Know where your fingers are---

[Master]

No, it's the drop off point of the world. Called Port Townsend.

 

[Richard Hed]

No, it's the drop off point of the world. Called Port Townsend.

We have a buddy in Belfair. That's not too far for you is it? Maybe have to take a ferry to make it short. The Soviet has the largest ferry system in the States. did u know?

 

[Master]

30 minute ferry ride is now $40 round trip. Canada is free. Belfair is within driving distance. No ferry. Is your friend a machinist?

 

[Richard Hed]

30 minute ferry ride is now $40 round trip. Canada is free. Belfair is within driving distance. No ferry. Is your friend a machinist?

He is on this forum. He would like to meet but I live so far away that I only get out that way maybe once a year. I have relatives in the Puyallup, Yelm, Tacoma area and friends all over the left coast but That doesn't mean I get to see them very often. If I managed to stay over night in the area I could visit. Let me have some time and I will find his name. He is a regular here.

 

[Bentwings]

Machines are not the only means of human brutllaity......human to human contact is pretty dangerous too. I played hockey until, I was 26, one night with my wife to be sitting at the blue line....no glass back then, I got high sticked by some scrawny wingman right in front of her .i went down bleeding badly . I was helped off the ice by my defense partner The coach was one who grabbed you by the jersey for attention. He said you go get stitched up and be back for the third period. So I took a spare jersey over my eye and wife to be and I went to the ER it took 14 stitches to replace my eyebrow back in position. We drove back to the arena where the coach grabbed me and the other defense man by the jerseys. He said get out there and I want that kid off the ice , I don’t care if you both get ejected. Both of us were well over 200 pounds probably 50 pounds heavier each than the kid. Well he got his fdue in a corner and we got ejected for fighting and unnecessary roughness. We still won the game but I got married with a bright black eye.

 

[Dougp]

This is an old thread but last month I had a piece of the casting fail on my 18 year old sliding compound mitre saw. The saw basically exploded and shot to the extent of its travel. I did a quick digit count and changed my underwear, then sat there stunned as to how lucky I was. I loved that saw it was built like a tank but I love having 10 fingers more and will be very careful with other old tools I own from now on.
I told this story to a friend who said in their shop the drop saw came off its mount and ran across the room, so glad mine stopped at the end of its travel or I would be sitting down to pee.

 

[Bentwings]

This is an old thread but last month I had a piece of the casting fail on my 18 year old sliding compound mitre saw. The saw basically exploded and shot to the extent of its travel. I did a quick digit count and changed my underwear, then sat there stunned as to how lucky I was. I loved that saw it was built like a tank but I love having 10 fingers more and will be very careful with other old tools I own from now on.
I told this story to a friend who said in their shop the drop saw came off its mount and ran across the room, so glad mine stopped at the end of its travel or I would be sitting down to pee.

I too had a near disaster when the blade attaching bolt sheared off the carbide tooth blade apparently dropped off hooking the aluminum guard then sliced threw it striking the aluminumwork piece I had clamped on the table. It must have dug in as there was a large slit where it hit. Then I tore completely through the guard just missing my shoulder . There were chips flying all over but my wraparound safety glasses saved the day the still spinning blade bounced on the concrete floor then stuck in the paint cabinet door. It was a 16 inch steel blade so very high energy. It split the guard like it had been purposely split in half. The noise shock and speed it all happened was unbelievable.. we got a new blade and guard that we mounted. A steel band to prevent a blade from cutting through but it has made the guard assembly much heavier and the operation is more difficult . I’ll trade a little productivity for knowing I don’t think it will happen again. I realy didn’t think the blade could cut the guard like that but the machine cuts 4x 4 1/4 wall aluminum tube like butter . Even the blade on its trip across the floor would have done serious injury. I doubt you could have gotten out of the way. I’ve always been very careful around rotating machines even autos but this one caught me by surprise there was no warning juts boom and things came apart.

 

[Steamchick]

Reminds me of a couple of incidents.... my friend planed the top 1/4" off his thumb.... using the power plane to shorten a piece of wood holding the wood with his thumb braced behind where he was planing.....
Another guy I worked with used a power saw to cut branches off a tree, including the branch he was leaning on.... One broken arm later, from a 10 ft fall, he had to tell the tale in work the next week.
Another guy used a power saw to chop the top 15 ft off a row of 30 ft conifers.... On the last one, he reached down to trim a branch near his crotch..... slipped, and cut a groove in his thigh... exposing the artery. He only lost a half-pint of blood while his wife drove him to hospital, not all of it through a cut artery. LUCKY?
Hand held tools are the worst risk, but even the humble pairing knife can severe a major blood vessel is not used with care.
Always count your fingers at the start and end of a shift. You have a problem if the numbers don't match!
Take care and enjoy your hobbies.
K2

 

[aarggh]

As someone who in their very early days built a table saw using an upside down circular saw held somewhat precariously upside down under a table, and didn't see the need for a safety fence. I soon learnt the hard way to be wary of sharp spinning things when I slipped running timber through and my thumb and two fingers hit the blade, didn't lose a digit but have nice big scar line across the three digits!

Now when I see home built saws for sale on the forums I really cringe, while there's nothing wrong with home built stuff if used by a suitable cautious/competent person, but I worry a person unfamiliar to them will buy it and then inevitably lose a finger or worse using stuff that should never really be sold as it's just so dangerous.

 

[KellisRJ]

Not just fingers:

 

[Tug40]

 

[Jonken44]

Reminds me of a couple of incidents.... my friend planed the top 1/4" off his thumb.... using the power plane to shorten a piece of wood holding the wood with his thumb braced behind where he was planing.....
Another guy I worked with used a power saw to cut branches off a tree, including the branch he was leaning on.... One broken arm later, from a 10 ft fall, he had to tell the tale in work the next week.
Another guy used a power saw to chop the top 15 ft off a row of 30 ft conifers.... On the last one, he reached down to trim a branch near his crotch..... slipped, and cut a groove in his thigh... exposing the artery. He only lost a half-pint of blood while his wife drove him to hospital, not all of it through a cut artery. LUCKY?
Hand held tools are the worst risk, but even the humble pairing knife can severe a major blood vessel is not used with care.
Always count your fingers at the start and end of a shift. You have a problem if the numbers don't match!
Take care and enjoy your hobbies.
K2

Are you mixing in the right circles , think safety first , don't rely on safety comes experience. Expensive lessons.

 

[L98fiero]

Are you mixing in the right circles , think safety first , don't rely on safety comes experience. Expensive lessons.

A friend just told me a machine 'bit' him and broke his finger, I reminded him that machines are patient, they will wait until you do something stupid or just careless and then they show no mercy. Be safe!

 

[Courierdog]

I recently gave my 40 year old son a skill saw that I had inherited from my dad. I have my own skillsaw and didn't need two of them. The advice I gave him was to "Know where your fingers are every time you turn this saw on". This is indeed a creed to live by. I'm 73 years old, and amazingly I have all 10 digits. One finger on my right hand was cut off with a trimming axe when I was six years old, but thru the magic of medical knowledge gained in world war two, sulfa drugs, and a very forward thinking village doctor, the finger was reattached, and full mobility of it was restored. The last joint closest to the end of my finger doesn't bend quite as well as its counterpart on the other hand, but I have full feeling in the finger and after 67 years I never really think of it. When I was a teenager, we were poorer than dirt and lived down an unpaved sideroad. A family with at least half a dozen boys lived in the road about a mile from where we lived. One Sunday morning the oldest son walked out to our place and asked my dad if his dad could borrow dads skillsaw. Dad gave it to him with the express warning to "Watch where your fingers are." About 2:00 that afternoon, the same boy walked back out to our place with the skillsaw in one hand, and two fingers wrapped in a cloth in the other hand, and wanted to know if dad could drive him up town to see the doctor. They couldn't reattach the fingers, too much time had gone by. Think about this story every time you flip on a lathe, a mill, a grinder, or any of the other power tools we all own. Know where your fingers are first!!!

Excellent Advice, regardless to tool in use, Visible Fingers have to counted, before turning on the device.

 

[Courierdog]

Plus it seems everyone is forgetting the Elephant in the same room, POWER, Treat Every Wire as if it has multiple Kvolts and Mamps, It can ruin your day with a simple brush even with some fabric between you and the wire or ungrounded item. Drop a screwdriver onto a powered source and you will be lucky if you are able to see the flash. In a Machine shop we tend to forget today everything is powered by Electricity.

 

[skyline1]

Plus it seems everyone is forgetting the Elephant in the same room, POWER, Treat Every Wire as if it has multiple Kvolts and Mamps

Sound advice, As an apprentice, we were taught to treat every circuit as live until we had actually measured it (with a known good meter). On a big dis board it is all too easy to pull the wrong breaker or fuse and isolate the wrong circuit.

Best Regards Mark

 

[Courierdog]

One of my many experiences was working on Broadcasting Transmitters, some times it involved working inside a room that was actually part of the transmitter.
Everything is live, as you are there to maintain it. Or You turn every thing off and then verify everything is dead by using a 4 foot long rod with a grounding strap on the far end, to touch each and every potential source of High Voltage.
This can be scary as even after 30 minutes some of the Capacitor are still full of stored energy.
The really difficult part is working on the live transmitter either aligning or worse fault tracing. I once dropped a screw driver, I saw the flash and ti was over, gone. A friend was working with me once and was showing off with a fluorescent tube near the Final Out Put. Yes it would light up. What he forgot was now, how do you extinguish the bulb that is now filled with a very High Voltage charge. What he should have done it touch the far end of the Fluorescent tube to a Ground source. Instead he climbed down the ladder before I could tell him not to and stepped off the wooden ladder on to the floor.
You guessed it, He passed out the moment his foot touched the floor.
The only thing that saved him was he dropped the Fluorescent tube which broke into a million pieces with a silent yet brilliant flash. as the current attempted to pass through him. had he not lost his footing and dropped the Fluorescent tube, most likely he would have died on the spot. As it was he was extremely white in colour for about a week while the effects wore off. Not something you want to see. My next Job was to fabricate an insulating cover to keep people from repeating his mistake. The Original designers thought no body would go anywhere near the open 100 KW Antenna Contact on top of the Cabinet 8 feet above ground. There is always someone

 

[stevehuckss396]

I think about it every time I turn on the saw. I handed my son (27 YO) A craftsman worm gear saw a few years ago. Extremely powerful saw. He started cutting a sheet of plywood and the saw bound up and jumped right at him. It grabbed his shirt and spun it up in the blade. Had he not let go of the trigger asap he would have chopped up himself along the abs something awful. I had a long chat before I handed it to him about stiff arming the saw while in use and never bending the elbow. Well he believes me now and always keeps his eye on the ball when using that saw.

Just for reference I believe it was a combination of wet wood and a semi dull blade cutting too fast. Blade worked great on dry wood. I put a brand new blade in and slowed down on the cut and it worked fine. Lesson learned.

 

[Steamchick]

Another shocking tale.... A guy took his jacket off at work and hung it on a wire coat hanger on the adjacent orange electrical cabinet.... at the end of the shift, he got a big belt from the electrics he contacted as he took his coat off the hanger... the hook was poked into a louvre with live electrics close inside the cabinet. He was given a statuary warning before his case was explained by the company as an example of unsafe practice, in the regular safety briefings. What hurt more? The shock that nearly killed him or the embarrassment with his mates? It could have been one of them that was electrocuted instead. The same cooling ventillation louvres are on most lathes and other control equipment cabinets in home workshops. So NEVER poke anything into a hole in electrical equipment. You may not be aware of what kills you.
Take care and enjoy your hobby.
K2

 

[perko7]

Seems like most of us have a tale to tell. A friend of my dad's had one of those (Titan or Triton) saw bench thingy's with the upside down circular saw clamped to the underside. Passing some wood through wearing his bifocals, looked through the wrong part of the lens and lost most of 3 fingers. Always used a pusher piece after that.