Thursday, October 3, 2019

Strange customer

While I haven't been doing very much smithing at all recently, an off hand comment led to be sharpening some lawnmower blades for a friend.  Shortly after doing his set, someone else contacted me to sharpen their blades based on a recommendation from the first set. This has led to a small but steady stream of work sharpening mower blades and even repairing some yard tools like rakes and shovels. It's not a lot of money but I enjoy it and a couple extra bucks is nice.
It has, however, led to a strange encounter.
A lady called  looking to get some items touched up and said she would send her son out to the forge to meet me. He arrived and I immediately took notice because he was very large, easily four inches taller than me. He was also, evidently, a huge Detroit Red Wings fan because he was wearing one of their goalie masks. He was shy and didn't say much as he handed over a machete, an axe, and a pitchfork with some bent tines. I told him I'm just now getting into knife sharpening and these were the first blades of this type I'd sharpened. He didn't seem too bothered. I touched up the axe easy enough.  The machete had some pretty good dings in the edge, probably from some hardwood limbs or something, so that took a bit of time. He wasn't overly anxious but he did have some sort of sneezing fit because I heard him make a sound lime "ki, ki, cha, cha" a couple times.
Anyway, I got the pitchfork tines straightened without needing to heat them up and he wad on his way. I assume he had to get back to work because he was wearing coveralls with the name if some camp on them. Weird guy, never said a word aside from the sneezing. But I guess it's October and people are more open to let their Freak Flag fly.