# Definite Blunder



## Jennifer Edwards (Nov 19, 2018)

Remember, Now that the weather has turned colder to not wear loose knit clothing around machinery... especially milling machines


----------



## vederstein (Nov 19, 2018)

Lessons will be repeated until learned.


----------



## Dalee (Nov 19, 2018)

Hi,

As an old and retired Medic, I'm always up for a good trauma.....

But you are a wee bit out of my old service area. 

A good reminder for all of us to be careful in how we dress.


----------



## pigpen60 (Nov 20, 2018)

You didnt get hurt did you?


----------



## john_reese (Nov 22, 2018)

I had a hot chip drop inside my shirt.  It stopped at my belt.  Didn't feel good.  I grabbed my belt an pulled outward.  The hot chip was now in my shorts.....


----------



## Foozer (Nov 23, 2018)

No rings, no watches, no long hair, no long sleeve shirts.
Hot chips to hot pants is a dance . . .


----------



## almega (Nov 23, 2018)

Jennifer, you are fortunate the fabric was weak enough to fail and not wrap you up in the mill and cause serious harm.  I am reminded of a young lady wearing too loose of pants near a lathe and got snagged by the chuck.  Dis-asst'er.


----------



## harborfreight8x12 (Nov 24, 2018)

Thank goodness you were fortunate that your garment took the brunt.  Thank you for sharing and reminding all of us that we can get complaisant.


----------



## nel2lar (Nov 24, 2018)

Jennifer,
I am glad you are alright and you are able to take something from this experience. 
Happy chip making in the future.
Nelson


----------



## Chriske (Nov 25, 2018)

The are a few pictures on the net showing someone completely wrapped around a (big)lathe's chuck. It's not a pretty sight AT ALL...! If you go and look for them, you have been warned...!
Before I start my mill I always think twice and I also look for some loose parts on the bed.

Chris


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Nov 25, 2018)

pigpen60 said:


> You didnt get hurt did you?


fortunately not, i was milling with a small bit, so as my sleve was winding up, i was able to hit the stop button with my free hand. 

It was a real stupid rookie mistake. I have seen my share of industrial accidents when I was machining for a living, I  know how ugly it could have been.


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Nov 25, 2018)

nel2lar said:


> Jennifer,
> I am glad you are alright and you are able to take something from this experience.
> Happy chip making in the future.
> Nelson


thnk you nelson!


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Nov 25, 2018)

Chriske said:


> The are a few pictures on the net showing someone completely wrapped around a (big)lathe's chuck. It's not a pretty sight AT ALL...! If you go and look for them, you have been warned...!
> Before I start my mill I always think twice and I also look for some loose parts on the bed.
> 
> Chris



Chris, I once saw someone two machines away (a big turret lathe) who got their long hair tangled up. The funeral was lovely.


----------



## Chriske (Nov 25, 2018)

When I was still teaching, my motto OF COURSE was *safety first ...ALWAYS..!*
When my pupils were busy working with a drill-press they had to wear hairbands. Sometimes they forgot them in their locker. My answer to that was : they had to wear one of mine. I had a few in stock just in case. Only, mine were all pink colored. At first they were embarrassed, saying, _sir this is not cool..!_.. but in the end they put it on and we had lots of laughs... Was really funny, 17/18 year old guys wearing a pink hairband...


----------



## Dubi (Dec 18, 2018)

In the 1970's to save time I tried to cut through a bar of 150mm aluminium on a lathe at low speed after almost parting it off.
The hacksaw I was stupidly using shattered, I still have the scars on my left fingers.

That was the first and last time I tried a stunt like that.


----------



## harborfreight8x12 (Dec 18, 2018)

Dubi said:


> In the 1970's to save time I tried to cut through a bar of 150mm aluminium on a lathe at low speed after almost parting it off.
> The hacksaw I was stupidly using shattered, I still have the scars on my left fingers.
> 
> That was the first and last time I tried a stunt like that.


Wow, thanks for the heads up.  I use a hacksaw blade all the time with the goal of saving metal, but you've opened my eyes and I will make a safer suitable parting tool.  I visit another site where the member has a neat saying at the bottom of his page "You can walk on a wooden leg, but you cannot see with a glass eye".  Safety first, thank you my friend.


----------



## Dubi (Dec 18, 2018)

harborfreight8x12 said:


> Wow, thanks for the heads up.  I use a hacksaw blade all the time with the goal of saving metal, but you've opened my eyes and I will make a safer suitable parting tool.  I visit another site where the member has a neat saying at the bottom of his page "You can walk on a wooden leg, but you cannot see with a glass eye".  Safety first, thank you my friend.


Your very welcome, my good deed for the day.


----------



## ignator (Dec 18, 2018)

Posts on machine tool safety are always a good thing. My first out of school job was working as a lab technician for a large manufacture of HVAC equipment. An old timer walked by me using the drill press in the shop. I was holding by hand the work piece. He showed me his left hand, and told me the story of how he did the same. The drill caught the work piece, and as his hand wrapped around the backside of the drill bit, which grabbed and wrapped the ligament that enables your 4 fingers to pull into a fist, and removed it to it's attachment of the muscles midway to the elbow. He had multiple surgeries to give him back some control of his fingers. They all moved together as he had no individual control of them, and he said his pull force was negligible.   I was 19 at the time, and it took many years to realize mistakes can be permanent (adolescents are so "smart"). So now my drill press has a 6 inch vise mounted to an X-Y table that I use for all drilling. That has shown to be a perfect arrangement for safe precision drilling.
I got bit by my lathe chuck 12 years ago. I ended up with a 3cm cut that luckily missed the blood vessels and ligaments on the back of my left hand adjacent to the middle finger ligament. 3 stitches to pull the skin together. I was single point threading, and as my Asian lathe seemed to start new threads when used the tread dial, I would leave the half nut engaged, change the spindle speed to fast to reverse the apron quick. That was my down fall, as I did a test check of the nut on the threads, and as it had a slight interference fit, I used water pump pliers to hold the nut to see if it would run to the end of the thread. I had forgotten to slow the spindle down, and as it spun up, got my left hand too close to the sharp jaws of the chuck.


----------



## Dubi (Dec 19, 2018)

ignator said:


> Posts on machine tool safety are always a good thing. My first out of school job was working as a lab technician for a large manufacture of HVAC equipment. An old timer walked by me using the drill press in the shop. I was holding by hand the work piece. He showed me his left hand, and told me the story of how he did the same. The drill caught the work piece, and as his hand wrapped around the backside of the drill bit, which grabbed and wrapped the ligament that enables your 4 fingers to pull into a fist, and removed it to it's attachment of the muscles midway to the elbow. He had multiple surgeries to give him back some control of his fingers. They all moved together as he had no individual control of them, and he said his pull force was negligible.   I was 19 at the time, and it took many years to realize mistakes can be permanent (adolescents are so "smart"). So now my drill press has a 6 inch vise mounted to an X-Y table that I use for all drilling. That has shown to be a perfect arrangement for safe precision drilling.
> I got bit by my lathe chuck 12 years ago. I ended up with a 3cm cut that luckily missed the blood vessels and ligaments on the back of my left hand adjacent to the middle finger ligament. 3 stitches to pull the skin together. I was single point threading, and as my Asian lathe seemed to start new threads when used the tread dial, I would leave the half nut engaged, change the spindle speed to fast to reverse the apron quick. That was my down fall, as I did a test check of the nut on the threads, and as it had a slight interference fit, I used water pump pliers to hold the nut to see if it would run to the end of the thread. I had forgotten to slow the spindle down, and as it spun up, got my left hand too close to the sharp jaws of the chuck.


----------



## Dubi (Dec 19, 2018)

The trouble is it all happens in a eye blink or faster. Thank you for the stories, I will take double care now when machining. I have two lathes, Colchester Triumph and a Hembrug, both powerful machines.


----------



## Blogwitch (Dec 19, 2018)

I have an old saying that I used to repeat to myself 

ACCIDENTS DON'T HAPPEN, THEY ALWAYS HAVE A CAUSE

John


----------



## ignator (Dec 19, 2018)

Blogwitch said:


> I have an old saying that I used to repeat to myself
> 
> ACCIDENTS DON'T HAPPEN, THEY ALWAYS HAVE A CAUSE
> 
> John


Yes, but "root cause analysis" typically takes a catastrophic event for engineers to see the error of their design. And as you know, most aircraft accidents are pilot error. And there is yet a system designed to over come that. 
John don't know if you worked for BAE, my first job was in an autopilot group, Collins Radio, installing our system in the BAE HS 125-800 (Proline 2 avionics system ~1985).


----------



## davidyat (Dec 19, 2018)

My mentor, Ray Clyde, taught me the machining basics and more. His two rules, "Machining will teach you patience" and "When something goes wrong, it goes wrong before you know it". I've been building models for over 50 years and I had the "patience" learned. The second part I learned very quickly. I was flycutting a small piece of metal on the mill at a pretty high speed. I didn't know I took too much of a cut on one pass. I heard a big BANG on my metal garage door and when I looked down, the metal was gone! IT WILL GO WRONG BEFORE YOU KNOW IT. BE SAFE!!!


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Dec 20, 2018)

I'll share another horror story about taking safety shortcuts with y'all:

Back in the early 80's I worked as a tool room machinist for a company called Solar turbine, in San Diego. We had a metal stamping department with a large variety of presses ranging from a few tons up to about 25 tons. they were used to stamp out mostly aluminium, titanium, and stainless steel bits.

They were all equipped with several good safety features, not the least of which were two big red buttons and a foot pedal all of which had to be depressed to actuate the press.

It was the beginning of summer, and as was usual, we hired a few kids from the area as "interns" to perform production runs on machines we would set up for them. 

On his first day a young man of maybe 17 or 18 years thought he would help increase production by taking those pesky red buttons (that forced you to have your hands clear of the dies in order to actuate the drop hammer/hydraulic cylinder) by duct taping them down. this left only the foot pedal needed to trigger the press he was working on.

He was stamping out parts that took both hands to insert and align. Of course when he leaned forward to insert a part his foot naturally came down.... both hands at the wrist! 

I know many of us routinely defeat safety features on our machines because they seem like thay were designed by some sadist. please think twice about the possible consequences saving those few seconds before you do.

have a safe and happy holiday everyone.
Jenny in Bridlington


----------



## Blogwitch (Dec 20, 2018)

Ignator,

You have proved my saying straight away,

"most aircraft accidents are pilot error"

It can be a transistor burning out, the tip of a tool breaking off or even snow falling off a roof, they are not accidents, they will all have a cause.
I have seen too many major 'accidents' in my life and I refuse to accept they ALL don't have a cause.

John


----------



## GrahamJTaylor49 (Dec 23, 2018)

Jennifer Edwards said:


> I'll share another horror story about taking safety shortcuts with y'all:
> 
> Back in the early 80's I worked as a tool room machinist for a company called Solar turbine, in San Diego. We had a metal stamping department with a large variety of presses ranging from a few tons up to about 25 tons. they were used to stamp out mostly aluminium, titanium, and stainless steel bits.
> 
> ...


Hi Jenny,
I did my apprenticship with Vickers and BAC as an Aircraft Toolmaker. It taught me a great deal about what can go wrong. After I left I got a job with a small engineering company
in a little village in the New Forest called Burley. Whilst setting up a Herbert 2D capstan lathe with a bar feed I had the misfortune to not think and having set all the parameters up
I opened the collet chuck and the piece of scrap bar I had used to set the machine up came through and stopped on the tail; stock. NOT thinking I knocked the piece of scrap bar out
of the way with my right hand only the have the next length of bar, Hex bar by the way, to come through, still spinning, and my hand was in the way. Luckily, the tail stop was of a 
small diameter and the hex bar pushed my hand into the tail stop which went between my fingers. The hex bar still had a fairly large burr which cut into my hand and too far away
from the head stock to hit the emergency stop button. Fortunately the forman was walking past and he hit the stop button but my hand was still trapped between the bar and the tail stock.
We had just re filled the machine with new sudds and it quickly turned pink. The hospital at Lymington did a great job of sewing my hand back up and now at 70 years old I still have full use of my right hand.
There is no such thing as an accident, only an incident. There is always a cause and with machines verses the human body the machine always wins. Please be careful out there and
keep making the scale models. Soon be time for the Model Engineering show at Ally Pally. Have a great Christmas and a happy New Year.


----------



## goldstar31 (Dec 23, 2018)

Jennifer
                 You really need a Guardian Angel- or like me -three!
On my honeymoon, I changed the flight details for some reason and the previous booking -- flipped on its back on landing and burst into flames. Everyone was burnt in their seat belts.

Then rounding a hairpin bend in the French Alps in a December lunchtime, hit black ice and we - did an Italian Job   with 5 somersaults into a frozen river .  I broke a finger!

The I was boatbuilding alone in a November and power planing a part on a Myford planer and got my left hand in the works. I was alone, wrote a message in blood to my wife, wrapped my hand in a white dress shirt. and drove to A&E, changing gear with two fingers and ended up  having more skin planed off by one of the protégées of Archie McIndo who was going next day to East Grinstead as consultant. East Grinstead was the home of the guinea pigs who had been damaged in the RAF in the war and got plastic surgery.

I'm now a VERY careful and caring person who thinks that I may have pushed my Guardian Angels to the limit of their patience. I recall that saying about eventually one's luck runs out.  

So a Safe New Year to you all.

Norm


----------



## Dubi (Dec 23, 2018)

To all my fellow Posters I wish them a very Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year to which I add, may it be accident free.


----------



## larryg (Dec 23, 2018)

Glad to hear your alright.  One of the things that I try to do is make sure that my wife knows that I am in the shop and to check on me once in a while.  Sometimes I'm working on some big stuff and could hurt myself.  So it would be nice for her to check in every hour or so to make sure I'm all right. If no one is around then I take extra care to not take risks or do something that could go wrong and get me.  

lg
no neat sig line


----------



## enginemanpk (Feb 17, 2019)

When I was a training on the lathe one big no no was leaving a chuck key in a stationary chuck while been set in high revs. Turning lathe on launched the chuck key like a missile and ended up embedded in the block wall at back of the class.


----------



## Dubi (Feb 17, 2019)

In my shop if you do that it is instant dismissal and everybody knows that.


----------



## Pufango (Feb 17, 2019)

Hello ,I was just slightly reaming a hole in a piece  of  3 mm sheet steel.Holding it in my hand .Using  a cordless drill to do the job .Due to lazyness I didn’t bother to clamp it down after all I was only removing a couple of thou. Any way soon as the drill entered the previous drilled hole it of course grabs, spun the metal and bang smacked me in the head.It hurt do we ever learn? 
Best regards Tony Wright pufango!


----------



## Hopper (Feb 17, 2019)

Yes I think the dangers of drilling are underestimated. Lathes look bigger and scarier but I read somewhere that the highest incidence of workshop injuries involve drills and drill presses.  I was caught myself a few years back drilling about a 2 or 3mm hole in a piece of brass held in a small Record drill vice. Vice was not bolted down but I had a bolt sticking up  through the drill press table with the edge of the vice against it to stop rotation if the drill grabbed. 

Of course being brass the drill grabbed, but pulled the job and vice up the flutes, above the bolt in the table, spun the vice around a couple of turns until the drill bit bent and released the whole lot to fly across the workshop and out the open roller door whence it landed a good 15 feet away. Luckily no vintage motorcycle petrol tanks or human body parts were in the line of fire.

Never have I drilled a hole in anything that is not bolted or clamped down since! Even if it is just one bolt through the table and vice done up finger tight to allow enough movement to align drill and punch mark etc - which is exactly how I was taught to do it many years ago but we all reckon we know better as we get older don't we!


----------



## mfrick (Feb 17, 2019)

I have seen way to many hands and fingers destroyed or mangled due to the operator wearing gloves, they get caught on a burr or wrapped up on rotating part and pull the hand in and sometime it even gets the arm.  So moto and rule in my shop NO GLOVES period.  Also long sleeve shirts that are hanging lose are another source of accidents. I have a brother who had his hand pulled into machine due to lose sleeve  the DR. did reattach two fingers that had been ripped from the hand with only the skin on back of hand holding them on. So keep the lose clothing away of machines period.  
MF


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Feb 18, 2019)

enginemanpk said:


> When I was a training on the lathe one big no no was leaving a chuck key in a stationary chuck while been set in high revs. Turning lathe on launched the chuck key like a missile and ended up embedded in the block wall at back of the class.



I can honestly say that, during the ten or so years I worked as a machinist, is one thing I have not done...yet. 

Of course the first thing I did when I got my SC2 lathe home was remove the safety device that prevents you from doing just that as it severely limits the diameter of the piece you can work.


----------



## mcostello (Feb 18, 2019)

Worked with a Guy that worked in a shop that had a medium big lathe something like 16" x 60". Someone left it idiling while on lunch break. It was known to have a sticky clutch. Towards the end of break the clutch decided to engage and started to turn a big shaft, it eventually loosened the tail stock enough to push it back and beat on the lathe. It started walking across the shop till it yanked the electric out of the box. No body hurt, nobody fired. Evidentially everything was good.


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Feb 18, 2019)

I’m not sure if this qualifies as a blunder but it was a scary moment:

I was working at Otis Elevator in Harrison New Jersey. That day I was running s very large vertical  mill. I was using a huge 36 inch fly cutter with 72 inserts around the perimeter that was so heavy that it needed an overhead crane to lift into place.

The job was surfacing “fish plates” those flat plates about a foot long and 3/4 inch thick with eight holes used to fasten girders together.

The magnetic table I was using held a dozen of them. I would take .250” off in one pass.

A guy driving a forklift smashed into the power box supplying the table which instantly let loose the ten pound a piece steel plates which proceeded to fly around the shop with quite some velocity.

I have no idea why myself or anyone else in the area was not killed or maimed. Somehow not one of them hit anyone or caused any serious damage.

I have to tell you I came close to needing a change of panties when it happened. My hands shook for ten minutes or more and my knees buckled. I had to sit down for half an hour before I could go back to work.


----------



## ALEX1952 (Feb 19, 2019)

In 1968 I started my engineering apprenticeship with the Lucas group (UK) the first day was induction the second a trip to the safety exhibition in London which is permanent and run by ROSPA the exhibits were actual reconstructions of accidents with photos taken at the time including cine footage. Cinema presentations were also made to drive the message home. Fainting and being ill were not uncommon, but it worked 50 yrs as an engineer in various guises with no serious accidents (fingers crossed) but many close calls due to a human being in the mix for there is always human error at the root maybe not you but possibly the maintenance guy the designer or the bean counter, please do not be afraid to not use the machine, if in doubt get somebody else's opinion as they may have missed the error ultimately its your well being and you decision. Sorry about preaching!


----------



## marvin hedberg (Feb 19, 2019)

from 1954 South Bend manual


----------



## davidyat (Feb 19, 2019)

Alex,

   I like to read these kinds of posts. There's nothing like re-reading safety posts and boo-boo posts to make sure it doesn't happen to me. I don't know about anyone else, but my mind will wander when model machining a lot and get tired. The first small minor mistake, I shut everything down and take a break.

Grasshopper


----------



## RonW (Feb 19, 2019)

When I worked at RBC in Rhodesia we had, as a vacuum cleaner of sorts, a large centrifugal blower with a bag attached to the blower end and a hose on the suction end. Occasionally it was used as a source of compressed air to blow out dust from equipment. On this one occasion a tech was using it as a blower and he was wearing a tie. I heard the machine "stumble' and die followed by a gurgling sound and turning from my job noted the tech with the machine up against his chin and his face going blue. I always carry a pocket knife and in a short time I had hacked his tie to shreds and retrieved his breathing and the machine. His tie had been sucked into the inlet and wrapped around the impeller until it ran out of tie and attempted to pull his neck in. While he caught his breath and lamented over his tie I dumped the said machine into the garbage bin and wrote an addendum to the shop rules that hence forth not ties were permitted in the shop. We purchased a proper vacuous shortly after.


----------



## Shopgeezer (Feb 20, 2019)

A friend who was a former Bristol Aerospace machinist recalls the emphasis on safety with clothing. No dangling sleeves, long hair, medalions on chains etc. What freaked him out was the insistance by a few of the older British guys on wearing ties. Just the thought of a tie wrapping around the chuck and pulling your face down in to the jaws gives me the willies.


----------



## Kenny Broomfield (Feb 21, 2019)

goldstar31 said:


> Jennifer
> You really need a Guardian Angel- or like me -three!
> On my honeymoon, I changed the flight details for some reason and the previous booking -- flipped on its back on landing and burst into flames. Everyone was burnt in their seat belts.
> 
> ...



The really interesting point in these three is your results were progressively worse each time.


----------



## Jennifer Edwards (Feb 22, 2019)

I think my guardian angel worked overtime on my case!

I do not know how I managed to avoid a serious industrial accident during my engineering days.

I guess I kept conscious of safety procedures, kept alert of my surroundings, and did not have lunches at the gin mill across the street ;-) well not too many...


----------



## Dubi (Feb 23, 2019)

Shopgeezer said:


> A friend who was a former Bristol Aerospace machinist recalls the emphasis on safety with clothing. No dangling sleeves, long hair, medalions on chains etc. What freaked him out was the insistance by a few of the older British guys on wearing ties. Just the thought of a tie wrapping around the chuck and pulling your face down in to the jaws gives me the willies.


I could not agree more with you because everything happens in a flash. I always remove my wrist watch and ring before using any machinery on our floor. I also threw out an overall that had gaping pockets on the front which could/did catch on the controls of the Colchester Triumph 200 lathe.


----------



## KellisRJ (Feb 28, 2019)

Too many close calls with saws, push sticks are kept on my wide fence. I've done two things for my lathe:
1. Rigged a proximity switch where the chuck key hangs. Lathe won't run if the key isn't in the holder. I use a VFD so it was easy to wire it in the circuit.  
2. There is a second stop switch by the door. At least if my GF comes to check on me and sees an emergency she can kill the power. I already have a foot switch for the mill once it gets finished.


----------



## MrMetric (Mar 1, 2019)

KellisRJ....
That is a *really* good idea.  I always find it amazing when you see pictures of people showing their work/shops/etc and you can see a chuck key sitting in the chuck, or a wrench on the drawbolt of a lathe.  Eek.  I've trained myself to never, if possible, take my hand off the things, but your solution is a really good backup.


----------



## firstgear (Mar 1, 2019)

Good idea


----------



## KellisRJ (Mar 4, 2019)

MrMetric said:


> KellisRJ....
> That is a *really* good idea.  I always find it amazing when you see pictures of people showing their work/shops/etc and you can see a chuck key sitting in the chuck, or a wrench on the drawbolt of a lathe.  Eek.  I've trained myself to never, if possible, take my hand off the things, but your solution is a really good backup.



Thanks. I stay low profile because frankly I'm not building anything LOL. But I stumbled across a comment on the same topic and decided that it was something I really needed to do, and pass it on when the topic comes up on forums.

The key "hanger" is simply a plastic 2" X 4", "Handy (surface mount electrical) box" in the US, with a diagonal slot, the 1- 25mm proximity switch  mounted on the inside top. The key slips  down the slot shank down and is right above the belt guard on my Logan 10" 820. So after tightening the chuck the key is simply lifted up and into the box. It's really a very convenient place to keep it. If I ever change the box my VFD controls are I may put the handy box right below the start button, but on the other hand straight up out of the chuck works really well.  So for me a <$10 USD, assuming you have a VFD with a closed loop stop circuit, investment keeps me from getting stupid.

Ron


----------



## Rod Cole (Mar 25, 2019)

I can tell you that if your tool-post grinder doesn't have a belt guard, you for sure need to remember to use a hair tie, or else don't try to get a close look at your work. Almost broke my glasses that time when my forehead hit the motor on the grinder~


----------



## KellisRJ (Apr 23, 2019)

No, it's the lathe belt with a cover/guard over it. A Logan lathe belt guard tightens the belt when lowered. So the lathe won't run if the guard is up.


----------



## olympic (Apr 24, 2019)

I have placed a 1"x2" rectangular magnet on the belt guard of my Logan lathe, and I just lay the chuck key up against it. Quick, convenient, and secure.


----------



## Charles Lamont (Apr 24, 2019)

Shopgeezer said:


> What freaked him out was the insistance by a few of the older British guys on wearing ties.


As an 'office' engineer, I very quickly learned to tuck my tie inside my shirt as a virtually automatic action whenever I walked onto any shop floor, occasionally creating an impression on other less well trained 'suits'.


----------



## rmd55 (Apr 24, 2019)

My dad was an electrical engineer and taught me shop safety from as far back as I can remember.  He work at RCA in the 40's designing TV transmitters. In the lab no watches or rings could be worn dad always carried a pocket watch. One day an engineer left his wedding ring on and even though he was wearing proper gloves he was killed from the high voltage through his ring. In the 70's dad worked in a paper mill and was REQUIRED to wear a tie even though his job took him out in the plant. He worn a clip-on bow tie to meet the requirement.  Electricians coming on shift would ask if the power was off to a piece of equipment. His answer was always the same. "It's supposed to be but you better check."  One day the power that was suppose to be off was on on a 1800 V motor they were about to work on.  I made a few dumb mistakes growing up using hand tools but have never had a serious accident in the shop.  The older I get the more I think of safety and the lessons my dad taught me.
Richard


----------



## mcostello (Apr 25, 2019)

Place I worked at had a big sign on the door"this room has 5 sources of power." One time they found out the hard way it had 6.


----------



## Pufango (Apr 25, 2019)

Hello don’t understand ? Best regards Tony Wright pufango!


----------



## SirJohn (Apr 25, 2019)

The rule in my shop is that sweaters are not allowed around rotating machinery.  Just imagine the out come if your sweater  gets caught in a rotating shaft or chuck?


----------



## goldstar31 (Apr 26, 2019)

Until 1943, the Royal Air Force ground crews- in the Battle of Britain and whatever, wore collars and ties and thereafter could wear either could continue to wear service uniform from pre-War  but ' battle dress' replaced them from that date. However, ties were alway worn long after the end of WW2.  In 1948, I was issued with a dress service uniform and a  Royal Observer Corps battle dress- but with 'shite hawks' on the sleeves.  I continued to wear  Leading Aircraftsman twin blades propellors and these were replaced with corporals chevrons.  I recall that in October 1949, I wore knaki denim battle dress but still with collar and tie whilst disposing of sweating ex WW2 ammunition.

Did anyone on my operational Squadron get injured? Yes, three of them were burned to death but NOT from  wearing ties.  
I do recall once  'borrowing' a tropical flying overall- but I still wore my collar and tie, with a Mae West lifejacket and parachute backpack.

The real World- for some of us!

Per Ardua Asbestos, Nil Illigitimi Carborundum and sic blether

Norm


----------



## john_reese (Apr 26, 2019)

A few years ago a damned fool posted pictures.  He had left the key in his lathe chuck.  He put it through the windshield of his Porsche.

Look at any of the photos of a machine shop from the early 20th century.  Many of the workers were actually wearing suits, including vest and necktie.  Machines were poorly guarded and there were open belts everywhere.  Scary.


----------



## Brian Hutchings (Apr 27, 2019)

It's not just lathes and millers! I once worked for a company who made, amongst other things, pressed steel radiators of the kind you might have in you home.
They were pressed in 2 halves and the outsides were guillotined to size to remove distortion from the pressing. Each half was about 3/4" thick and the pressure plate on the guillotine was adjusted to suit, fortunately for me.
One day I needed to cut a piece of metal for a personal job so at lunchtime, I got my piece of metal and went to cut it to size. I had to get my fingers close to the blade for the size I wanted and pressed the operating pedal. The pressure plate cam down and just touch the backs of my fingers before retracting and I really did break out in a cold sweat in the knowledge that I could have lost all the fingers on both hands if the machine had been set up for any other job.
I've just read about the  switch that does not allow the lathe to operate if the chuck key is not hanging from it, excellent idea, many thanks.
Brian


----------



## Eoin (Apr 29, 2019)

Accidents can happen in the most unexpected places.
I  once worked with a chap who only had three fingers on his left hand, the hand appeared quite normal and there were no obvious injuries, it was just a three-fingered hand,
However, one day at 'smoko' he told me what had happened.

He was a storeman in a very large warehouse and they had a mile or more of small steel bins/shelving going up high enough to require ladders to reach the top ones.
He said that he was up a ladder and fell. he put out his left hand to catch hold of a bin front and his wedding ring caught on a bolt that was sticking out, his full weight went onto the finger and it ripped out right back to the wrist; hence the neat appearance!!

He said that when the insurance people inspected the shelving/bins there was only one bolt (his) that was put in wrong and had the thread sticking out and that there were over a million bolts.


----------



## crec (Apr 29, 2019)

Thanks for the suggestion on the chuck key interlock. I teach kids to run lathes and mills so having one more method to keep them safe is always appreciated.


----------



## john_reese (Apr 30, 2019)

A good friend of mine lost her finger in a similar way.  She was jumping down from the bed of a truck when her wedding ring caught on the stock rack of the truck.


----------

