"You might go home and have a Scotch whisky.
"I’m quite happy just putting an iron in the fire," builder and engineer Peter Mason said with a smile.
"I come back here all fired up.
"I’ve always enjoyed metalwork my whole life.
"The whole thing is working by myself; the big industrial work, it’s quite satisfying. It’s creativity. It’s quite a peaceful, relaxing sort of work."
He was also well aware of the long historical traditions of metalwork and running a forge, and was keen to see that shared again with visitors to the museum.
"It just transports me back in time.
"Really, I could be doing this a hundred years ago, or a thousand years ago."
"What could be simpler than someone striking a piece of metal?"
He was delighted to fire up the redesigned and improved forge at the museum for the first time yesterday, after a break of 18 months.
"There’s huge interest in the forge, so it’s marvellous it’s going to be back in action," museum board member Ann Barsby added.
The museum had received several inquiries from people wanting to learn how to work hot metal in the forge and this was a "wonderful" asset for the museum.
It was hoped to stage forge demonstrations again on gasworks open days, Mrs Barsby said.
Mr Mason said he had spent several years thinking about how to improve the forge, and now had installed a blower fan, and another engineer, Brian Hastie, had provided a water cooling system for the tuyere, a tube, nozzle or pipe through which air is blown into the forge.
When the gasworks was running, the forge had been used partly to sharpen the ends of metal rods which had been used for clearing out blocked coal from gratings under coal hoppers, during the process of burning coal to generate industrial gas.
Mr Mason (63) said he learned how to use a forge in the 1970s and had used one from time to time for more than 40 years.
The smell of burning coal, and the blaze of the fire yesterday brought back vivid memories from his early forging experiences.
"I love the smell, I love working in the museum," he said.
He also enjoyed hammering away on large metal rods and doing heavy industrial work, and found it a positive escape from less enjoyable tasks, and an activity from which he could emerge relaxed and refreshed before tackling other work.
"It’s just something I can create in another way."
