What kind of shark would you be?

When you look back at all the people you have worked with over the years, a few folks stand out. Some you remember because they were very skilled or talented; others you might remember because of some glaring personality trait or defect.

There is a special place in my memory for the guys who could never seem to get it right. Everything they touched they somehow managed to foul up or make worse, though it was surely not for lack of trying. My old friend Steve was this sort of guy.

At one sheet metal shop where we worked, there were two basic departments. One dealt primarily with smaller projects in stainless steel and the other dealt almost exclusively in steel. The steel projects were always much larger, things like large enclosures with hinged doors and covers, and involved lots of grinding.

Typically, each fabricator would shear, form and do all the weld assembly for a project. The enclosures had a standard sill width that was repeated in almost every product the company made. The sills were formed as part of the enclosure sidewall. It was assembled similar to a large picture frame with mitered corners.

This is where my buddy Steve first got into trouble one day. He was assembling a large enclosure and had just finished welding the miter joints in all four corners. At some point he realized that each corner had drooped while he was welding it—a bad thing. This particular enclosure was a little different than the standard type because it was about waist high when laid on its side whereas all the others were nearer 4'.

I never saw him start to work on the corners and up to this point was happily minding my own business. I didn’t really pay attention to the occasional loud hammering noise until it became repeated and rhythmic. Obviously, somebody was having trouble with something and was steadily increasing the hammer blows with each application.

In most shops, this is the equivalent of screaming, “I just screwed up. Won’t you all join me for some humiliation?” Always eager to oblige, a few folks made their way to the scene of the crime. Sure enough, the corners had dropped as they were welded. After trying to grind the exposed weld off, it was pretty apparent that the entire corner would have to come up. People passed a few suggestions to Steve, which he rejected. “This rawhide mallet is working,” he said. “I just need to get a better swing at it.”

All the gathered spectators wandered off lest they somehow become associated with this mishap. After a short pause, the hammering continued unabated for the next hour. I guess he was making progress because the pitch of the hammering would change after a while. I assumed it was because he went over to another corner of the enclosure to pummel it into submission.

About this time, I recall a particularly vicious set of hammering noises. It sounded like the last corner of the enclosure was not cooperating.

BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG. Then the noise level dropped to near dead silence. I didn’t think much of it as the time, but after a few minutes I saw the foreman exit the bathroom with a grin on his face and a chuckle in his voice. I asked him what was up. He jerked his thumb back toward the bathroom and said, “Go ask Steve what kind of shark he is.”

I buzzed over to the bathroom, a little confused about what had happened. Steve was peering in the mirror examining his face. As I came up behind him, he turned and looked at me.

Just to be fair and a little compassionate, I didn’t start laughing right away. I waited a second for the scene to sink in. Steve had two rolled-up pieces of toilet paper sticking in his nostrils and some blood was soaked into the end closest to his nose. The two white twists of paper looked like some kind of weird warthog tusks spouting from his nose.

“What the hell happened to you?” I asked with the start of a grin on my face. Answering in voice that sounded like his nose was being held closed, Steve said, “I hit myself with a hammer.”

I thought to myself, how could you hit yourself in the nose with hammer? Thankfully, he volunteered the details of his mishap without me asking. “I was inside that cabinet I’ve been working on. I was knocking the mitered corners up because they drooped when I welded them. I had the big rawhide mallet and I was swinging two-handed with all I had upward between my legs to get the corners to move at all. I swung and missed the corner completely.”

A little snicker squirmed out of my mouth. “You missed the corner and hit yourself in the nose with the mallet?” I asked, just to be sure I heard him right.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, a pretty dumb move,” Steve replied with a note of disgust on top of his already nasally voice.

At that point, I just remembered the foreman’s question. “Hey Steve, what kind of shark are you?”

“A hammerhead—bite me!” CTE

About the Author: Tom Lipton is a career metalworker who has worked at various job shops that produce parts for the consumer product development, laboratory equipment, medical services and custom machinery design industries. He has received six U.S. patents and lives in Alamo, Calif. For more information, visit his blog at oxtool.blogspot.com and video channel at www.youtube.com/user/oxtoolco. Lipton’s column is adapted from information in his book “Metalworking Sink or Swim: Tips and Tricks for Machinists, Welders, and Fabricators,” published by Industrial Press Inc., South Norwalk, Conn. The publisher can be reached by calling (888) 528-7852 or visiting www.industrialpress.com. By indicating the code CTE-2014 when ordering, CTE readers will receive a 20 percent discount off the book’s list price of $44.95.