Scary Stuff

[2muchstuff]

LOL,LOL,LOL Nessesity is the mother of invention or are we just too lazy to do it the right way.

[mxtras]

I guess to keep in form with the title/subject of this thread - I would have to say that the most dangerous thing in the shop is called a Co-Worker. You may have a few in your shop. Heck - you might even BE the Co-Worker!

Co-Workers come in all sizes and levels of complexity. I have witnessed co-workers closing extension cords in doors leading into an operating Class1, Div1 (explosion proof) environnment.

I have seen Co-Workers use a cutting torch on empty acetone drums that were capped.

I have seen Co-Workers cut through the Oxy/Acet hose on a smoke wrench and then light the cut hose on fire and not know what to do to stop the fire.

I have seen Co-Workers fall asleep operating machines, fall into the machine and wake up with several compound fractures.

Co-Workers are dangerous. Keep your distance.

Scott

[sdantonio]

By far the jointer.

There are some cuts that you need to take with this machine where you are directly over the blades pushing downward on the wood while moving it alone forward. Sometimes that can't be avoided, it's just the way the machine is designed. Given a thick piece of clear clean wood this isn't a problem. However, if those blades were to hit a hidden knot or nail and throw the piece of wood there would be nothing between your hands and 3 six inch blades rotating at 1800rpm, with gravity pulling you towards the blades.

In a nutshell though, any machine can be dangerous. I read some posts where people have said a particular machine "scares the hell out of" them. Rather than being scared of a machine, I have always tried to exerise great respect for it (even the smallest simplest machines). Scared can cause accidents... respect can prevent them.

[2muchstuff]

Being scared of a machine is a good thing, that means you respect it, you will be careful when using it. When you are no longer scared of it, you get used to it, careless and thats when accidents occur.

[ImanCarrot]

MXTRAS, those piccies are just like wow! wrong! lol makes my feet all itchy just looking at them!

Other scary stuff I've machined- Hand Grinding: Arsenic Trisulphide (we had to take Vitamin C all day- apparently this slows down the body's uptake of Arsenic). The chemists wouldn't even come into the lab when we were doing it! I don't think you'd be allowed to machine it today.

[ImanCarrot]

JDEBUCK, spot on dude

"It will just take a second" or not thinking of the possible dangers in whatever you may be doing.

Setting up the diamond tool for my X- Z lathe in the X plane can take hours- it's got to be sub micron positioned. So... I had a good idea, I bolted a X20 microscope with a right angled prism to the Z Slide to look at the tool and focus right on the tool tip. Now if I could find out the distance from the microscope to the Spindle centre I could setup tools real quick

Next I stuck a HeNe laser (class 3B, 5mW output) on the X Bed, stuck a beamsplitter infront of it to get a dot back to a camera and monitor then another X20 objective in front of it and focused down on the centre of a part I had turned. The Laser was thus at X0.

Feeling pretty clever, I moved the laser over to the microscope ojective on the X Slide and you can probably see where this is going.

Obviously I couldn't wear Laser Goggles because I wouldn't be able to see the dot down the objective so i stuck a pile of Neutral Density Filters over the eyepiece and removed them one at a time till I could.

Well, the laser focused on the back of my retina and boiled off a bit right in the concentrated bit (fovea?). There was no pain, just a really weird feeling like "wow WTF was that!". Went to the hospital for a fluoroscene angiogram where they put them weird drops in your eye that make you look spaced out and your wee glows (no kidding!)- they said it was permanent damage- it's not a great deal, could have been worse, but now if I look at a straight line say on a bit of paper with one eye it has a break in it!

Now I had been working with lasers for years, know what they were capable of, know the difference between CO2 laser damage and HeNe damage.. everything

I thought it would "only be a second"... nothing could happen.. maybe... ahh try it anyway... it'll be ok. Silly me

Be safe!

[mxtras]

Imancarrot -

Sounds like amateur Lasic surgery gone wrong!

Scott

[mxtras]

A couple more of my favorite safety related photos -

Scott

[swarfmacdaddy]

The funny part about that idiot on the ladder in the pool with the corded drill is that he is wearing safety goggles!! HA HA !!

[ImanCarrot]

Awesome! I sent all those piccies to my brother who is Health & Saftey manager for a few hospitals he was killing himself laughing he says. Any more plz?

[Tolk]

First, Being new here let me say Hi to all you folks, have been lurking for a few weeks and have been impressed with the knowledge and civility around here.

Now on to the scary machines...The shop I'm currently working in I would say the tablesaw has to takes the prize...probably one of the newest and most feared piece of equipment in the shop and we have machines dating back to the early 1900's.

But to twist the original question just a bit I would say the scariest machine I've ever dealt with(but at a different shop) Was a big scary Wotan "Rapide 3" Horizontal mill.

was a late 70's NC control that was only "reliable" enough to use as a pushbutton manual. The W axis only worked in rapid and would only stop with the E-stop button. The Y axis was the same but it could be ran in rapid for short bursts, anything over a few inches at a pop and you'd better be ready to slap that big red button.
The Z axis(quill) was fairly reliable. It would occasionally throw a punch but usually gave fair warning.
To top it all off not all the buttons worked all the time and sometimes one would have to hit the button a few times before it would work.

Any way to avoid rambling on.... after running this machine for a month or so with few problems I became fairly comfortable with the control panel and got into the old habit of pushing buttons blind. So it happened one morning I touched off a 2" facemill with my Z and blindly shut off the Z and hit the Y and fast rapid to get off the part then GO .
I found myself facing a 200" length of 4x6 steel tube headed straight for me and quickly found the answer to the question of why there was a great big E-Stop button way down by the floor. Made it out unscathed only a C-clamp glanced across my back and got some weird sort of respect in the shop since I had my first crash on the Wotan.
(disclaimer)I did get told when I got hired that it was a dangerous machine and I would crash it.... and it was..and I did, but I grew kind of fond of the old *****


It was the epitomy of a scary machine..and last I heard still is... The guy I trained before I left liked to take a shorcut between the quill and the part to get from one side of the machine to the other, couldn't understand why I got so pissed when he did
...he learned..no pain just a close call.

[automizer]

all these posts about saws make me flinch, I have always been scard out of my mind to use all power tools but I feel thats part of the respect and the fear helps keep you on your toes. There has to be some level of comfort to operate well but I have seen nails threw hands hand drills threw fingers laders to the face then face to floor even a simple open ended wrench to teh forhead resulting in a cracked skull. I feel the worst machine of all is us, people, after all were the ones who built them, and its always that one thing that we all do hundred of times and its all ways the same untill that one day where it changes. Case and point I for my job cut thin plastic sheets and anyone who has used these sheets knows that they come with a protective sheeting on both sides. I was routing a big square and the bit decided to take the plastic sheeting with itholding on to the square it was cutting the plastic decided to take my glove with it, thankfully the glove came off and the bit being only an 1/8" Diameter snaped befor any damage was done, to comfortable with it, bad idea. I keep the bit with the plastic on it as a reminder that it only takes one revolution to start and at 18000 RPM that one revolution wont take long.

[erase42]

scariest thing ever happened to me in my buddies home machine shop was when we were making 4000 stainless aircraft rivets, we had fashioned a homemade stock feeder to help automate the process. we had the 10 foot feed "tube" of this thing proped up and strapped to a hand truck out in the driveway. while we were away his wife returned from the store and moved the feeder out of the way to carry groceries into the house, then had pushed the feeder back to where it had been without rethreading the last 4 feet of 1/2 stainless stock back into the feeder. needless to say when i turned the lathe back on, it became a 8 foot multi horsepower weedeater.
the worse part of this is with a large 3 phase rotory converter running in the background i couldnt hear the stainless wipping around, and it was going so fast that i couldnt see it either (at night with florescent light only). the lathe however began shaking oddly so i stepped back to look things over and my buddy starts wildly gesturing then darted over and jerked me out of the way before i could move into the spinning rod which was no more than 20 inches to my left. with the weight and speed of that rod at the end of that 4 foot radius, im sure any sort of contact would have been lethal, and at the very least crippling. moral of the story. carry the groceries in for the wife i guess....

[eternauta3k]

if I look at a straight line say on a bit of paper with one eye it has a break in it!

I thought the brain corrected so it was harder to realize this.

[ImanCarrot]

Eye (hehe), I thought that too but it's still there like 5 years later- if I look at an "O" there's bits missing depending on which part of the "O" I'm looking at.

It's not a problem if I use two eyes, only if I close my left one.

[MrWild]

I found myself facing a 200" length of 4x6 steel tube headed straight for me and quickly found the answer to the question of why there was a great big E-Stop button way down by the floor. Made it out unscathed only a C-clamp glanced across my back and got some weird sort of respect in the shop since I had my first crash on the Wotan.

Ever think Lunatic and I might have loved this story?

Speaking of weird sort of respect and crashing machines. The old shop I worked at had a tradition. When a machine crashed (not all that often, usually a big grinder spitting out a part (all possitioned so they threw parts at the wall... )) all 35 workers would pause, grab a hammer or convinient chunk of steel and start hammering on a metal table or beam. Total cacaphony for a minute or so. As you said a right of passage more or less.

Dude, I got most of the parts to start assembling my CNC table. Too bad ur so far away. You could spit out thye first part.

[jdelaney44]

My ring is the thing I worry every day. It comes off and goes in my change pocket first thing.

I used to turn wood. Getting up close and personal with a hunk of maple spinning at 1500 or so is real interesting. That big sharp piece of steel in your hand is real apt to catch something and turn into a projectile. Not to mention the centers are really just barely hanging on by like 1/4 inch of material.

Band saws are bad. They are deceptively slow, quiet and not really scary. But man, they'll take a finger off in a hot second.

My Bridgeport scares me now that I have the CNC working. That's a ton of power to be moving on it's own. As I get better with the code, I feel better about it.

Best,

[cybeeria]

I lost the tip of my right ring finger to a jointer/planer when I was about 14. I was interrupted while working and in that moment of inattention, it was gone forever. An important lesson was learned...

The worst accident I've been involved in occurred while I was turning a large counterbalance weight for a telescope that my neighbor was building. I was facing a very large chunk of steel when my neighbor came over after work to see how it was going. I stepped away from my lathe to greet him and before I could stop him he leaned over the spinning lathe to look and in an instant his tie became caught in the spinning chuck. I lunged for the e-stop but the tie tore in two and he only received a small bump on the forehead from hitting the plexiglass chip guard. However, that's not the end of the story...

My lathe has a variable speed drive with an electric brake and hitting the e-stop activates it. I had used it several times without incident but this time I had about 60 lbs. of steel in the 40 lb. chuck. The large inertia and the sudden stop caused the chuck to unscrew from the headstock and 100 lbs. of spinning steel was now loose. The assembly landed on the ways and promptly spun off onto the floor-landing on my neighbor's foot. It broke over a dozen bones and it peeled all the skin off the top of his foot (he was an office type worker and was only wearing loafers) before skittering across the floor of my garage and out the garage door and into the street. My neighbor couldn't walk for about 4 months but at least his face didn't impact the spinning chuck or it might have been worse.

Another lesson learned...

Bill

[eternauta3k]

I lost the tip of my right ring finger to a jointer/planer when I was about 14

Which brings me to a question... what tools do you/don't you let your kids use? (Or for the younger ones, which tools were you forbidden to use and until when?)

More on-topic, my dad told me one of his friends cut off an arm with some machine (forgot the name) with a big exposed blade. They reattached it and, after proper surgery and time, it went back to normal. Still... arm falling to the floor =

[swarfmacdaddy]

Jointer fer sure! I bought one to plane corian, and after about one attempt using some imaginative fingerboards i said *##k this! and sold it the next week. Didnt even mind losing money on it. Was real glad to have it out of the shop.