Machine Shop Safety Reminder

[Lil Foot]

NO long sleeves!
This guy is incredibly lucky to still be here with both arms.

 

[miket1]

Lucky son of a gun! I can't tell you how many times I have had to tell guys not to wear rings, watches, wrap rags around parts, put their arms inside turning parts etc. I try to be descriptive and say " it will rip your arm off and beat you to death with it!".

One shop I worked at a lot of the guys wore aprons so they wouldn't get dirty! I'm pretty surprised I never saw any get hurt, especially manual lathes with the feed screws turning.

31yrs in a machine shop and thankfully no serious injuries.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

THE 'big cheese' ( superintendent ) where I used to work, came down to use drill press at lunch time. Nothing special.... so I'm wirewrapping a computer board. in my cubicle Then hear click-KERPOW-BAMMMM !!
WTF ! He'd turned the drill press on WITH the key STILL in the chuck.... flew across room 12-14 feet and hit the 3/4" plywood wall for one of the cubicles. Yes, it DENTED the plywood. FORTUNATELY it did NOT hit the head of the guy sitting at his desk. I'm pretty sure I'd have gone to his funeral.
The 'big cheese' NEVER cam down to use drill press after that.......

 

[Tarmy]

Complacency, plain and simple. Happens to most folks.

Ladders, chainsaw, floor jack…..so many things we handle and assume all is well.

I fell off a ladder years ago and ended up in the hospital…I never go on a ladder without seriously thinking about it and the bad that can happen if not careful. Glad the guy is relatively OK…

 

[RCW]

Holy smokes….he dealt with that machine running with his arm in it for 20 minutes alone.

Just gives me the willies …

 

[Lil Foot]

GreensvilleJay's post #3 reminded me of an incident eons ago when I was in a machinist training class.
Our instructor was a really big, gruff guy with a short temper.
He constantly lectured us on safety, and leaving chuck keys in chucks was one of his pet peeves.
One student kept leaving chucks keys in drill chucks and worse yet, lathe chucks.
One day the instructor saw he had left a large T-handle type lathe chuck key (18"x 18"?) in the chuck, and he blew up.
He chewed that guy out at the top of his lungs, then grabbed the chuck key and threw it probably 40ft....
where it hit me in my left shin.
It hurt, but I kept my mouth shut and went about my work like nothing had happened, as I did not want to incur any excess wrath from him.

 

[lugbolt]

watched it happen with my own eyes in high school. Instructor had a project for us, to turn a long piece of 1.5" hex stock down to 1.0002 round on the ends for a bearing press fit Had it in the lathe but the back side of passed through the chuck so far that it had a bend in it due to it's own weight. So one of the other students decided to wrap a rag around it and "hold it up" while turning. Well the rag caught the edge, wrapped up, and wrapped up his arm. I heard every single bone crackle and pop in his arm multiple times before the chuck would finally stop. Remember there is a lot of inertia and even the safety brake wouldn't stop it fast enough when we let go of the pedal we had to stand on to keep the machine running. Once you step off of it, it cuts power to the motor and applies a safety brake; depending on the spindle speed it might take a second or two to fully stop.

I remember this ordeal like it happened 5 minutes ago aside from the shock of watching another man's arm being twisted up like a coil spring. The sound was horrible, also something that stuck with me. He went to the hospital via ambulance and, miraculously they saved his arm, but it took close to 15 years (and many surgeries) to correct it as best that they could. To this day we are friends. He cannot stretch his arm out straight, the elbow kind of locks up at about a 75 deg angle and that's as far as it goes. But like he says, it beats not having an arm at all.

I have a lathe and safety is something I never forget because of that ordeal. Real easy to get yourself hurt with a lathe. No loose clothing, period. Glasses are a must. I used to wear an apron to keep from getting too dirty but one of the straps that you tie behind your back came off once and my imagination seen it getting into the lead screw or spindle, so I tossed it in the burn pile with the rest of the junk.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

watched it happen with my own eyes in high school. Instructor had a project for us, to turn a long piece of 1.5" hex stock down to 1.0002 round on the ends for a bearing press fit Had it in the lathe but the back side of passed through the chuck so far that it had a bend in it due to it's own weight. So one of the other students decided to wrap a rag around it and "hold it up" while turning. Well the rag caught the edge, wrapped up, and wrapped up his arm. I heard every single bone crackle and pop in his arm multiple times before the chuck would finally stop. Remember there is a lot of inertia and even the safety brake wouldn't stop it fast enough when we let go of the pedal we had to stand on to keep the machine running. Once you step off of it, it cuts power to the motor and applies a safety brake; depending on the spindle speed it might take a second or two to fully stop.

I remember this ordeal like it happened 5 minutes ago aside from the shock of watching another man's arm being twisted up like a coil spring. The sound was horrible, also something that stuck with me. He went to the hospital via ambulance and, miraculously they saved his arm, but it took close to 15 years (and many surgeries) to correct it as best that they could. To this day we are friends. He cannot stretch his arm out straight, the elbow kind of locks up at about a 75 deg angle and that's as far as it goes. But like he says, it beats not having an arm at all.

I have a lathe and safety is something I never forget because of that ordeal. Real easy to get yourself hurt with a lathe. No loose clothing, period. Glasses are a must. I used to wear an apron to keep from getting too dirty but one of the straps that you tie behind your back came off once and my imagination seen it getting into the lead screw or spindle, so I tossed it in the burn pile with the rest of the junk.

WOW...thats brutal!!!!

Glad he kept his arm.

I don't wear any type of jewelry, or watch's or long sleeves, for all the very reasons posted above.

People have asked me why I don't wear a wedding ring, and I usually just tell them that "It's too hard to pick up chicks at the bar"....LOL

 

[Yooper]

Saw that story also. I would always tell people when training them on a new machine that the machine will bite you when you get used to it and become comfortable around it. Never drop your guard!

 

[D2Cat]

Saw that story also. I would always tell people when training them on a new machine that the machine will bite you when you get used to it and become comfortable around it. Never drop your guard!

The four steps to learning

1. unconscientiously incompetent = we don't know something, and don't know what to do about it.

2. conscientiously incompetent = we realize we don't know, but don't know how to address it.

3. conscientiously competent = we know what we're doing and can properly do it.

4. unconscientiously competent = we know what we're doing and how to do it properly, but don't keep . focused on doing things the correct way.

Many accidents happen when the operator is in the 4th stage. They been doing the job for years and just let a little thing slide by.

 

[Old Machinist]

I can't watch so it's a no clicky for me.

I can't say I never had a cut or bruise but I respected turning parts enough not to get tied up in them.

Before my machinist days I worked in auto repair. I had a boss attempt to gain access to a part by drilling into the curved side of a transmission tunnel with a hole saw in a huge 1/2" gear reduction drill once. Even at a young age I was safety conscious enough I held on to the power cord and unplugged it when the saw grabbed. It wrapped his arm around it at least once before the drill stopped turning. I don't know how it didn't break his arm. He did thank me for having the common sense to be ready to save him after I had told him it was a bad idea to begin with.

 

[Lil Foot]

When I was a trainee the instructor set up a demo for us to watch.
He bolted a large steel block to the table of a mill, then climb milled it with the side of a 2" dia 4 flute end mill.
He left a 1/4" gap between the cutter and the block, and proceeded to fed various things into the gap.
It munched aluminum, brass, copper, plastics, plastic squirt bottles, an air gun, and lastly, a manikin hand,
It was a pretty graphic way of showing the the machine doesn't care what it destroys.

 

[bird dogger]

Wedding rings and electrical technicians just isn't a good combination! My wedding band has been in the top drawer in it's little box since day one.

I know a guy who found out how well gold conducts electricity and has a permanent burn scar in the shape of his ring on his ring finger.

And this actually happened to a young man on our crew. He was up on a ladder against some steel beams either wiring some equipment or mounting conduit, etc., to the equipment. Apparently the ladder slipped out from underneath him. He hugged the steel as he quickly shot downward. His wedding ring caught on
a bolt and sheared that finger clean off. The doctors were'nt able to reattach it.

His wound healed, but the wide gap between his fingers caused problems. The doctors suggested they remove the rest of the missing finger's bones in the hand and move the pinky finger over in its place.

He soon took a different job in another state and we never heard if he followed through with the operation to relocate pinky finger.