Metal workers originally made tin men to advertise their trade and wares, later using them as teaching tools for apprentices, since the skills needed to make a tin man are those a journeyman must master: layout, scribing, cutting, folding, rolling, bending, riveting, soldering, and filing. Today, much of a sheet-metal worker's labor consists of heating and ventilation ducts so constructing tin men gives traditionally trained workers the opportunity to make their formidable skills visible. Four retired sheet-metal workers spent more than fifty hours each fabricating these tin men: Richard Clarke, Daniel Hardy, Glenn Walker, and William Walsh.