I don't know if anyone watches
MrPragmaticLee on YouTube, but
this video is scary and makes you think how fast accidents can happen. Luckily, he escaped without major injuries, but his hand looked quite gruesome.
It seems that drill bits like to grab just as they are breaking through the bottom of your workpiece. I'm not sure why, but I've experienced it many times. Clamp your workpieces down!
Stay safe everyone.
I saw that one. Going up to it I thought "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot". That was not good thinking on his part. In fact, it was a lack of thinking on his part, as he knows and has described WHY he wouldn't hold that part by hand, but will hold other stuff free hand. I suspect the shape of that bracket got the best of him, because he knew better. He himself has said so in the past.
I will not claim or pretend that I've never held a part on a drill press table. There's some common sense involved. like, what's gonna happen "when", not "if" this part catches. What's the part shaped like. HOW is my hand arranged on it? It's gotta be so that when it catches and spins, it RELEASES your grip, not tighten it. It's got to be so when it spins around and hits you again, it pushes you out of the way, not cutting you in the process. It's gotta have enough mass that when the drill breaks through, you have some remote hope that it might not catch. Honestly, not all parts qualify for this.....
Had he clamped that in a crappy little drill press vise, not even bolted down...... He could have then held the handle of that vise. The drill press helecopter would not have chopped his hand apart. His other arm, yarning with half his weight and compound leverage on the quill to get a drill bit to cut, that didn't want to cut... That's another no-no. Forget "why isn't the drill bit cutting", but if you're gonna yarn on your tools like that (it's his drill press after all), don't let that put your arm in that position I was talking about. That arm should have never been there. He'd have gotten the same effect, and better positioning with his arm out of harms way if he'd have stuck a pipe over one of those handles. Which while there was no pipe, that's exactly what he was doing, compounding leverage and body weight to yarn on the handles.
Like any tool in the shop, you've gotta think..... And think ahead. That couldda been a lot worse.
Here's a couple of quick "cheats" if you're gonna cheat. If you're on a small enough drill press, use an oversized drill press vise. Nine times out of ten, you can hand hold the vise, with a part in it, in a position where the handle is against the column. Or at the very least on the left side of the table. If something grabs, it's gonna stop (maybe) or it's gonna break the drill clean off. Either way, the incident happens and is over, the energy from the event is spent elsewhere, in a NOT HELICOPTER direction, and it's kind of a non event. Hopefully an eye opening event, but not a blood shedding event. Or if the vise doesn't work out for you, just a plain old F clamp clamped on your part, Now you've got a good handle, no hands on sharp corners, and the handle of course, like the oversized vise, long enough to hit the column on the way around.
That said, about how to cheat.... It's just not that hard to put stuff in a vise. And very easy to become complacent. There is a time and a place for freehanding, but if you're doing it more than once in a blue moon...... Probably should stop and figure out why it's happening so much. With power tools, stuff happens that you can foresee, stuff happens that you cannot foresee, and sometimes... Just sometimes.... Stuff happens straight out of the ether that just couldn't even have happened, but it happened anyway. Never be afraid of it, but ALWAYS, ALWAYS keep your guard up. Things will happen. Maybe today, maybe next week, maybe next year... It's up to you to make yourself safe WHEN it happens. If you had a room full of safety guards, shields, face shields over your safety glasses... If you ever start thinking it can't happen to you... Even if you've done the same part a thousand times- If you think it can't happen on the next one, if you stop thinking through your steps to make it a "non event" when something goes wrong, it's time to pack up and go do something else for the afternoon.
If YOU are running the tool, then YOU are the brains of the operation.