Know where your fingers are---

[Steamchick]

Sorry to hear about your Dad's friend. I was taught to use the school's circular saw at 13 years old. Now they are banned in schools. So how can anyone learn about safely using machinery?
K2

 

[GrahamJTaylor49]

Bloody electrical circuits. I was working on a 3 phase mig welding plant. Had the sides off and was trying to trace a fault. I also had a hiatus hernia and had been suffering with reflux for years. Normally Zantac kept it under control but with no closure to the stomach and working almost upside down the contents came up. I found at that moment how well stomach liquid conducts 400 volt AC. The staff picked me up from the other side of the workshop where I was sitting against the workshop wall shaking and wondering what had happened. I have now had keyhole surgery and the hiatus hernia has been repaired and I don't have to keep the manufacturers of Zantac in the manor to which they had become accustomed. Just remember, vomit and 400v three phase don't mix.

 

[Steamchick]

GJT: I try and understand the purpose of the OFF switch before I get excited by electrickery.... it simply frickens me! Sorry to hear of your gut problems...
K2

 

[skyline1]

I was taught to use the school's circular saw at 13 years old. Now they are banned in schools. So how can anyone learn about safely using machinery?

This is so true, We try to keep our digits, eyes, ears, and all the other bits safe by adopting safe practices. We do so because we have been taught the safe practices, and allowed to actually use and demonstrate them in a real world setting, under good supervision.

With particularly dangerous machine tools like circular saws and angle grinders, our government's policy is increasingly just to ban students from using them in schools rather than teaching them how to use them properly and safely.

The result of this is we are in peril of (in fact, already are) producing a generation of young adults who don't know how to use even the simplest hand tools properly let alone powerful machine tools.

I personally think this is a very bad policy and some of this fanatical Health and Safety mollycoddling actually has a negative effect. Young people are becoming LESS risk aware, having never been exposed to the dangers and the steps needed to mitigate them, in a controlled and supervised environment.

Best Regards Mark

 

[Steamchick]

Putting it simply, even the teachers are too young to have been properly (industrially) trained, so I would not trust them to teach the kids the safety required.
I worked from 11 in the woodwork and metalwork shop in spare time, so was taught a lot and had lots of experience, before join an Uncle's machine shop at 13 (part time), instead of delivering newspapers....
I had completed an apprenticeship by the time I was 18, albeit "unofficial". But that was just the start for 45 years of real Engineering.... and I am still learning and practicing with help from all the expert contributors here...
And I can still hit my thumb with a hammer!
K2

 

[skyline1]

Putting it simply, even the teachers are too young to have been properly (industrially) trained, so I would not trust them to teach the kids the safety required.

Yes, this "blind leading the blind" situation is becoming more and more common and not just in the schools. It is creeping upwards to the technical colleges and dare I say it, even university engineering departments.

But that was just the start for 45 years of real Engineering.... and I am still learning and practicing with help from all the expert contributors here...
And I can still hit my thumb with a hammer!

Me Too ! especially the thumb/hammer bit and I still curse and swear when I do. Watch out they'll ban hammers soon, far too dangerous !

Best Regards Mark

 

[Richard Hed]

Putting it simply, even the teachers are too young to have been properly (industrially) trained, so I would not trust them to teach the kids the safety required.
I worked from 11 in the woodwork and metalwork shop in spare time, so was taught a lot and had lots of experience, before join an Uncle's machine shop at 13 (part time), instead of delivering newspapers....
I had completed an apprenticeship by the time I was 18, albeit "unofficial". But that was just the start for 45 years of real Engineering.... and I am still learning and practicing with help from all the expert contributors here...
And I can still hit my thumb with a hammer!
K2

yup, a few years back, I needed to hammer on some piece of metal. I didn't have a glove on but slowly realized I better put a glove on. So I put a welding glove on "just in case". Well you know what happened, I did infact hit my thumb but oh, how much worse it waould have been without the glove.

 

[Richard Hed]

Yes, this "blind leading the blind" situation is becoming more and more common and not just in the schools. It is creeping upwards to the technical colleges and dare I say it, even university engineering departments.



Me Too ! especially the thumb/hammer bit and I still curse and swear when I do. Watch out they'll ban hammers soon, far too dangerous !

Best Regards Mark

Yes! Hammers are too dangerous -- they will have to have a cage built around them.

 

[GrahamJTaylor49]

GJT: I try and understand the purpose of the OFF switch before I get excited by electrickery.... it simply frickens me! Sorry to hear of your gut problems...
K2

Hi Steamchick. I do understand the purpose of the OFF switch but needed the machine powered up to find the fault, wonderful stuff electrickery and yes it does fricken me, especially when playing around with inverter drives that play around with 575v DC. Now that can hurt but only once. By the way, my gut problem is now over, keyhole surgery. Got to go now and play around with a condensate drain not working on a 35Kw compressor / dryer.

 

[L98fiero]

Hi Steamchick. I do understand the purpose of the OFF switch but needed the machine powered up to find the fault, wonderful stuff electrickery and yes it does fricken me, especially when playing around with inverter drives that play around with 575v DC. Now that can hurt but only once. By the way, my gut problem is now over, keyhole surgery. Got to go now and play around with a condensate drain not working on a 35Kw compressor / dryer.

I was told that 220/240v is more dangerous because you can still hang onto it while being electrocuted while 575/600v will 'blow you off' the conductor, not sure that's true and I'm not willing to try it either though I did know an electrician that was blown off a ladder when he contacted a 575v line. That guy was deathly afraid of 575v and being an industrial electrician in Ontario, I'm not sure how he did his job.

 

[SmithDoor]

They one saying at retirement can count to 20 on hands and toes.

Back 1970's they most shop accident happens in last 2 hours of day.

If look at this data do save safer work at end of day.

My shop we did cleaning parts and painting in last two hours of day. This worked no accidents need a Doctor only a bandaid.

FYI my shop work in heavy steel brakes to 400 tons and lathes could turn 36".

Dave

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!!!

6

 

[Randoo]

I was told that 220/240v is more dangerous because you can still hang onto it while being electrocuted while 575/600v will 'blow you off' the conductor, not sure that's true and I'm not willing to try it either though I did know an electrician that was blown off a ladder when he contacted a 575v line. That guy was deathly afraid of 575v and being an industrial electrician in Ontario, I'm not sure how he did his job.

A/C voltage tends to blow you off but D/C voltage makes your grip lock onto it.

 

[Richard Hed]

A/C voltage tends to blow you off but D/C voltage makes your grip lock onto it.

I went to high school in Toutle in the 60's. Visited Kelso for pizza and pool.

 

[Randoo]

I went to high school in Toutle in the 60's. Visited Kelso for pizza and pool.

Kelso area has the best pizza

 

[MRA]

Yes, this "blind leading the blind" situation is becoming more and more common and not just in the schools. It is creeping upwards to the technical colleges and dare I say it, even university engineering departments.

Better believe it. In my university engineering department (lower-ranking UK institution) the 'head technician' is someone who previously sold phones in a shop, and who was recruited for 'showing initiative' with an interview panel question they couldn't answer, by looking it up on their phone. The question was - 'how do you wire a plug' - which tells you a lot about the panel, as well as the appointee.

Well, they were recruited as a technician, and swiftly promoted to lower-tier management - perhaps there were not enough plugs to wire up. But they do what is required, which is to pass down undigested management edicts from further up the tree without question!

This can only go on so long before a department collapses - this may be happening to the group adjacent to us. But the process takes such a long time in universities, as reasonable people retire and then sh*te recruits sh*te.

 

[GrahamJTaylor49]

Better believe it. In my university engineering department (lower-ranking UK institution) the 'head technician' is someone who previously sold phones in a shop, and who was recruited for 'showing initiative' with an interview panel question they couldn't answer, by looking it up on their phone. The question was - 'how do you wire a plug' - which tells you a lot about the panel, as well as the appointee.

Well, they were recruited as a technician, and swiftly promoted to lower-tier management - perhaps there were not enough plugs to wire up. But they do what is required, which is to pass down undigested management edicts from further up the tree without question!

This can only go on so long before a department collapses - this may be happening to the group adjacent to us. But the process takes such a long time in universities, as reasonable people retire and then sh*te recruits sh*te.

Try looking up "The Peter Principal" by Dr. Laurence Peter and Raymond Hill, Every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence, and in my career of getting on for 50+ years in industry I have seen it occur O so many times.

 

[Steamchick]

Hi Steamchick. I do understand the purpose of the OFF switch but needed the machine powered up to find the fault, wonderful stuff electrickery and yes it does fricken me, especially when playing around with inverter drives that play around with 575v DC. Now that can hurt but only once. By the way, my gut problem is now over, keyhole surgery. Got to go now and play around with a condensate drain not working on a 35Kw compressor / dryer.

Hi Graham. No offence intended. I assumed you had to work "Live" - otherwise you wouldn't have put yourself in such a predicament in the first place! But I once stopped an "electrical engineer" from poking a neon voltage detecting screwdriver towards a live 18kV busbar... he didn't appreciate that you don't need to touch live wires, just poke something into an electric field and the spark will find the point of break-down in the air and fry you in the process...!
Your hairs will stand on end - and form the points where the sparks strike!
If ever you see a power-line brought to ground in a storm.... stand on 1 leg, or keep feet together, until the sparks have stopped for more than 10 seconds. Don't walk away while sparks are flashing, as you may drop-down dead from the heart attack when the field goes up one leg across the heart and down the other...
I understand that most people struck by a lightening bolt survive if totally soaked from the rain, because the current runs down the water, not through the body. Standing under a tree can help. as that will explode before the current hits you... (just watch-out for the large lumps of exploding tree flying past your ears though).
K2

 

[Steamchick]

Try looking up "The Peter Principal" by Dr. Laurence Peter and Raymond Hill, Every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence, and in my career of getting on for 50+ years in industry I have seen it occur O so many times.

So that is why I was never promoted....!#@""%£!
Thanks for that one.
Advice to anyone else reading my posts.
It seems I have spent my lifetime proving I am incompetent - according to the Peter Principle - so please enjoy, but do not follow my advice.
Cheers!
K2

 

[L98fiero]

So that is why I was never promoted....!#@""%£!
Thanks for that one.
Advice to anyone else reading my posts.
It seems I have spent my lifetime proving I am incompetent - according to the Peter Principle - so please enjoy, but do not follow my advice.
Cheers!
K2

If you were incompetent you'd have been promoted, that keeps the incompetents from being real problems and where they can hurt people and mess up projects.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

There are two things in life that never fail to make your heart go thumpity thump. One is to saw a 1" thick block of aluminum on a carbide tipped table saw and have it kick back at you at 300 miles an hour. The other is to be machining a piece of pipe on the lathe without any support at the tailstock end, have the tool dig in, the pipe then pulling out of the chuck and chasing you around the room. I lived thru both of those exciting things, the only direct effect being a change of underwear. I don't do those things anymore!!