Old timer at the scrapyard gave me a lesson I still think about

Was at the yard 2 years back in Austin digging through a pile of rusty leaf springs. This gray beard dude maybe 70 walks up and says "youre grabbing the wrong ones." He pointed out the 5160 vs some mystery steel just by the look of the rust and the way it rang when he tapped it. Spent 20 minutes showing me how to spot good spring steel for blades. Never got his name but I still use that trick. Anyone else have a random encounter that taught you something you still use?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.margaret25d ago

Oh man that's the thing about real expertise right there. People who've been doing something for decades can just SEE things the rest of us miss. It's like how my grandma could tell when bread dough was ready just by poking it, no thermometer needed. That kind of knowledge you can't get from a YouTube video, you know?

emerymoore25d ago

But @grant.margaret do you think that kind of knowing can ever be passed down, or does it just die when that person stops doing the work? Like my uncle was a carpenter for 40 years and he could look at a piece of wood and tell you exactly how it would move as it dried. He tried to explain it to me but I never really got it. Some of that stuff feels like it lives in your hands more than your head. Makes you wonder what we lose when these folks retire and nobody picks up the trade.