Don't touch the metal...

I DVR "The Woodwright's Shop" on PBS.  It's a show that holds particular sentiment for me, which I'll dicuss later.  I'm sure much of the appeal, though, is that I'm absolutely clueless when it comes to working with wood and Mr Underhill does some fantastic work in those 26 minutes.  Anyway, this last episode had Master Blacksmith Peter Ross from Colonial Williamsburg demonstrating filing techniques.  The premise being that modern smithing usually leaves a rough finish to indicate that the metal was worked by hand, up until fairly recently, the metal was smoothed, polished and otherwise had a high degree of finish work.  During the episode, Mr Underhill touched the corner of a piece that had been filed on two of the four flats and Mr Ross said that blacksmiths are taught to not touch the metal.  He stated that the oils from the fingers were enough to make the file slip on the metal.   I have a better reason- that metal is going to get hot!  There's a lot of friction between a file and a piece of steel.  I learned this the hard way and I don't touch any metal with bare hands until I'm finished.  Smithy Rule #1- if it's metal, assume it will burn you and don't touch with bare hands.