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Saw a guy at a demo in Stockton weld without any gloves, now I'm second guessing everything
I went to a small blacksmith demo at a farm museum in Stockton two weekends ago and one of the older smiths spent a good hour at the forge with bare hands. Not even a leather apron, just jeans and a t shirt, grabbing hot steel with tongs and checking his work by eye. Meanwhile I'm standing there in my gloves and apron sweating through my shirt. He said he's been doing it 30 something years and gloves make him feel like he can't feel the heat coming, so he pulls back before it bites him. Half of me thinks that's just old guy stubbornness, but the other half wonders if I'm leaning on gear instead of learning to read the metal. What do you all think, is bare handed forging a real skill or just a bad habit waiting to send somebody to the ER?
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river_bailey26d ago
Learned to feel the heat through the tongs is the part people skip over. That old guy probably knows exactly how long he has before something goes from warm to screaming just by the color and the pull in his arm. Gloves do dull that, no question. But the trade off is he's one slip from a scar that could end his whole hobby, and most of us don't have 30 years of calluses built up to back up that kind of confidence. So yeah it's a real skill, just not one I'd copy from a guy who's already paid his dues in burns.
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