2015 POTD Thread Archive

[Franko]

I could detect zero concern in your reply (#3248). When it comes to such serious safety issues, I choose to be quite clear. He who is silent is understood to consent.

Extropic, you have no idea, nor could you, what was in my heart when I wrote that reply.

 

[T Bredehoft]

Back to machine shop practices:

I roughed out the nut for my ER40 collet holder, It's not ready to thread yet, but its a lot closer. I had problems securing a boring bar on the tool mounting surface. I wound up using a 3/8 HSS tool clamped on the base.

Tom

 

[extropic]

Extropic, you have no idea, nor could you, what was in my heart when I wrote that reply.

Exactly correct. Neither does the vast majority of the Earth's population. That's why I try to be clear.

Franko, I didn't call you out by name. I didn't make you personally the poster child for gross disregard of safety. I haven't made any reference to your heart, but since you bring it up, please tell us what's in your heart.

All levity aside, what are your actual feelings and/or opinions about the safety of wearing shorts and flip-flops within a few feet of a home made forge at full tilt and loaded with a foot or so of red hot railroad track? Please state clearly.

 

[Glenn_ca]

I frequently bar-b-q in shorts and bare feet. Maybe I should think about getting my foundry gear out in future.

 

[extropic]

I frequently bar-b-q in shorts and bare feet.

I'm interpreting that as an interjection of levity. I hope I'm not misinterpreting.

 

[Glenn_ca]

It appeared to be needed.

 

[chevydyl]

zmotorsports, heres 1 of the 27 pieces im welding, I have 17 completed, this is a two'fer, I also received my Kurt D688, used the solvent tank to clean it up, and then rubbed 3M UltraFine grey scotchbrite over all the shiny surfaces, it looks damn good, also greased the needle bearings and segment, and oiled the screw. paid $320 with shipping to Alaska

 

[MozamPete]

Exactly correct. Neither does the vast majority of the Earth's population. That's why I try to be clear.

Franko, I didn't call you out by name. I didn't make you personally the poster child for gross disregard of safety. I haven't made any reference to your heart, but since you bring it up, please tell us what's in your heart.

All levity aside, what are your actual feelings and/or opinions about the safety of wearing shorts and flip-flops within a few feet of a home made forge at full tilt and loaded with a foot or so of red hot railroad track? Please state clearly.

I was trying to refrain from getting into this debate (other than my initial response #3249) for risk of just fuelling the fire – but here goes.

As the perpetrator in question, who in your opinion has a disturbing disregard for safety, let me answer your question.

1. Firstly, I do have all the PPE I need and I wear it as I fell necessary/appropriate. At the risk of disturbing you more I would like to point out that I was also not wearing my hard hat, hearing protection, dust mask/respirator, emergency rescue breather or heavy vehicle proximity alert device – as I did not deem them necessary for the operation being performed.
2. I was taught and believe that PPE should be the safety of last resort, not first. The work procedure should first be developed to eliminate the risk, if elimination is not possible it should be reduced to an acceptable level, and then only if that is not possible should the use of PPE be considered for personal safety.
3. In the incident in question the work procedure involved loading the cold iron into the forge, heating it, sealing the forge and letting it cool down again before removing it. As I said in my previous response it did not involve moving anything hot and hence I considered it an insignificant risk.
4. Now, as with any risk assessment there is the potential I have over looked something, this is a hobby to me after all. But I would like to know what specific risk (greater than in everyday life – such as BBQ’ing ) you saw in my work procedure that would have been mitigated/reduced by the use of safety boots?

I do accept that in some situation a ‘rule’ based approach to PEE is simpler to implement (e.g. a school workshop just saying no entering the workshop without safety boots), so in that regard I accept what was shown in the photograph may be considered a bad example to others - but in my home workshop where I use a risk based approach I do not consider it the ‘gross violation of safety’ you consider it.

 

[MozamPete]

For the sake of closing this argument and getting back to discussing machining etc. can a ask an administrator to remove the offending two photos from my post #3240. I can seem to figure out how to edit it myself in this new software.

 

[Franko]

[Peter's post slipped. I let this one sit all night before posting. The opening remark has nothing to do with Peter's last response.]

I'd rather talk about whirling sharp blades and powerful machines.

This is what I did today. They are just started but the three main cuts are finished. The aluminum piece in the back is the fixture I made to hold the parts while cutting the curves with a fly cutter. I thought I'd be able to make the part with just axis, but something went wrong and I ended up gluing the plan to one of the parts and just moving it until it matched the arc of the bit.



Here is a shot of the thing on the mill. It is just posed. The screws had nuts and washers when I was cutting.
I had a hard time finding a bit that would work. All the round boring bits I have cut right handed, except when chucked in the vertical bit holder. I tried cutting backwards, but the head of the boring head is screwed on the collet. Running it in reverse unscrewed it pretty quick. I didn't ruin anything and I learned to never try that again.

I found a braised set of lathe bits with a slightly smaller than 3/8" square shaft. I was able to mount that in the round vertical mount on the boring head, secured with 2 of the three set screws. It worked ok. I thought I was screwed there for a while.



The fixture has notches to hold it above the jaws, and relief cuts to allow room to run the fly cutter off the bottom. Everything must have been secured enough, as there was a lot of bumping while the bit was attacking the part.

Tomorrow I have to decide how to round the ends. If all else fails, I'll screw it to some MDF, shape the MDF on the router, remove the MDF pattern and round the ends on a sander. Then put it back on and us it for the template for a straight router bt with a bearing.

Once the corners are rounded, I'll soften all the edges with a 1/4" round-over bit on the router table.
Then, I can start on the 3/4 x 14 x 1/4 aluminum bars that will needed to bended into a C shape for the bracket.

The client want 2 of them. I'm making an extra to experiment on, and possibly screw up. If I don't screw it up, there is a good chance they'll order another one sometime soon.