When the anvil search method goes awry...

[Frosty]

"Charmed, demented or smidged. Is there a significant difference? Remember we're a bunch of guys who like to play with fire and hit things with hammers"

But only the toughest of us will have a face off with a great white birch!

(I love the scene in young Frankenstein with the hermit---"Fire is our friend!")

Sure, being tough is a fine thing Thomas but out smarter brethren will get out of the way of falling trees.

Fire IS our friend. Good movie. That's Igor master!

Frosty the Luckier than tough.

[ThomasPowers]

Isn't that a line from Atli's very thin book of wisdom "if you can't be smart you had better be tough!"

I can hardly wait till the grandkids come out to visit and we can play with fire!

[edge9001]

Isn't that a line from Atli's very thin book of wisdom "if you can't be smart you had better be tough!"

I can hardly wait till the grandkids come out to visit and we can play with fire!

I always prefered the saying "if you can't be smart, atleast be smarter than the tools your using" to which I answer anvils and hammers aren't that smart, they get the crud beat out of them on a daily basis and still stay for more, knowing more is coming tomarrow....kindda like that dog that still comes begging for food at the back door no matter how many times you beat him(not that I beat animals {unless out of metal})

[ThomasPowers]

I take it a step downward and tell students that they have to be smarter than their *materials*---of course I'm often teaching college students at a well respected Tech school and so many of them have no "hammer skills" at all; (but some think they know it all from book learning...and video games).

[Frosty]

I think I'll have to see if I can find Atli's book, Dad used to say something similar. The close version I am familiar with is, "It's best to be good and lucky but if you can only be one, be lucky."

Gee Thomas, you actually get college students who have read . . . Books!? I thought schools switched to Wiki-libraries and X-Box shop classes decades ago.

Cinical switch off, sorry guys.

Frosty the Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

I had one student that's read a lot on the recent work on Wootz and thought he knew far more than me---until I mentioned that I had worked as Al Pendray's assistant at his Quad-State Demo---besides reading all the same stuff...

One student I really had strong feeling's about (and not good ones!) was a fellow who was having massive difficulty just hitting the workpiece instead of the anvil. Finally I stopped him and asked if he was using his dominant hand to hold the hammer. He told me "*no* he wanted to build up hammer skills on his off hand"---didn't care if he dinged up *my* anvil face doing so! (or took an hour longer than the rest of the class on a simple project and produced something that looked like scrap *I* wouldn't pick up!) Almost hated to tell him that he was banned from taking any more classes with me; I guess he will have to learn off hand skills on his own now...

Then there was the two who thought they were being smart and tried to move the anvil and stump at the same time when we were loading after class; so they picked up the stump by the large handholds and then stood there and watched as it turned turtle on them (no wrist strength) and dropped the anvil off on it's horn making an impressive divot in the concrete floor and then stood and watched as it fell over on his foot. First lost time accident in 28 years of teaching! I learned to pull my foot out of the way when something heavy dropped before I was in grade school!

This is at a top rated engineering school!

[Mainely,Bob]

I think I'll have to see if I can find Atli's book, Dad used to say something similar. The close version I am familiar with is, "It's best to be good and lucky but if you can only be one, be lucky."

My next tattoo;"Ni bhionn an rath ach mar a mbionn an smacht"
It is Gaelic for "There is no luck except where there is discipline".