Thread: It pays to be warned

yeah - back in the day i worked in Service Stations. Had to fill up cars, but also check under the hood., tyres, etc. The uniform included a bow tie as a neck tie could get caught in a motor..... After years in martial arts, and having a somewhat careful nature, i tend not to wear any tie, wristwatch, loose clothing and the long beard and long hair are long gone... no sense letting anyone have anything to get a grip on.
It has been very easy to translate that into shop safety, so while i have had minor injuries over the years, they have been just that - minor.
Adam.

Had to laugh a little. Yep I've burned my foot with welding splatter. Recently I was buffing up a horse shoe for my daughter and had a box in the way in front of the buffer so I just leaned over to get a better angle. Biggest mistake was not putting on the leather apron. I leaned into the grinding wheel with my stomach and it burned right through that new t-shirt I was wearing. Scars are manly and I should have this one for years to come!

Yea I've done a lot of stupid stuff over the past 50 years guess its not going to stop now.

PS stopped wearing a wedding ring decades ago not a big issue

The worst I ever saw was my old boss was running an older punch press (one that didnt have an air clutch) After hearing the press turn over hundreds of times there was a double hit sound throughout the shop. Everyone knew something was wrong. The manual clutch slipped and off came his finger in a 20 ton press. Needless to say there wasnt anything left to sew back on. Like spaghetti.

The same guy manadged to drive the forklift thru the garage door with the boom up snapping the header completely off the building and crashing into his skull. He stumbled away from that accident with only stitches & a concussion. (I must admit that was one of the funniest things we ever witnessed). The boss hates it when his minions laugh uncontrollably at him.
Har!!!

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Two incidents with that ..... in the '70s or maybe the '80s, I read in the newspaper of a girl working in a book bindery who had her long hair get caught in some machinery or other that effectively scalped her. My old boss in the tattoo shop is also a crackerjack machinist, auto mechanic and general jack of many trades.

He had shoulder length hair when he was younger. Was running a large surface hand grinder, like a black & decker, or whatever, his hair got caught and reeled the grinder into the side of his head with such force it knocked him unconscious. The only thing that saved him from more serious injury was that the electrical cord disconnected from the outlet when he fell to the ground.

During WW2 they had alot of women get killed in war factorys because of long hair.

My grandfather lost 2 fingers to a punch with the satefy taped off.
Colleagues father lost 2 very tips to a planing machine.
Ex boss lost a tip to a lathe
Bart planed away his entire pinky.
Friend's teacher lost 3 fingers to a belt saw.
Colleague's teacher turned his hand into a claw on a table mill.
Former internship boss stapled his thumb to a crate with a power stapler.

The list is endless, which is why I keep my use of power tools to a minimum.

Not so much metal working, but I used to work in a custom industrial furniture shop.

In the shop, we had the normal power tools you'd expect- routers, miter saws, jointers, a planer, etc.

We had two tablesaws- one old Delta unisaw with a large table built around it and a minimax sliding tablesaw.

One of the new guys jumped on the minimax one day and began cutting away. All of a sudden, we hear the saw whine and a loud crashing noise. Apparently, the piece he was cutting bound up in the saw, kicked back and sailed about 15-20 feet, crashing through the wall and into the reception area of the office.

He was banned from using that saw for a month, which meant that any and all pieces which had to be cut on it for his projects fell to the rest of us. Let's just say between our scolding and berating him, he never had a piece bind on him again.

Scariest thing I ever saw was a supervisor that put time in the shop on occasion. He was operating a cut off saw and as he fed the wood to be cut off his long tied tie was advancing with the board and almost to the saw . some how he missed between cuts and lived to brag about hos skills some more.
!Ricahrd

Most dangerous machine in any wood shop are planers, joiners, and shapers.
Most assinine thing I ever did was I was cutting Rabbit joints on my joiner,small stock,the spring loaded gaurd kept getting in the way.
So I took it off,in a short time I took the tips off of two of my fingers,to this day I have no feeling in them

In High School (speaking of back in the day) I had a wood shop teacher have his fingers pulled into a grinding wheel while sharpening a chisel. First time I ever saw a grown man weep like a baby. Don't blame him, and he taught me to use tools correctly!

Mot dangerous thing in any shop is INATTENTION!
~Richard