Soot Happens, and so do Injuries

Ok, since my last post, I have aquired a number of injuries, as is bound to happen in this line of work.

First, a burn on my thumb, from a piece of steel I had removed from the fire and set on the anvil while I stoked my forge. The steel was probabbly around 700°F at the time I leaned against the anvil and my thumb came down to rest on the hot metal.

About a week later, I was doing a forge weld, and the 2000°F piece I was hammering jumped out of my tongs and landed on my bare arm on the way down (I could smell the singed arm hair).

Two or three days after that, I was using the belt grinder, my hand slipped and I got a nasty papercut from 80 grit sandpaper being rotatated by a machine pretty quickly.

Injuries happen in this line of work, but I hope that I don't ever get quite so many, or so harsh, in such a small amount of time ever again.

But as we all know, Soot Happens.