Safety Police

[Bob Korves]

Hey - I'm not a trained or very experienced machinist.
I'm here to learn and get help.
I'm all for someone who notices anything in a post of mine that isn't a safe operation to tell me about.

The only way to learn is to be taught by someone who knows.

PLEASE - help me keep all my fingers where they belong.

...
Yes, it should not be "safety Nazis," it should be "safety friends"

 

[fradish]

I can only speak for myself, but generally when I have been injured working around power tools
it generally occurs due to a lack of imagination on my part. I am thinking of what I want to happen, not
what else could happen along the way. As a teenager I got my hand cut up (I still have the scars) while
holding a piece of sharp triangularly shaped sheet metal in one hand and drilling through it with the other.
The drill caught and whipped that piece of metal out of my fingers and sliced my thumb and two fingers
pretty well. Looking back on it I can't imagine how I could NOT see that coming, but if I did I wouldn't
have done it.

Even when the power is off, I have given myself minor cuts once on a sharp live center and once
on a parting tool just because I wasn't paying attention to where my hands could end up relative to
these sharp tools.

There is a saying, "There is no education in the second kick of a mule", and I find that I don't repeat the mistakes
I have made in the past, but I'd just as soon not make the mistakes in order to get my lesson. Getting
advise from others with more experience is very helpful as is just stopping to think about how things could go differently
than I envision them. That second part is more difficult, it involves changing your mindset and it takes practice.

 

[markba633csi]

Good points; As an example I was just reading about how fluids can be injected under the skin at high pressure(fluid injection injuries)- hadn't thought of that! Helpful reminder of the many ways to get hurt.
MS

 

[ch2co]

There are many more ways to do things wrong than to do them right. Be careful out there.

 

[Rustrp]

My youngest son likes to point out, or mention to his friends how I'm anal retentive about safety in the shop. He says; I tried to get Dad out of the office for half an hour and he keeps saying give me a couple more minutes here, but he can hear one thing that doesn't sound right and he'll be out there in a second. I'm sure I fit the safety police model and more. There is no way to put safety switches, light curtains or other protective devices on metal working equipment and get the job without affecting safety. In the home shop it's even worse. Without formal training there's just no way to list all the ways a person could be injured, so a constructive bit of advise is helpful along with hints of what not to do before it's done. With formal training the list of what could happen that's not covered in class is shorter, but not by much. Where do you store your chuck key for the drill press or lathe?

 

[markba633csi]

Most everybody has a drill press, not as many have lathes and even fewer mills. I imagine getting hurt by holding work when drilling is probably one of the
most frequent home shop injuries. Took me several smacks in the hand (fortunately not too bloody) before I finally took it seriously.
MS
ps Ladders and hammers are probably way up there too.

 

[wrmiller]

So what about the person who has never had an accident with any kind of tool, power or otherwise? Some (most) call it dumb luck, but I beg to differ. 'Dumb' has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, ignorance, arrogance, and dumb can contribute to accidents. I've always thought the word 'accident' is the wrong word to describe mishaps though. JMO...

And I agree with some posts here in that the way unsolicited 'safety suggestions' are worded can have a huge impact on how they are taken.

 

[Rustrp]

So what about the person who has never had an accident with any kind of tool, power or otherwise?

This would be someone who has never touched or used a tool, or someone who was limited by the length of the anti-theft lanyard at the big box store.

 

[tq60]

Habit is dangerous...Or repetition so to speak.

Our brain goes into autopilot and performs tasks without thinking so it can focus on what it thinks is important.

How many times do you arrive at home and simply cannot remember stopping at the stop sign if your life depended on it...

Brain simply does not store it as auto pilot.

Happens when working as we forget to do things as we stop using manual mode and brain shifts to auto...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk

 

[mikey]

The vast majority of us here have enough experience with tools to have a red light or alarm bell go off in our heads when a situation is dangerous or potentially so. It's when we don't pay attention to those warnings that we get in trouble.