caleb_stone•27d agoProlific Poster

Just hit 1000 bottle openers forged and I never expected to care that much

I was counting up my orders last night for my shop inventory and realized I passed 1,000 bottle openers made over the last 3 years. I mean, it's such a simple little project, right? But seeing that number on paper made me stop and think about all the weekends I spent at the anvil just banging out these tiny things. Has anyone else been surprised by a milestone like this with their work? What was your unexpected number?

3 comments

3 Comments

patricia_green2126d ago

I mean, not to be a downer, but it's a thousand bottle openers lol. That's a lot of the same little thing. I guess it's cool you stuck with it that long but it's not exactly a groundbreaking milestone, it's just a number you hit by doing the same thing over and over again. Did you really stop and have some big emotional moment over it or were you just counting inventory because you had to?

phoenix33124d ago

You said "it's just a number you hit by doing the same thing over and over" but I think you're missing the point. For a blacksmith, every one of those is its own little problem to solve, different steel, different heat, different hammer angle each time. It's not just counting inventory, it's realizing all those tiny choices added up to something real and that's worth pausing for.

the_angela26d ago

Seventy three. That's how many little bronze fishing lures I've carved over the years... still haven't caught a single fish with one. They just sit in a box under my workbench looking pretty. Never thought I'd make that many of something that's basically just decoration for me.