Safety - Horror stories and near misses

BluCab

BluCab

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The tools we use can bite us. I was wondering what "Learning Experiences" others have had when working with metal?

A few years ago, I learned to make very sure that the 4-jaw chuck was tight on my taig spindle when I turned the lathe off and the chuck kept spinning, jumped off the lathe, missed me by inches and rolled halfway across the garage floor, after leaving a divot in the concrete. If it had been my 8" Atlas/Craftsman chuck, I shutter to think what it could do.

What are your near misses?
 
BluCab said:
The tools we use can bite us. I was wondering what "Learning Experiences" others have had when working with metal?

A few years ago, I learned to make very sure that the 4-jaw chuck was tight on my taig spindle when I turned the lathe off and the chuck kept spinning, jumped off the lathe, missed me by inches and rolled halfway across the garage floor, after leaving a divot in the concrete. If it had been my 8" Atlas/Craftsman chuck, I shutter to think what it could do.

What are your near misses?
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never walk up behind someone and startle them while running a machine, try and position yourself as your walking up they see you first, i seen a guy loose 3 fingers in a punch press when a guy walked up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder, not a pretty site
 
Rusty said:
In college,1981,something told me to look up.
I did look up,just in time to dodge out of the way of a 12" rule flying at me,at head level.
The fellow using the lathe in front of me left it on the headstock.
It slipped down into his spinning chuck and launched my way.
He didn't see a thing,wondered why I was handing him his 12" scale.

A few years later,at work,I heard a big bang on the backside of the CNC lathe I was running.
I looked around to see what it was.
Noticed a stressed look on my buddies face.
He had thrown a wrench at my machine.
I went over to see what was up.
What was up,was his shop coat was engage in the feed rod of his running lathe,and he couldn't reach the controls to shut his lathe off.
He was being pulled in.
I shut the lathe off,and we cut his shop coat off him.
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wow that would not be good:(
 
a co-worker was running a cnc lathe (production run) that had been running the same parts all day.. Supervisor walked up to me and told me to get a couple guys, as we had to talk about working the weekend.. guy put part in lathe, shut the door but didnt hit the cycle start button.. After we got finished with the small meeting the lathe operator went back over to his machine and looked inside, checked it out, hit the button, lathe spun up, and turret slammed into the chuck at full speed.. it raised the turret up about a ft, broke the turret retainers, bent the ballscrew, broke the hard jaws out of the chuck, chuckjaw with hard jaw attached come through the door and broke a flourescent light that was about 14ft high.. z axis encoder failed.
 
Just after I got my lathe, it's a 3 Phase gap bed lathe with a 4Kw motor, I wanted to change my 3 jaw for the 4 jaw chuck, never having done this before on any lathe I sort of figured out what I had to do, anyway the 4 jaw is a 400mm independent, and weighs about 40Kg

Worked out how to remove the 3 jaw and put on the 4 jaw, didn't notice at the time, but my chucks have a little locating lug in between the 4 holding bolts, anyway, I tightened up the bolts and made another mistake, I didn't check the spin on low speed, it was in 800 or higher RPM, anyway because the jaw were not fitted properly as soon as I switched it on the, I realized I had done something horribly stupid as this 2 ton machine started to bounce up and down on the spot due to the jaws being way out of balance. By the time I reached down to switch it off a split second later it had already reached full revs. Needless to say I had to leave the machine for a little while to calm my nerves. Fortunately the bolts didn't break as the locking plate held it in place and the chuck didn't fly off, the machine doesn't appear to have suffered any damage as a result of my stupidity.

It's not something that I will ever repeat, now when I change the chuck, I check each individual bolt twice and that the locking plate is flush, then test run it at about 50RPM then 180RPM and then at 320RPM just to make sure I haven't done something stupid. I would hate to think what damage would have happened had the 40kg chuck spinning at 800RPM had it come off.
 
Hi All,
My Horror Story is that 2 yrs ago while walking through the Warehouse at work going to the Workshop was run over by a Forklift.
The Forklift was an electric type so silent and vision was obsured by a stillage, end result was 51 days in Hospital and my right forefoot amputated.
It only take a split second for something to happen and it can change your life forever.
I attach a picture of my foot after the last of 8 operations, ones of the foot before surgery are a bit gory.

Keith_W.

Picture 004.jpg
 
Wow Bill and Keith. Those are really sobering stories. Thanks for sharing them, though it must be painful remembering them.
 
This is not machineing related but shop related safety for me and maybe a reminder for everyone. About a week ago, a couple women, mother (89) and daughter (62) came to our shop. I went out to meet them, the daughter was driving with her mother in the front passenger seat. When I got to the driver door the daughter stated her mother was having problems with her gun (a revolver ) and wanted to make sure it was safe. The daughter got out of the car and I stood in the open driver door. Her mother reached in her purse to remove her gun. Before I could ask about the condition of the gun, it discharged. Seeing the look on her face it was apparent she was hit, the purse was in her lap. I ran around to the passenger side and got there just as my son got there, he had been watching from the window and heard the shot and saw my reaction. I applied pressure to her thigh as my son called 911.
While waiting for the medics, I asked the daughter what problem they were having with the gun. She said her mother had been keeping the hammer cocked with an ink pen stuck behind the trigger for a safety. She wanted me to tell her mother how unsafe that was. She asked my son to remove the gun from her mother's purse, when he did the ink pen was in front of the trigger. The revolver was a single action .22 mag.
Please remember gun safety and teach it to you family.
Bobby
 
Bobby Bailey said:
This is not machineing related but shop related safety for me and maybe a reminder for everyone. About a week ago, a couple women, mother (89) and daughter (62) came to our shop. I went out to meet them, the daughter was driving with her mother in the front passenger seat. When I got to the driver door the daughter stated her mother was having problems with her gun (a revolver ) and wanted to make sure it was safe. The daughter got out of the car and I stood in the open driver door. Her mother reached in her purse to remove her gun. Before I could ask about the condition of the gun, it discharged. Seeing the look on her face it was apparent she was hit, the purse was in her lap. I ran around to the passenger side and got there just as my son got there, he had been watching from the window and heard the shot and saw my reaction. I applied pressure to her thigh as my son called 911.
While waiting for the medics, I asked the daughter what problem they were having with the gun. She said her mother had been keeping the hammer cocked with an ink pen stuck behind the trigger for a safety. She wanted me to tell her mother how unsafe that was. She asked my son to remove the gun from her mother's purse, when he did the ink pen was in front of the trigger. The revolver was a single action .22 mag.
Please remember gun safety and teach it to you family.
Bobby
Click to expand...

Wow, I'm stunned that someone would actually do that, wow...

-Ron
 
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