# Not Wearing Eye Protection



## PGB1 (Feb 27, 2017)

Please always wear eye protection & have visitors wear protection, too.


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## Glenn Brooks (Mar 6, 2017)

I always do, except today when I didn't -wear safety googles.  I wear glasses so didn't don the safety glasses because it was cold in the shop 38* F or so.  To lazy towarm them up.  

Sure enuf, taking a cut on the lathe, a curly blue chip shot off the work and embedded itself underneath the edge of my prescription lens, 1/2" below the right eye.  I actually watched it launch up and could see it fly my face.  I couldn't react quickly enuf to avoid getting embedded.  Had to actually pull it out of the old epidermis. Hot and sharp.  Couldn't believe it.  This was a once in a 10,000 hit, but every 10,000 chips one is going to fly towards your head!  Be prepared!


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## tweinke (Mar 6, 2017)

Wearing prescription glasses makes safety glasses with good coverage hard to find that don't fog or cause vision problems, so I have been using a full face shield. Anyone have a better idea?


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## Terrywerm (Mar 7, 2017)

I have been using safety glasses with cheater magnifiers in the bottom of them. I only need my glasses for seeing things that are distant and for reading, so the cheater style safety glasses work just fine for me. As for any guests in my shop, I kindly request that they wear safety glasses and no one ever argues. Most of my friends are old enough to realize the importance of being cautious, even if it is a pain in the old kiester.


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## GarageGuy (Mar 7, 2017)

terrywerm said:


> I have been using safety glasses with cheater magnifiers in the bottom of them. I only need my glasses for seeing things that are distant and for reading, so the cheater style safety glasses work just fine for me.



I've been using the cheater safety glasses too, and I really like them.  I buy them on Amazon in 5 packs for $35 shipped (just $7 each).  The optical quality is excellent, and they last me about 9 months per pair before the lenses are too pockmarked and become hazy and annoying.  Then I just open up a new pair.  They are so comfortable that I never take them off.  If I go somewhere "fancy" I have to try to remember to put on my "real people" glasses.  

GG

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RY2FOLW/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


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## woodchucker (Mar 12, 2017)

tweinke said:


> Wearing prescription glasses makes safety glasses with good coverage hard to find that don't fog or cause vision problems, so I have been using a full face shield. Anyone have a better idea?



There are many internet order places for prescription glasses, just order a pair or 2 of safety glasses with your scripts. You'll be glad you did. A lot cheaper than the store.
http://www.zennioptical.com/702023-prescription-goggles.html


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## ben_r_ (Apr 4, 2017)

Anyone use a full face shield? Something like a 3M 90028.


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## Hidyn (Apr 6, 2017)

Depending on what I'm doing I will. Or splash style goggles.

I have prescription glasses but I SWEAR they somehow deflect stuff INTO my eyes. 

People still scoff or roll their eyes at me when I won't start a job until I've got eye protection on or ear protection in. 

They can laugh til they're blind for all I care!


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## koehlerrk (Aug 2, 2017)

Member of the full face shield club here... started wearing them when a friend of mine took a wire off a wire wheel into the eye. Surgeons couldn't save it for him.

Eyeballs don't grow back...


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## woodchucker (Aug 2, 2017)

koehlerrk said:


> Member of the full face shield club here... started wearing them when a friend of mine took a wire off a wire wheel into the eye. Surgeons couldn't save it for him.
> 
> Eyeballs don't grow back...


Was your friend wearing safety glasses?


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## koehlerrk (Aug 3, 2017)

woochucker said:


> Was your friend wearing safety glasses?



No, he wasn't. That event made a big impression on me years ago, and in my world, glasses are good, but a full shield is better. They aren't expensive, especially when compared to medical bills or replacing an eyeball. Besides, it's kind of fun to watch sparks from a grinder bounce off the shield.


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## Silverbullet (Aug 4, 2017)

With me it's welding even with the helmet on the slag or splatter just bounces everywhere in the helmet behind and in front of my glasses , even grinding nothing stops it , without complete headwear . My fancy Miller helmet works great with auto dark but no better then my big view snap on. I have seen a full leather China helmet ill get next time I'm able to afford the $15.00 . Tuff summer with no income. I buy good glass lenses for my prescription do my best to protect them but they sure are splattered on both sides close to my eyes I don't like. Little balls of steel embedded.
Going to look into the zennyoptical


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## jocat54 (Aug 5, 2017)

The worst lesson I learned about eye protection was using a pneumatic nail gun with no glasses--had apiece of metal come off a nail right in my eye. At the time we lived 60 miles to the closest hospital so by the time I got there it had started rusting in my eye. They used a dremel tool grind the rust out!!! Seriously! When the deadening wore off it was about the worst pain I have ever felt--like some one poking needles in my eye every few seconds


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## MikeWi (Aug 5, 2017)

I learned when I was 18 and using a sawzall to cut some metal about 6" in front of my face.  The blade snapped, and I thought nothing of it until I went to clean my glasses (safety glass because they were over-size) and found a chip right over the pupil of my right eye.  Ever since, I've made sure my eyeglasses were safety glass material, and when I wear contacts, I have regular safety glasses.  Face shield too if I'm on the lathe or grinding.


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## Tozguy (Aug 5, 2017)

For me it was a chip of wood in the eye (from a chainsaw) that got around my glasses. It hurt like the blazes. I tried to fish it out but no luck so I went to the emergency at the hospital. Doc couldn't find it either. It must have migrated around to the back of the eyeball. They put a dressing on my eye to keep it closed but it continued to burn something fierce. Got no sleep at all that night but during the next day the pain stopped all by itself. Never did find the chip. Thanks for the reminders fellas. It is so easy to let our guard down.


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## woodchucker (Aug 5, 2017)

I was about 9 working in the shop with my dad. I was planing some wood for the faux beams we were building at the time. And I blew the fines out of the plane and wound up with a scratched cornea. I leaned not to do that. But when safety glasses started hitting the market, My dad bought a pair for both of us.


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## British Steel (Aug 5, 2017)

No working tool involved, a mill in the air lifted by a forklift, gust of wind blew some chips into my eye right in the pupil, trip to A&E to have them removed, two repeat visits to have it cleaned - Thank you very much Nye Bevan's NHS 

Dave H. (the other one)


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## Ken from ontario (Aug 6, 2017)

Please do not forget to protect you ears as well, I wish I had worn ear plugs all those years of using grinders,welding and forming metal which involved a lot of hammering pieces to fit, soon after I retired I started hearing a ringing in my ears,yes TINNITUS is real and there's no cure for it, once you have it, you have it for life, I am lucky that my tinnitus is not severe , that annoying  hissing/ringing noise has driven some to attempt suicide ,believe it or not.


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## 4GSR (Aug 6, 2017)

Dad used to have a pair of safety glasses saved from an eye injury, may have been an face injury, where a large face mill chip had embedded itself into the edge of the frames, but not the lense. I'm sure the person whom was wearing them was burned on the cheek severely from that blue chip!  That chip had to be about 1-1/2 long and at least 3/8 wide and thick!  He had made it into a display and mounted on the safety wall at the place he worked at back then.  Got a safety award for it too!


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## Glenn Brooks (Aug 6, 2017)

Yep, I bought a full face shield, then discovered I couldn't wear it with ear protectors. The head bands conflict with each other. So it hangs on a nail, unused. I do reply on eye googles all the time.


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## hman (Aug 6, 2017)

Way back about a Brazilian years ago, I worked in a control panel fab shop.  We'd sawed some large rectangular openings in a ~3/16" steel panel with a Sawzall.  I was tasked with smoothing the edges.  We had a handheld "straight" grinder (precursor to today's angle grinders) with a ~6" abrasive disk.  One hand on the housing just below the disk, the other on the grip below the motor.  IIRC, I was wearing some kind of goggles over my glasses, to keep the sparks and grit from ruining my lenses.  The hole I was grinding on was at about eye level.

Then I unexpectedly caught the edge of the disk somehow, and the grinder kicked back at me.  I held on as best I could, but the wheel just barely grazed my cheek, right below my eye.  Barely took off any skin, but it scared the heck out of me!

My solution - found an unused welding helmet, took out the dark glass, left in the clear one, and got back to grinding.  The shop didn't have any other kind of full face shield.


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## MikeWi (Aug 7, 2017)

Glenn Brooks said:


> Yep, I bought a full face shield, then discovered I couldn't wear it with ear protectors. The head bands conflict with each other. So it hangs on a nail, unused. I do reply on eye googles all the time.


 Just use ear plugs instead.   I actually use the silicone type that you knead together and cure inside your ear for a custom-fit. $14 at Gander.


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