Goofs & Blunders You Should Avoid.

Christian can you elaborate on your first story. For us ignorant youngsters please?

I assume the chuck came off while spinning?

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Sure my friend (and I was just beginning the trade (as an operator) too back then...the pallet was loaded with a batch of simple unfired ceramic parts about 9" OD by 3/8" thick with about a 1/2" hole in the middle that were flat on one side...my secondary operation was to turn the OD and face the "thickness" on the "bad side" to print...But guess what?! The set up was a "vacume" chuck set up to suck those flat sides in and hold while turning (I thinks' you can picture the rest?!)...All the supervisor said and wrote up was that I shoundt' been standing right in line with the spinning chuck (LOL)....Later years, during my Apprenticeship is when I learned and read other basic safety thangs' like that and like never have/leave a chuck wrench or key in chuck without your hands on it...or never file without a handle on it (IE on a lathe too many guys have ended up with the tang sticking through their hand (etc.)
Another story is a guy in our shop reversed the spindle on a Hardinge HLV Toolroom lathe but didn't "turn" the chuck (for the "pin in groove" spindle nose (whatever it is called) mounting system) for that reverse direction, he took a cut and the chuck came flying off (but he was standing enough to the side towards the tail stock correctly and the lathes were all at an angle so it just crunched into the drywall instead of nailing me at the lathe right in front of him)
 
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Uh oh, now you got me reminiscing/thinking (Hey! I heard that!)...Another example why to stand to the side of a turning lathe spindle/chuck: Even in our Machine Shop/Tool and Die/Mold (around 90% "one offs" ("make 1 that will make hundreds or thousands")..."Luckily the Programmer/Machinist was standing to the side when our big blue CNC Slant Turn Mazak let go of about a 2 ft long by 12" OD hunk of Alum. at high RPM (Yes, facing was done, tailstock and live center was into the center, and the chuck end of the stock was back against it (the chuck).. (too big of a cut was surmised)...anyway, it came through the door taking the door with it smashing into and taking out the top drawers of its (the Zak's) tooling cabinet that was about 4 ft in front of "Big Blue" (Besides waking up the shop, it woke up every dept in the building!)
 
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LOL kingmt01! But read my previous posts for content....except for a few stringy chip cuts and that round that flew off that vacuum chuck and smacked me in the face whan I was a 20 yr old "newbe" in the 70's, none of my examples (posts) were moi. (But yes, over my 40+ year career in the trade, in retrospect, there are a handful of peeps' I wouldn't want to stand beside (or hire again) either!! (LOL)
 
Always mind the hand wheels on machines that have a rapid traverse feature, I often use a 27" X 100"manual lathe which has an electric motor in the apron for this purpose, pushing the rapid button will spin the hand wheels rapidly, on this machine the Z axis wheel is at knee height and will rip your knee caps off.

Rapid traverse is awesome, hand cranking a 600 Lb carriage up and down the bed all day quickly becomes a chore.
 
...all great posts all and I must say "Goofs and Blunders to Avoid" often (or at least sometmes) lead to safety issues

Uh oh! (which brings to mind (Hey! I heard that!)...before I started the Machining trade...in the early 70's as an 18 yr old I was being trained on a biiiiigggg shear at Timpte Beall (aluminum and stainless tanker trucks)....we scribed the lines on the "sheets" (up 1/4" thick), 2 or 3 guys line up the lines (using overhead hoists etc.) and push the 2 big red buttons and the shear head comes down and cuts those big sheets before rolling them at the big rollers and welding the seams...anyway the guy that was assigned to train me on that shear came in drunk a lot (usually had a bottle of jack danials in his car for lunch break!!)..and he was missing about 2 or 3 fingers on each hand (various "stub" lengths)!!!!!
 
Christian Poulsen said:
LOL kingmt01! But read my previous posts for content....except for a few stringy chip cuts and that round that flew off that vacuum chuck and smacked me in the face whan I was a 20 yr old "newbe" in the 70's, none of my examples (posts) were moi. (But yes, over my 40+ year career in the trade, in retrospect, there are a handful of peeps' I wouldn't want to stand beside (or hire again) either!! (LOL)
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Exactly
That's why I said beside of you. It just sounds like I'd end up being the next story to tell. ;)
 
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