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Just counted my first 50 hand-forged hooks before breakfast
I've been at this for about 8 months now, mostly making small stuff like S-hooks and gate latches. This morning I was sorting my scrap pile and realized I had 50 hooks sitting in a bucket that I'd forged myself. That number surprised me because I only work on weekends after the kids go to bed. Each one took maybe 10-15 minutes and wasn't perfect, but seeing them all together felt like real progress. It's not a big milestone for the pros here, but for a guy with a modified brake drum forge in his backyard, it meant something. Anybody else keep a count of their early pieces and look back at them?
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jesse77311d ago
Counting 50 hooks in a bucket doesn't really mean you're making progress. It means you've got 50 hooks that probably aren't consistent enough to sell or even give to friends without them noticing the flaws. That time could've been spent learning how to make just 10 perfect ones instead of rushing through 50 that are "close enough." Real progress is when you look back at your early stuff and cringe because you know how bad it was, not when you feel proud of a pile of scrap-grade work.
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patriciam225d ago
Honestly, that's a solid point - rushing through 50 sloppy hooks just teaches you how to be fast at making bad stuff, not how to actually get the craft right. Tbh, the real grind is putting in the time to nail those fundamentals so the next batch all look the same.
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