Caleb Hale Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 So yeah, this is the show that pushed me over the edge to try blacksmithing. I had always been interested but I thought it required a huge forge and all kinds of crazy expensive tools, but once I started seeing the other people's home setups I figured I could do that too. Anyway, I was rewatching a few episodes recently since I've started smithing on my own, and I'm picking up and noticing a lot of things that I wouldn't have even known about before. But one question I still have is why do blacksmiths not like wearing gloves when working? Am I missing something important by not having the steel touch my skin or is it all just preference? If I don't wear gloves all of my fingertips would be burned and my knuckles would look like hamburger from the belt grinder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tubalcain2 Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 It is mostly a preference thing. I don't use gloves. hate um. but that's just a preference. I don't however, recommend using them with grinders or power saws. much too easy for the machine to grab the glove and pull your hand in. I have hurt myself in this way in grinders and know folks who have lost fingers and almost whole hands in this way to table saws. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 29 minutes ago, Caleb Hale said: But one question I still have is why do blacksmiths not like wearing gloves when working? Am I missing something important by not having the steel touch my skin or is it all just preference? If I don't wear gloves all of my fingertips would be burned and my knuckles would look like hamburger from the belt grinder. Caleb, there are several threads here on IFI about glove use (pro and con). Check out the sections on safety equipment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 Caleb: We've gone into gloves around fires a number of times and much as I get tired of repeating myself this is important enough to do it without too much griping. I discourage gloves in the shop for any task that's around moving machinery or the forge itself. At the forge provided it's a gasser I only allow a glove on the holding hand. Gas forges tend to get anything in or close to the openings HOT but more than that there's the dragon's breath that'll take the hair off your arms and hands so you can be susceptible to burns just reaching for the work using tongs. With Mikey's input I'm working on designing gas forges that have almost no dragon's breath. Dragon's breath is wasteful of fuel and dangerous so my new goal is to give gas forges a breath mint and eliminate dragon's breath. Leather gloves around HOT steel are dangerous on two counts. First you develop the BAD habit of reflexively picking up steel knowing your hand is protected from hot steel by the glove. You WILL pick up steel bare handed and this reflex WILL get a piece of black hot steel stuck to your hand like a stake in an ungreased frying pan and burn the snot out of you. Go ahead ask me how I know. The other even worse danger of leather around hot steel or the forge is it shrinks on your hand trapping it before the heat works through to your nerve endings to let you know you're in trouble. That's TROUBLE all caps badness. A leather glove heat shrunk on your hand can be impossible to get off without cutting it off and it's baking your hand like a potato the whole time. If you're lucky you have a bucket of water close enough to stick your hand in to cool the glove and make it slimy soft so you can get your hand out. It won't come out without a 1st. degree burn on your WHOLE HAND IF you're lucky. Enough about gloves and HOT steel and fires? Yeah, I've seen this happen around a camp fire and performed 1st. aid on the victim, more than once. Want to know about gloves and rotary tools? In my shop you have one warning about gloves and ANY rotary tool, disregard me and I 86 you. PERIOD. A rotary tool is any tool with a spinning component under power, say a hand drill, the drill press, ANY grinder, other than a right angle disk grinder. Put a wire wheel or buff on a disk grinder and it's NO GLOVES PERIOD! Why? It's the glove trap, you can NOT get your hand out of a glove fast enough to not get sucked into moving machinery and you haven't seen blood and gore like someone who's had a hand dragged into the gears of a cement mixer, a hand crank drill press even though those are usually just crushing injuries and ruptured flesh. Getting caught by a wire wheel is horrific sometimes fatal, they turn into a flesh eating demon and spray any meat it touches around the shop like mud off a motor cycle wheel. Buy sucked in I mean it literally grabs you and pulls you in or as in hand held power brushes comes to YOU. A disk grinder with a wire brush powers itself up your arm or leg until it's stopped by the cloth and flesh jamming it till it stalls. If you touch a wire brush with your bare finger it just takes some but you jerk away before you k now you're been bitten. Same for a belt grinder or lord help you a buffer! Anything that can get tangled WILL get tangled and it'll reel itself in and it WILL eat your lunch. GLOVES on a wire wheel of buffer are about as dangerous as it gets and you haven't live till you've had a disk grinder with a cup brush walk up your arm taking the meat off to the bone till your shirt finally jams it to a stop. Glove to shoulder takes maybe MAYBE half a second. Wear gloves or not IN YOUR SHOP is your call. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremy k Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Frosty - don't forget loose fitting clothing - even a t-shirt tucked in can be bad when using a cup style wire wheel bent over your work and the cup wheel gets ahold of your shirt on your mid section and the grinder keeps going...... New German Fien 5" angle grinder - lots of power but it stopped when it had my shirt wound up tight and the shoulders ripped out - and yes some good rasberries on my belly. Cup wheels are very dangerous when you let your guard down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caleb Hale Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Thanks for the info, and the vivid descriptions! Apologies for not searching beforehand. I'm rather attached to my fingers and skin (pun intended) so I'll have to start getting used to going gloveless as much as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tubalcain2 Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 I can second what JK said. got a cup brush get a hold of my jeans once. not as bad as a shirt but i still got scars on my leg. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Martin Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, Frosty said: ANY grinder, other than a right angle disk grinder. Put a wire wheel or buff on a disk grinder and it's NO GLOVES PERIOD! Just to clarify, do you mean you wear gloves when using abrasive wheels in your disc grinder, but not when using a wire wheel or buff, or do you never wear gloves when using a disc grinder? I've heard different opinions on this and some do suggest wearing gloves when using abrasive wheels. I keep anything loose away from spinny grabby things-didn't take more than one close call with an untucked shirt and a drill for me to learn that lesson.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 22, 2017 Author Share Posted March 22, 2017 Yes, I wear gloves using abrasive or sanding disks on a disk grinder. Your trigger hand is in the plane of rotation of the wheel so catches a lot of high speed debris especially if a wheel breaks. Even a paper sanding disk can cut the heck out of you. I also wear long sleeves with buttoned cuffs, cuffs are ALWAYS buttoned. I also wear gloves when welding or using a oxy fuel torch. I AM a reasonable guy. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Martin Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 19 hours ago, Frosty said: I AM a reasonable guy. I thought that was what you meant, just making sure I didn't misread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormcrow Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 New season starts this week. And on the 18th: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormcrow Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 New season starts this week. And on the 18th: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JHCC Posted April 11, 2017 Share Posted April 11, 2017 Hey, whoa! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 11, 2017 Author Share Posted April 11, 2017 Hey, I recognize that guy! I was going to watch anyway but now it's a priority. You know I'm going to have real trouble not giving you grief about which way your anvil's pointed. Yes? See you tomorrow evening. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormcrow Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 Forsty - We had the opportunity to change the anvil orientation, but I work from both sides of my anvil so I didn't bother. They're now showing commercials for my episode (next Tuesday, 8:00 CST), and it's interesting to see myself on the TV screen. The cuts are edited so quickly, that by the time I realize I'm looking at myself, I'm already off the screen. It should be an entertaining episode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 12, 2017 Author Share Posted April 12, 2017 You're taking all the fun out of flicking a little at you. I work all around mine too. It is weird and kind of hypnotic to see yourself on TV. Do you sound like yourself? I KNOW I don't sound like . . . THAT! I'll be watching you betcha. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba682 Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 lol Frosty your tellin us that a glove can heatshrink to a hand before a person can feel the heat thats the first i ever heard of that i 'd have to see it to beleave it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted April 12, 2017 Share Posted April 12, 2017 11 minutes ago, bubba682 said: lol Frosty your tellin us that a glove can heatshrink to a hand before a person can feel the heat thats the first i ever heard of that i 'd have to see it to beleave it. It might be better worded that a glove can heatshrink to your hand before you can do anything about it. This isn't the result of slightly hot metal meeting leather. This is very hot metal and leather making a quick acquaintance. By the time it registers in your head that it is dangerously hot, the leather can easily shrink to the point where you can no longer easily remove it. Of course it depends on several factors, such as how tightly the glove fit in the first place, how hot the metal is that you grabbed, how much surface area was in contact with hot metal, how much moisture was in the leather, etc. But rest assured it can happen. I've had small portions of leather gloves "shrink fit" due only to concentrated sparks from grinding hitting them in the same spot for 10 to 15 seconds. It didn't burn badly enough to even blister the skin, but it was unpleasant and disturbing to be unable to quickly shuck the glove off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba682 Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 Ive been burned many a times over the years and ive got the scars to prove it i was just havin some fun with Frostys terminology and enthusiasim i couldnt resist lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted April 13, 2017 Author Share Posted April 13, 2017 Uh huh. Like Buzz says there are a lot of factors that can get you trapped in hot leather, tight thin gloves can get you really quickly. "welding" gloves tend to be big, loose and thick for this reason. I know tig welder's gloves seem mainly for preventing UV burns they're so thin and tight. Mine were. Getting trapped in leather is a good reason to keep a large bucket of water handy, certainly a better reason than to "quench" hot steel. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daninghram Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 On 4/11/2017 at 2:29 AM, Frosty said: Hey, I recognize that guy! I was going to watch anyway but now it's a priority. You know I'm going to have real trouble not giving you grief about which way your anvil's pointed. Yes? See you tomorrow evening. Frosty The Lucky. What is the correct way to point it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 *YES*! there is a lot of discussion on this that it *should* be to the left by folks who tend to be one book wonders as they don't consider folks that are left handed; or what the anvil will be used for---I went through "Practical Blacksmithing" once and recorded which way the anvil was pointing on all the shop diagrams, the first one was pointed straight at the forge as their main product was rings and so straight from the forge to the anvil horn for work and welding. The others varied. So the correct direction is the one that works best for YOU and YOUR methods of work and is safest for what YOU do. (As I teach a bunch of random people I teach that the hardy should ALWAYS be removed after use so as to not have issues with the next person sharing the anvil) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anachronist58 Posted April 13, 2017 Share Posted April 13, 2017 19 hours ago, bubba682 said: lol Frosty your tellin us that a glove can heatshrink to a hand before a person can feel the heat thats the first i ever heard of that i 'd have to see it to beleave it. It can be a rotten deal when one discovers just how much water is hiding in a leather glove as it flashes to steam, the glove shrivels and skins the hand. It was horrible. Hot work is not for the arrogant and careless. Learn and Respect. On 04/11/2017 at 10:06 PM, Stormcrow said: Forsty - We had the opportunity to change the anvil orientation, but I work from both sides of my anvil so I didn't bother. Stormcrow, I will be looking forward to seeing you in reruns...... I'm no Blacksmith (yet), but I require 360° access to the anvil, and all of its delightful profiles. I have watched one of our members here on video working at a fixed orientation, and it doesn't seem to hinder her masterful execution. Robert Taylor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormcrow Posted April 14, 2017 Share Posted April 14, 2017 One of the other contestants in my episode is also on Iforgeiron. She's to my right, second from the left in the picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bubba682 Posted April 14, 2017 Share Posted April 14, 2017 7 hours ago, Anachronist58 said: It can be a rotten deal when one discovers just how much water is hiding in a leather glove as it flashes to steam, the glove shrivels and skins the hand. It was horrible. Hot work is not for the arrogant and careless. Learn and Respect. Stormcrow, I will be looking forward to seeing you in reruns...... I'm no Blacksmith (yet), but I require 360° access to the anvil, and all of its delightful profiles. I have watched one of our members here on video working at a fixed orientation, and it doesn't seem to hinder her masterful execution. Robert Taylor So how did ya burn your hand was it in a forge cause that's what I thought Frosty was talkin about I mean a house fire or something like that's a little different. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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