Letting other people use your equipment

My "tool use policy" is no way, no how. If someone needs something done, and it interests me, I'll do it for him. If he needs something built, I have him buy twice the amount of the raw material beforehand and I get to keep the leftovers. And it's not a "you still have some of my raw materials left over, could you also make me a..." kind of deal. It's a "this is a new project, so you'll have to go buy twice the raw materials for the project again before I start..."

If anyone objects to my rules, I direct them to the door and tell them to go elsewhere for their parts. I don't care if it hurts anyone's "feelings". I'm not in the "feelings stroking" business. If something like this hurts a friendship, it wasn't much of a friendship to begin with.
 
Peyton Price 17 said:
the only person I have to worry about is my older brother. I'm 13 and he will be 15 soon. put a hex wrench in a drill and spun it into my shirt until the drill stalled. it had a big battery on it too.
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Your older brother needs to be hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. In a year or so, you can still laugh with him about his scars.
 
SLK001 said:
Your older brother needs to be hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. In a year or so, you can still laugh with him about his scars.
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he also stepped on a broom while I was using a wood lathe. then I yelled at him. my dad also yelled at him but he said, I only did this, and he stepped on it again but this time my hand got in between the toolpost and piece of wood. I already was reaching for the shut of so I only got some scrapes. it has a 1 hp motor on it too!
 
Thanks for the comments everyone. Yes, this inccident has given me serious pause. I for sure think from here on, i'm going to watch people much more closely if they are using my machines.

In Canada we get free health care so I wouldn't have to pay any medical bills, but you guys are right, there is a certain liability factor to consider, although I suspect in this instance since he was warned twice and the machine didn't malfunction its proabbly on him from a liability perspective. Not that he would sue anyway. None the less it is still a point to consider.

He was wearing work gloves. I sort of have mixed feeling about gloves. Oviously no one should be getting their hand near a moving cutter and if you do the gloves can make it easy to get pulled in. On the other hand once the machine is off, gloves do reduce the risk of getring burned or cut when you remove a piece of work or are setting up the cutters. Myself I use gloves when setting up things up or removing them, but take them off during the actual machining as I find it easier to operate the machine without them.

On the positive, this could have ended much worse. And aside from a few cuts that will heal my uncle will be just fine and will proabbly have a new respect for the dangers of rotating cutter. I guess I also now have a good story to tell anyone if I observe them being unsafe, and I'll be much more forceful in my future warnings to people.
 
I used to have an open door policy, and an open lending policy. After losing a lot of expensive tools and having a near miss in my shope with an 'experienced machinist' (but really an knowitall novice) my policy is NOPE.

On work gloves, - this is a black and white issue I'm on the black side. I won't work without them. But this complements my other policy of never getting anything - not anything - near any kind of moving item. period. I know that there are experienced guys that have hurt themselves while wearing gloves, but they'd have ripped their hands off gloves or not. Iit is the height of stupidity to put anything soft near rotating machinery.

The ONLY exception is a brush for oil to lubricate a bit or cutter.
 
stupoty said:
White door , humm maybe you need to paint it some custom colour like "vactra 2 golden brown" :)

Stu
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it got painted last week but I'm working on giving it the, wd-40 yellow and, grease brown. also, the cabinets are also white too
 
I don't let anyone use my power tools. I haven't had good experiences lending out tools as well swo I keep that at a minimum. That runs the gamut from simple hand tools to the tractors and implements. I will usually offer to do the job myself. It's safer that way.

On a broader scope, there is the issue of liability. I'm not sure the my homeowner's insurance will cover something like personal injury or property damage from an incident where someone is misusing my mills or lathes. Even if the person agrees to accept responsibility, if they run into the ER with a serious injury, their insurance will most likely try to get compensation from you or your insurance. You could end up with a sizable bill.
 
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