[TheForge] Re: The mind 1st to go

[Mike Spencer]

Jason Nass wrote:

> ...as for shedding tools at the swap meets...Sure, it's capitalism,
> but it's also not doing anything to help keep our craft alive.

What he said.

I hate to sell tools. Tools, at least the old, well-travelled smithing
tools, have mojo.  Sell one and what do I have?  Money.  Money doesn't
have mojo, is fungible and quickly goes away long before I find
another buyable tool with similar mojo.

Okay, I guess big stuff like power hammers that run in the thousands
of bucks -- significant in my very modest domestic economy -- I could
bring myself to sell. But as a rule:

   + Swap.  Something I can use in the shop, maybe something I've
     wanted for years or haven't been able to find for a project in
     exchange for for something the other guy is really overjoyed to
     have.  I swapped a working, 100# Palmer Power Spring Hammer for a
     non-working 300# Alldays & Onions air hammer. Both parties
     tickled pink.  Swapped an Acadia single-banger missing a part and
     with a cracked water tank for a Wisconsin engine [1] on a
     trailer, a post drill and a small forge that I fixed up and
     passed on to my son.

   + Something that's extra/redundant for me and I see another guy
     really could use it?  Give it to him, no strings. I saw a guy do
     an enthusiastic and successful demo, but with a helved chisel
     that was just totally inadequate.  Well, I had several new-old-
     stock Atha hot sets so I helved one and gave it to the guy.

   + Iron in the hat.  If something has been laying around for 20
     years waiting for me to get around to fixing it, reassembling it,
     finding a use for it, I put it in Iron in the Hat at a Maritime
     Blacksmiths' meet.  Somebody gets it cheap and has fun.  That
     makes me feel good and I don't have it hanging over my head any
     longer. Compressor I had for years, IIRC picked up for free as
     junk, eventually disassembled to see what I had.  Then it got
     upstaged by a nice big, working compressor.  Compressor in a
     Basket off to Iron in the Hat.  MBA made money, guy that got it
     was happy.

Unless you're experiencing hard times, money is only money but an
anvil is a good smoke. Or something like that. [2]


- Mike

[1] Anybody have a 50# LG (or equivalent) they want to swap for a
    Wisconsin engine?  How about for two Wisconsin engines? :-)

[2] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Betrothed_(Kipling)

    "...a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke."
                                    -- Kipling

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