. That's your individual choice. I was
> originally answering a question asked by someone who does want that
> protection.
>
>
> OK, here's a question - most smiths do, in fact, look at glowing iron all 
> the
> time and stare into the fire quite a bit mostly without eye protection, do
> old smiths typically have eye damage that can be ascribed to IR? If so 
> what
> sort?  We know what happens to welders and glass workers who aren't 
> careful - is
> there similar epidemiological evidence for smiths?
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