Adam Savage Learns Hand Engraving

I can’t exactly put my finger on why I enjoyed this video so much but I really did.

It’s an interesting topic, sure, and one I know nothing about. New stuff, particularly new skills, is always exciting, but there’s more to it than that.

I think it’s largely the dynamic between the two of them. Adam is always super enthusiastic when he’s playing the student but it’s nice to see him approaching something pretty much completely cold. He just has this child-like joy about the whole thing.

And Marlen makes for a great teacher: ordered, clear, adaptive and all the other pedagogical stuff on top of her clear skills and experience, but she’s got ‘shop stories’ and she feeds those into the session masterfully. Maybe it’s that sharing of stories that makes this work so well. Watching them share the learning process is just a delight.