[TheForge] Re: Demonstration and Pricing

[Mike Spencer]

> Children and adults are not knowledgeable or don't care.  I actually
> yelled "HOT HOT HOT HOT" with increasing volume as I watched a
> mother and 4 children walk right through my area when the forge was
> running.

If you see someone about to get burned or otherwise hurt, physically
restrain them.  Better that a belligerent moron charge you with
assault than that they sue you for enough to keep them in new His 'n
Hers Lamborghinis for life because little Johnny got a pointy thing up
his nose.

Yarn:

In another life, when I was a sports car mechanic, I once put a
crankshaft in the shop's only vise, hung a gear on the vise handle and
heated it with the torch.  Then grabbed the heat-expanded gear with
pliers and slipped it into place on the shaft, knocked he vise open
with a hammer and turned away with the crankshaft in hand.  SOP for
Volkswagen engine overhaul, albeit not as described in the Wolfsburg
manual. :-)

Annnd, there came another mechanic, holding a part I knew has headed
for the vise and with his hand already reaching for the vise handle.
I said, "It's hot" and he said "What?" I shouted three times with
increasing volume, "it's hot, It's Hot, IT'S HOTT!".  He looked me
right in the eye and muckled onto that vise handle with a very firm
grip.  Yowwwww!

See, this guy was a better and more experienced mechanic than I but
verbal communication was not his strong suite.  The same or similar
may be said of half or more of the people you're demonstrating for
unless you're in a very exclusive venue.  I could have hip-checked him
out of the way but instant physical action in a non-threatening social
environment isn't *my* strong suite. :-o

This is also another good reason always to have a helper, preferably a
good friend who is reasonably bright.  In addition to selling stuff
while you're hammering, (s)he can be alert to potential risks to the
public that you weren't able to anticipate before the fact.


FWIW,
- Mike

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