Goofs & Blunders You Should Avoid.

george wilson said:
I was in a Hi Fi shop where the owners had made a clear Plexiglass speaker cabinet(why see all those wires? I guess to gloat over the expensive speaker!). They remarked that they wouldn't be asking so much for it if they hadn't broken so much plastic when drilling it. I showed them how to grind their drill for the next time. You used to could buy drills for brass. I have some. They are just like twist drills,but their flutes are straight,not twisted. Since brass still has to be drilled,I wonder if some specialist still sells them?
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Straight flute drills, some call them die sinking drills.
http://www.mscdirect.com/browse/tnp...544&004=20105638864&026=-99&002=2167139&025=c
 
george wilson said:
Did you all see the video when a high school muscle man lost a contrest between himself and hanging on to the chuck key of a largish lathe? He started on the back side of the lathe,and got flipped over to the front side. I can't recall the injuries he got before another student hit the off button!! Fortunately,I don't think he was seriously hurt. Another incident done when the teacher wasn't looking.
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If my dad ever had a hunch us kids were going to pull a stunt as above, I would have been drug by the ear behind the tool shed and got the beating of my life time. Even though I already have had a couple beatings of the life time already!
 
Anyone doing something like that deserves a good trashing.
And what's with his idiot friends giggling like school girls while he's being mangled?
 
I won't even watch that video:eek: You know what will happen. Dumb !ss.
 
Too many for me to mention, but most boil down to the same root cause: impatience. I've broken dozens of taps and drill bits trying to hurry a project.

I've had two close calls on a table saw. First one was a real "duh" moment. I was going to cut a rabbet on a piece of 3/4" wide x 1/4" thick plexiglass. I was using a wobble-wheel style dado blade. Squatted down to sight the blade height to half-way on the plexiglass. I turned the saw on while still squatted; wobble wheel was to the left and when it came back to the right caught the back edge of the plexiglass and whizzed it past my head. Other table saw close call was with a molding head and a blade set for cutting the cope on ends of the rails for cabinet doors. Rail was clamped to a universal jig with a sacrificial tear-out block hand screwed to the back side for tear out. Just as the cut was finished the hand screw vibrated loose and fell into the molding head. It splintered the 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" maple in a heartbeat and threw it back into the heal of my left hand. No puncture, but left a nice bruise.

I also recall being in a hurry changing an 8" chuck on a lathe and instead of bending down to pick up a chuck block put my hand under the chuck to catch the weight. Guess I'm not as strong as I thought I was, dropped the chuck off the spindle and put my thumb between a rock and a hard place. Whole nail went black instantly. Needle over a match and a quick poke relieved the pressure.

Worse one by far is why I'm sporting 4 1/2 fingers on my right hand. Like an idiot I was splitting wood on a hydraulic splitter. I was loading logs with someone else running the ram. Yes, you would never load sheet metal into a stamping press and let someone else hit the palm buttons. To make matters worse, I knew the person had been drinking all day . . . I was just setting a log in place when he cycled the ram. The middle joint of my right hand index finger was crushed on 11/24/1991, amputated on 11/27/1991. I wish I would have grown a pair and walked away before the accident. Miss picking my nose with that index finger . . .

Bruce
 
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Back in the 'late '60s I was installing a multi blade (5" dia) dado head (above mention reminded me) on my table saw. The cut-out on the table was out, I had an open end wrench in my right hand, spanned the cutter with my left hand and attempted to tighten it. Before the wrench went on the nut, somehow my clothing moved the toggle start switch. Back of the blade put a lift on my second finger left hand, lifting my thumb off the blade. It left me with a bit of road rash on those two fingers, but no other harm. The next day there was a shield on the switch.

After almost 50 years as a carpenter, ship's carpenter, then Tool & Die maker, I still have ten complete fingers. Three had minor damage, but nothing major. I am very grateful.
 
I recall my earliest shop teacher demonstrating the table saw(Delta). He was cutting a bit off the side of plywood squares about 16" square. No blade guard was on the saw. Not the best thing to teach the students. The first one got caught by the blade and rapidly spun like a frisbee past him. So did the SECOND one!!

The lesson must have really been: Don't cut SQUARES off on the table saw,using the FENCE. A strip of wood screwed onto the miter gauge to extend its width would have been appropriate.
 
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