At the most recent NWBA conference I overheard a conversation in which a very well respected local smith told a story of a guy who took this VWRS’ beginners class. The student came in all cocksure having been at the metalwork game for a little while and VWRS told him “make me 100 hooks” and the student proceeds to pound out 100 hooks of the requested style (he didn’t say “S” hooks but whatever). VWRS said he put them in a tumbler to get the scale off and then arranged them on a table, selected the best one and looked at the rest. He then said “I said make me 100 hooks. That means 100 hooks- all the same”
So the guy makes another 100. Same result, except this time there were 5 that were almost exactly alike.
Another 100. 8 were the same
Yet another 100. This time he got 15 or so.
…..
And it’s here that I’m revising part of this post. After having discussed this with a few people, it turns out this may not be an accurate story. It may be that it’s a story that our VWRS tells pretty often, although the people and objects involved change somewhat from telling to telling. It’s been proposed that I may have misheard the conversation, or walked in on the middle of the story. I don’t think that’s the case, as I’d been standing around listening to VWRS for a while before he told this one. But that’s ok. If it didn’t happen like this, then that much the better.
It has been proposed that the story went more like “I was telling this guy, who came to class all cocksure and acting like he knew everything, that if you make 100 hooks only two will be almost exactly alike. And that in the second hundred, you’d probably get two more that matched and maybe one or two that matched one or two in the first set….”
The point of the story, apparently, is that you need to practice. A valid point. Especially if you’re hired to actually MAKE 100 hooks all the same. I suppose there’s a masochist smith out there who doesn’t believe in jigs. But I do. And so does VWRS. And that’s where this would end up. After mangling 5 or so pieces of steel into a generic hook shape, one would get fed up, cut some pins, weld them to a plate and make a damned hook jig. Then he’d heat and bend 100 pieces of steel, probably banging on them a little along the way to ensure that there’s a “hand forged” look. Nothing wrong with that.
The story, as I heard it, made VWRS sound like a wholly unreasonalbe person who basically liked to waste people’s time. The moral, that hammer control CAN be very precise, to the point of near identical repetition, was lost in the jumble of forcing the student to perform a near impossible task.
So in the interest of not sounding like I don’t like VWRS, I’ve decided to make the above change. Because I DO like him, and I respect all that he’s done for our region and our craft. I’m almost eager to say “I was wrong about this.” And that’s a rare thing, indeed.
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