I guess I have had pretty good luck. The only woodworking show I have been to so far was in London, I went with my son. There was a chap demonstrating and selling the Tormek wet slow speed sharpening system which I was very interested in at the time. Between demonstrations I asked if I could come around his side of the bench to examine and handle the tool. Within minutes he got right into it and soon had me demonstrating the equipment with his instruction to the next gathering of onlookers. I darn nearly bought one just on the strength of that.
It was a clerk in a local hardware store who taught me to sweat copper pipe. I did run into a problem with a shop teacher here back in about 1975, one of those after hours night school classes. For me the big problem was that he didn't approach or tackle it directly with me but went off to the college people in Timmins and to one of the other class members where they arranged some sort of agreement where the other student was to assist with supervising me. I didn't find out about that arrangement until one day the other student didn't make it. The instructor blurted it all out. The interesting think is that the other student wasn't there because earlier that evening he had cut some part of his own hand while trimming tile or something on his own table saw at his home. Ultimately I relented, the instructor had apparently told his supervisor that if he had to accept me then the buddy system to which I had not agreed, never even heard of would be implemented otherwise he would refuse to run the class. I probably could have forced the issue but it would have destroyed the class for the others and I decided I didn't need to harvest that bad feeling, particularly in a small town. It wasn't really much of a class, nothing formally taught, it was however an opportunity to use power tools on a scale I would likely never be able to afford and probably a chance to ask and gain experience from an already skilled person. ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Kennedy To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:36 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Dealing with people There is no limit to ignorance. I was at the woodworking show a few years back, a huge showing of all sorts of dangerous tools for working with wood. One of the guys selling Forrest Saw blades was on his stage and didn't want to sell me a blade because he didn't know how a blind person could work a table saw and not lose fingers. I can't seem to resist a nasty come back sometimes and told the guy I didn't know how a company with such a good name would let an idiot represent them in the public place. I did manage to resist dropping his $150 blade on the concrete floor. But a lot of people walked away from his display after they heard him. Strangely enough, the next display was for Grip-Tite and the guy running the booth gave me a 2 by 4 and told me to run it through his table saw. I told him about the guy from Forrest and he couldn't believe it. There are good people out there but it's always covered up by the ignorant ones... ----- Original Message ----- From: Jewel To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 7:04 PM Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Dealing with people One of our department stores had a very good special on 20 inch chainsaws recently, and being a sucker for chainsaws, I went along to buy one. The nasty little jumped-up salesman wouldn't sell me one unless I was prepared to sign a waiver to the effect that if injured, I would not sue them. I had no worry about signing such a document, but it was a clear case of discrimination for anyone can injure themselves with a chainsaw, and do those others have to sign a waiver? no they don't! Now, this is a store that sold me, without hesitation, a rotary garden hoe that didn't have a clutch, even though, for reasons of safety, I had, distinctly, said that a clutch it must have. I did not find that it had no clutch until I got it home and was attempting to find the safety feature I had demanded it * MUST have! When I say a * clutch, I mean that the machine can be put out of gear, so that the hoe tines stops spinning, but the motor is still running. Jewel [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
