Let's all get hammered

I haven't posted in a while.  Not because I have nothing to say, as people who know me will tell you, but because I haven't had the time to stop and say it.  

Recently, I was sucked back into theater...or theatre...or ...I don't know....back into making set pieces and props.  And not just for one show either, because those theat..errr people can smell blood.  Plus when you are a micro manufacturer, you can't be picky.  One of the interesting things about the experience, among many, is acknowledging the way we generally learn the craft.  I think this applies to most crafts.  Since the dissolution of guilds and apprenticeships, we tend to learn through brief and minor exposure followed by years of trial and error.  And just about the time we have begun to master our craft our bodies give out.  It's a beautiful process. 

 

I will be cremated.  I think it's appropriate. 

The whole mind body relationship is a joy to experience.  One of the shows I made props for includes a one woman trapeze act.  Yes....you are about to hear the wonderful and pointless story of my inadvertent humiliation.  For reasons known only to my less than masterful brain, I find these stories funny.  

The  trapezist in Twisted Vegas.  Go see it.  It's fun.

Anyway, I met the trapezist (that's apparently what you call that person swinging from the swing, although Microsoft doesn't recognize the word)  when she accompanied one of the stagehands picking up one of the props. ( Rolling staircase for a Celine Dion impersonator bit.  I knew you wanted to know.) A couple of weeks later, I went to see the show.  I saw her act.  My brain seriously did not register how strong she must be, because... you know, we are all strong enough to hang upside down by a toenail and then flip to standing on the swing in our minds.  After the show I was hanging out in the house waiting for my friend to finish work while the trapezist was working on adjusting her harness with a stagehand.  She does a neat trick at the end of her set with it.  Rather than hang in the air while they did the adjustments and tests, she decided that they should use sand bags as a stand in for her. 

I know you think you know what is about to happen.  You are wrong.  Also you are probably wrong about the point of this pointless story.

  

Anyway, she headed backstage and reappeared with a sandbag in each hand. She's 5'-2" tall.  A large and burly stagehand did the same.  I should have noted he carried the bags with much less grace.  The stagehand vanished as they will, and the trapezist turned to me and asked how many sandbags I thought she would need to approximate her weight.....Nope, I did not insult her by saying something stupid about her weight.  What I did say was "How much do you think the sand bags weigh?"  She grabbed one and started walking toward me while curling it.... and said "I don't know maybe 20 lb. I curl about 20."  This is when I should have run screaming from the theater.   My brain didn't work.   I just stood there while she said "what do you think?" and HELD THE BAG OUT TO ME......................................Giant sigh.....................................................

I swear that sandbag hit the floor at twice the speed of gravity...with me holding on.  Twenty pounds my flaming red keister.  All I could do was hope, while trying to still my fluttering heart, that when I righted myself she wouldn't be smirking or laughing out loud.  

I'm pretty sure trapezists get a lot of training and do a lot of training.  Trial and error after a short intro would kill them.  

I don't know what the first thing you learn when you want to become a trapezist is, or how long you spend learning it.  I do know, from one account I read that when there were guilds, the first thing an apprentice blacksmith learned was how to file.  He, because they were all he, would spend his first year doing nothing but filing.  I'm pretty sure after a year of filing, with constant correction and instruction, anyone can file.  There is a part of me that wishes for a return to this level of craft, but I don't really want to return to any other aspects of that time so I will just go ahead and get to my point.

Yes, yes, yes.....I'm pretty sure there is one.  

One of the things that I notice (aside from lack of attention to safety, but they are related) when I watch or even see pictures of aspiring and often working smiths is a lack of hammer control.  It's probably nothing that a year of hammering with correction and instruction wouldn't fix, but we have no guilds.  

I recently saw a picture of a "famous" smith who was holding her hammer so close to the head that I was surprised she didn't have bloody knuckles. Hammers should swing.  They shouldn't punch.  Part of the problem, I think, is that the hammer is too heavy to be controlled.  If you can't control your hammer, I don't know how you can master the craft.  It's that simple. The tool must be allowed to do its work properly. 

I asked my buddy, Jim Peppryl, who is the finest smith I know for a picture holding a hammer properly. He sent this.  It makes me happy that he chose this hammer.

The romantic attachment we seem to have with big heavy hammers is counterproductive, because if you choke up to the head you have lost the power of the momentum of your swing.  You cannot push a hammer and get anywhere near the power you get if you let it swing. 

There are some things that I think are important and that I look for in a hammer.  I have three of four hammers that I use for almost everything.  I own many more and I keep getting new ones but I don't use them because they don't have the qualities I need to have good hammer control.  Of the hammers I use, two are 2 lb and two are 1 lb.  Most people would think those are too small to be effective, but I straightened a piece of 1/2" plate with my 2 lb ball peen and a torch.  It's all in the control of the swing. What these hammers have in common is that they are all very nicely balanced, both side to side and front to back.  That means that when I hold them properly with a loose hand on the handle, they don't twist or pull.  None of them is so heavy that I need to hold them by the neck.  That means that they do the bulk of the work without my shoulder wearing out.  I'm also very careful to dress my hammers so that they don't leave excessive marks.  That means I sand off the sharp edges.  

I got this strange little riveting hammer at an ABANA conference

My three favorite hammers. 2 lb engineers ball peen bought at a garage sale in a bucket with a bunch of other stuff, 1 lb rounder and 2 lb french pattern hammer

Swinging a hammer can be profoundly satisfying and when done properly incredibly productive.  So my advice is, choose a well balanced hammer that's handle sits easily in your hand.  Chose one that's weight  doesn't require you to grip it by the neck to control it. Keep it well dressed and always WEAR EYE, EAR AND LUNG PROTECTION.  

        

There it is.  We aren't all destined to be little strapping trapezists.

Now back to work.

The thing about luck

I usually start these things with a story.  Something that I think relates to my point or makes a point that I want to make.  For this there are too many stories.  I could tell the one about the young woman who got her long hair caught in the drill in college.  There was blood, and crying in pain, and crying from humiliation, and a really messed up haircut.  That was the first one I remember.  I could tell the one about the guy tapping the chisel towards his stomach because it was easier than re-clamping the work.  I’m pretty sure you know how that worked out.  It also involved blood. There’s the one about the girl and the wood chipper.  That involved some serious pain and months of having her finger sewn into her armpit.  She was a musician.  She needed her fingers.  There are stories of digging through dust to find finger bits, stories of broken bones, stories of deep cuts, and stories of projectiles imbedded deep in human tissue.  Those are the stories where the consequences were immediate and violent and everyone I know who makes things, works with their hands, will say “uh, yeah, ..saw that coming.”  

I use a band saw.  Fairly quiet and no flying dust particles.

They all see that coming and still rely on luck when it comes to long term safety.  Like the guy in the shop down the complex from mine who was cutting, welding and grinding with no eye protection, hearing protection or respirator to protect his lungs.   Not that eye protection is about long term safety.  I don’t have a personal story about someone who has lost an eye, probably because I mostly work alone.  And I’m pretty sure that you can’t have your eye sewn into your armpit to save your sight.  Also, squinting doesn’t count.  I do have a couple of incredibly sad stories of guys dying young of lung cancer or ending up with emphysema.  Either way they were unable to work.  I also have a lot of stories of older guys who can’t hear.  It’s not that I don’t want to look them in the eye and enunciate when I talk to them.  It’s just that it’s not convenient at all times.  

Fiber cut off wheel.  Contains silica and aluminum

Cut off saw - These suckers are noisy and dirty

I don’t really think it’s laziness that makes people not don proper safety equipment, although that may play into it.  It actually mystifies me.  I do get that some of it can be a little uncomfortable at times.  I work in Vegas.  My shop gets so hot in the summer that my thermometer can’t register the temperature.  I still wear an apron, gloves, safety glasses or goggles (this depends on what I am doing), ear protection and a respirator when I’m working.  Oh yeah, and boots.  I sweat a lot.  

Maybe it’s some form of machismo.  I don’t know what the unisex word for that is.  I find that black booger blacksmithing thing disturbing.  Really?  If your boogers are black at the end of the day, so are your lungs.  My first blacksmithing workshop, the instructor (I won’t say who he is because he’s well known) said that he liked to forge his work as close to finished as he could because he didn’t want to eat grinder dust.  Huh?  What difference did it make?  He stood over a coal forge sucking in soot.  Grinder dust was the least of his problems.  Also he was deaf.  He did, to his credit, use safety glasses.  That was it though. 

Not flattering but they work

The rubber keeps some dust out.

So stylish

Recently there have been a couple news stories about cancer.  One was that it’s a crap shoot.  The other was that behavior plays a large part in its development.  So why take the chance?  The thing about relying on luck is that good luck needs to happen every time.  Bad luck only has to happen once.  Those seem like crappy odds. 

 

Apron doesn't have to be leather to protect.

I use different equipment for different processes.  While working, I always wear an apron and boots and proper clothing.  I don’t wear jewelry.  That’s pretty common.  I have pretty short hair now, but when it was long I always tied it back. 

I like a tight fitting glove.  Get the right size.

I always wear a glove on my left hand.  That is because I am right handed.  It means my left hand is in danger.  If I need one, I have right hand gloves.  

I use a kevlar glove to weld. 

I wear ear muffs because I don’t like things in my ears, but ear plugs are fine too. 

  

So many ways to save your hearing and worth it.

Wear these all the time and it will be like never having worn them at all.

I wear safety glasses for some operations and goggles for others.  Even though I work alone, I always protect my eyes. 

Standard goggles - I hate them. 

I find these too heavy and the rubber seal makes them fog.

I use goggles similar to these.  No fog.  Try SafetyGlassesUSA.com

 

Although I know some people will use dust masks, I use a respirator.  As a scientist once told me, the visible particles are a problem, but the stuff you can’t see can be worse.  That’s the stuff that gets by a dust mask.  

I think these are a waste of time and money.

This is what I use.  3M Bodyman Respirator.  It fits under my hood and works for grinding and buffing.  Get the correct size and filter.  You can get them online or at a body shop supply.  Worth the money.

This is the Miller welding respirator.  I haven't tried it. 

I know I will die.  We all will.  I just don’t want to be a pathetic shell of my former pathetic shell before then.  To me at least, it’s worth the money and the effort to protect myself short and long term.

Now back to work

j

You know...You really are an asp.

A while ago, I was a member of an art collective.  I was asked to join though I don't consider myself and artist in the contemporary sense.  I am more an artist in the there were guilds and apprenticeships and decades of training leading to work for royalty and the church sense.  Like Michelangelo.  The stone carver.  Or maybe like Lorenzo Ghiberti.  Only less bronze....and other stuff.  The thing is, most artisans didn't sign their work so I can't give you an exact example. 

Anyway, once a year the collective, which turned into a center to enhance somebody's resume, had a juried members show.  I was a member.  I paid my dues.  I entered the shows.  My piece was usually chosen to be included in the show.  I have a theory about why this was, but that is another story.  Sometimes my stuff, or work in the vernacular, doesn't strike the amateur art critic as art. 

I had a show in a government rotunda once, and during the opening reception some guy asked my parents what made my stuff art.  Naturally they called  me over so he could ask me directly.  I told him it wasn't.  Yeah.  Now that I think about it, that was graceless. 

Really though, the things I make don't belong under Plexiglas shields.  They should be used and touched and held and.....used mostly.

Okay, so back to the juried show at the art collective which no longer wanted me once it became a center.  Again it was at the opening reception...I overheard a guy tell his companion that the only reason I made the type of things I make is that I am not capable of figurative work.  -------------------------------------------  I can see now that I should avoid opening receptions.  

The next juried member show I entered this.

I can comment on the human condition as well as the next guy.  I can't actually sell it, however, because it has no use except maybe as a reminder that no matter what you do there is always someone who thinks it isn't a conscious choice.  That you do what you do because you can't do what you really want to do.  Actually, sometimes this is true. 

My model.  Isn't she beautiful?

This time I made a conscious choice to do something figurative.  I actually think it made the choice. I just did what the metal asked.  Yeah I know .... whooo whooo

When I first started out trying to smith, I didn't think pipe could be forged in basically the same way as solid bar.  I had a buddy, who is a fine smith, and he encouraged me to try it.  ( He's still my good buddy.  I knew you were worried. )  It made me incredibly happy to find out that you could move tubing in the same way that you moved solid bar.  This revelation created new possibilities.  Larger diameter with less weight.  It also created a solution in  this case.  I don't know if you know this but, just like clothing fashion, home fashion has fads.  The result is leftover materials.  I have a pile of 1/2" pipe ends.  Less than 6' long.   

I was holding a 30 some inch length and trying to figure out what I could do with it when I decided to go all figurative.  I would make a snake.  Really, I think it wanted to be a snake.   

Got its head in a vice

I started by fullering the neck to make the head.  I drew out the taper up to the jaw and then I shaped the head.   

You really don't want to touch the snake

Then I let it sit there for several weeks while I did other stuff.  Believe me when I say, half formed snakes are annoying.  In that time, though, I realized that a snake would be as useless as a chunk of pipe.  It would become a cane. 

 

Needs a little more cleanup

Carving the eyes and jaw came next.  I used a chisel to rough the form and then I went back in and dressed it with a die grinder. ( Sorry all you purists.  What can I say. )  Once the head was where I wanted it, I formed the handle and drew the tapered tail. 

Snake head cane handle

 I cleaned it up and waxed it.  It's a simple but useful thing.  I kind of like the way it turned out.

34" snake cane

Now back to work

j