SCHOOL OF HARDKNOCKS. (please feel free to add yours too those are the best safety messages in my opinion)

[twraska]

Ok I have 2 to begin this thread with. The First one is about BAD HABITS from more than 40 years ago. The other is about the Physics of Motion from just last winter and why its important.

#1 Back in early 1989 I was a young Army Mechanic that needed to repair a leaking exhaust pipe. I was gas welding with the Oxy-Acetylene torch and a stick of filler rod welding away . The bad habit I would like to share was scratching spots that itched with the back end of filler rod. I normally weld with torch in left, rod in right. Well my head itched and I scratched with the torch instead of the back end of the Rod. Singed my scalp real quick.

#2 Last winter I was basically new to the engine lathe and their operations but I inherited an old tired Craftsman 618. So I read a lot and gathered knowledge from many friends and bought a brand new 30 lb. 4 jaw and back plate. I took them to a professional shop and goy them mated together, I thought this is great, put it together turn it on and start making chips. WRONG! Like an idiot, I had it in the highest gear change, fastest belt speed ratio, turned it on and tensioned the belt it was running true and level but I did notice it was really screaming. at least 2000+ rpms. I didn't want to wreck anything so I slapped my cool new Emergency Stop button. The 618 doesn't have a locking collar or anything so when the motor stopped the drive line slowed really quick, the chuck didn't and came off flying at my head. I reflex slapped it away from hitting me in the FACE, so a few stitches and a really bruised hand and here I sit a year later on a really cold Sunday morning, sharing with you what I found out not to do.

I was young, maybe 12, and was cutting up some scrap iron. I tried to cut a piece of cast iron to no avail, gave up and grabbed it without a glove to re-position it.

 

[Braeden P]

I was welding without gloves and I grabbed the piece to move it, that was hot but I did not get burned.

Just the other day I was carving wood with my friend in his garage and I went to half close the valve on the wood stove that thing was hot! so now we use gloves.

 

[Peyton Price 17]

Don't grab fiberglass, my school has trays and the resin cracked off and I got a couple of 0.5 to 1-inch long fiberglass splinters. didn't see the missing resin and still have some in my hand from Tuesday, almost a week now.

 

[macardoso]

Don't grab fiberglass, my school has trays and the resin cracked off and I got a couple of 0.5 to 1-inch long fiberglass splinters. didn't see the missing resin and still have some in my hand from Tuesday, almost a week now.

I did a bunch of carbon fiber layups in college for a project team I was on. Those are also brutal. I do not envy you.

 

[Peyton Price 17]

I did a bunch of carbon fiber layups in college for a project team I was on. Those are also brutal. I do not envy you.

I also have a steel chip in my finger joint. have to wait until I get home to remove it. didn't rust yet but I have my tetanus shot.

 

[macardoso]

I also have a steel chip in my finger joint. have to wait until I get home to remove it. didn't rust yet but I have my tetanus shot.

Luckily you won't get tetanus from chips in the home shop. The bacteria typically comes from manure so rusty metal near farms is the risk.

I was out doing some whitewater kayaking and stepped on a rusty haybailing staple (18" long) under a pile of leaves and mud on the side of the river. Went through my shoe, dry suit, entire foot, dry suit again, and the top of my shoe! I pulled it out and still had 8 miles to paddle. Got myself to a WV hospital for a tetanus shot (oh boy the real ones hurt, nothing like the booster). I still have that saved somewhere.

 

[Peyton Price 17]

I remember getting the shot when I was little, the booster feels like riding a bike down my local park and the stinging feeling in my arm. ( apart from going over the bars and hitting a tree) but goes away after a couple of days.

 

[C-Bag]

It's only by blind luck that I've made it seventy-five years with all my digits and most of my senses.

1. Assume every gun is loaded.
2. Assume every machine wants to hurt you each time you approach it.
3. Assume every person knocking on your door, calling you on the phone, sending you an e-mail doesn't necessarily have your best interest at heart.
4. Measure three times, cut once.
5. Assume when you've considered everything, you've overlooked at least one thing.
6. Never brag on how reliable/accurate a machine has been. It will soon hurt itself and hurt you just to embarrass you in front of everyone.
6. The perfect is the enemy of the good. You ain't never gonna see perfection and probably good is beyond most of us. Just git 'er done. Robert Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the Luftwaffe, propounded a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes."

jack vines

Such sage advise. I was lucky to have early shop teachers who deeply instilled respect bordering on fear of machinery. So I make sure I’m hyper aware of myself and my surroundings. My near misses have been seeing others are doing something dangerous and stupid and getting the hell outta there.

I was doing a special project for my auto shop class in college. So I was the only one luckily working on an automatic transmission halfway back into the rows of steel tables. There was this guy working on the trans test stand dyno that had a little Ford 4cyl engine that powered it. There was no transmission hooked up but there was a torque converter mounted to the engine. I guess the guy was doing something to tune the engine as he was revving and messing about with it, which the placard on it says not to do. I had been keeping a wary eye on him and had just come back from the tool crib which was like 10’ away from the tool crib when there was this huge bang! Followed by 4 more in rapid succession, then this howling growl that went on and on.

I picked myself up off the floor as I’d automatically ducked and Mr. Rev to Repair was still standing by test stand gawking at the big metal cabinet next to the tool crib(where I’d just been)where the torque converter was spinning away with it grinding into the wall and cabinet. When it had come off the flex plate it had hit the wall, bounced across and hit the table, bounced back and hit the wall in next to the tool crib then back in front of the tool crib and into the cabinet. That would have maimed or possibly killed somebody no problem.

I have other stories worse than that so that’s why I got kinda over revved when somebody implied that safety is a personal choice in another thread. One guy got killed, basically his head taken off because he would not use the OSHA approved cage for inflating tires and one of the old type of steel retainer rings blew off and took his head off. Right next to the cage.

 

[Lo-Fi]

I've watched a guy power plane the end of his fingers off. He was repeatedly told not to hold the work in his hand for that very reason. It was like something from a horror movie! All because he was too lazy to clamp it.

Tips from personal experience...

Wear earplugs when welding under a car. Molten drops in the ear are horrible.

Wear safety glasses under your welding helmet. Might just mean the difference between a flash and actual arc eye.

A leather apron may save you many sets of overalls and a burnt crotch when welding, grinding or cutting in awkward positions.

Assume that that angle grinder actively wants to kill or maim you. Only use it without the guard when there's no other choice and under extreme caution. Same goes with the handle. A mate of mine nearly died from blood loss from cutting the big artery in his leg. He was using a 9" cutting wheel without the handle, it bit, flipped, and he didn't have enough control to stop it going through his overalls, jeans and leg. Luckily his other half found him passed out and bleeding profusely. Give the grinder the same respect as a chainsaw! He's since nearly lost a thumb from a 4.5" grinder...

Have your phone near if working alone on anything. It might make all the difference if you're trapped or immobilised. Was a YouTuber last year - I forget who - that got pulled into his lathe chuck and trapped, unable to free himself for an extended period. If he'd had his phone handy, he'd have been able to call for help.

 

[rabler]

I've never been risk adverse, as I have a motorcycle, horses including several stallions, use to own a single engine airplane and flight instruct, etc, ...
But there were a couple things that happened when I was young that taught me respect for reasonable caution.

In grade school, a friend of mine got pulled into a tractor PTO and killed. I didn't see it, but it gave me a respect for anything like a rotating shaft/lathe, and the general idea that these things can kill you.

Later, in high school, I earned gas money by helping my father on the occasional weekend call when the assistant was off duty. The standard $100 for a couple hours work was good money for a high school kid in the 70's. My father was (now retired but still around) a pathologist and medical examiner in Minnesota. First autopsy I saw was a guy that had been using a tractor to try to pull a stuck bulldozer out of the mud. The gasoline tractor had flipped on him, ignited, and burned his legs so badly that you could see part of his thigh bones. I commented on the thigh bones to my father, who stoically picked up the guy's chart, and noted that the guy had survived in the hospital for three days and probably had been conscious for at least part of that time.

I've gotten away with stupid more than once, but I try not to tempt Murphy. Teaching new pilots, one thing I learned about human nature was that getting away with something three or four times is enough for most people to start to feel at a gut level like that activity is safe. I liked to point out that Russian roulette with one bullet in a revolver is usually safe by that metric. Use your head, try not to be stupid!