Don't get complacent about shop safety

[sfriedberg]

One of the guys saw it ,so I couldnt tie down any of the other pieces ,or I would have been called chicken.

john.k, I hope that's a joke. Because if you didn't tie the others down, I would call you a slow learner and a candidate for the Darwin awards. Seriously, you dodged an leg-breaking or rib-cracking accident and wouldn't act to prevent another because your machismo would suffer? Do hope that was a joke...

 

[john.k]

Insignificant compared to riding motorbikes....and Im still doing that.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

I never ceased to be surprised when I see photos of people in the USA operating machine tools in what I would describe as street clothes. I wore a boiler suit from the first day I walking into the job until the last day. At the high school I worked at later on I wore a lab coat.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[wood2steel]

JROC,
Nothing at all wrong with VENTING here about such an encounter and definitely glad as well that only your pride suffered. It's a good reminder to us all to stay on guard. Amazing how your 'subconscious mind' will kick in sometimes when your running machinery and you realize; Yep, probably ought not do it THAT way. Probably never will prevent every single little incident such as the stupid & nasty 1" gash above my right eye yesterday from merely snatching a power cord out of the truck bed, but a constant very keen mindset around these unforgiving Machines will go a long way towards keeping the ball in our court!

 

[EPAIII]

You mention the wearing of a wedding ring. I stopped wearing mine on my first job after the Army. It was in a TV station and, in addition to doing electronic maintenance at the studio, I had to work shifts at the transmitter. One of the first thing I learned was not to work there with any rings or watches that would not rip off your arm. There were horror stories of rings or watches coming between HV and grounded points and the resulting current had enough energy to weld them in place. The least you could expect was a nasty burn under the watch or ring. The worst was death by electrocution.

My wife also questioned my leaving the wedding ring at home. Until I explained the danger to her. And I always bought expansion bands for my watches.

Today my shop work in both machining and electronics is in my home shop and I almost always am alone. Yes absolutely no gloves and no loose fitting clothes. But, on top of that, I always have my cell phone with me while working out there. Just in case I need to call for help. I just saw a thread on another board where a member got trapped in his barn when a car he was working on shifted. His arm was trapped but he was able to call for help and his daughter was able to jack up the car. The cell phone allowed him to get help quickly.

In addition to short hair, which I have always had, no gloves, and no loose clothing, I always have my cell phone with me. I don't even get the mail or paper without it.

When rewiring my lathe control I made provision for an emergency stop switches. I need to do that on the drill press and mill. And this thread makes me wonder about adding brakes to them. The lathe would probably be the easiest.

Back in tech school I watch a kid who has "sensitive" skin on his hands (AKA never did any work) insist on wearing knitted packing house gloves while learning to run an engine lathe. Warned him about the danger, left for 10min to get my tools for a part I was making on an adjacent lathe and came back to see the gloves in a shredded pile on his tool box. Picture how shocked I was when he came back with a new pair the next day!

I have worn my wedding ring since I got married 16+ years ago without an issue, but a year or two ago, I felt the slightest snag while doing some repair work on a machine and climbing around. I told my bride it was time to retire it. Did not want to push it any longer.

 

[EPAIII]

This brings something up in my mind. Some time ago I purchased a pack of those disposable lab aprons for use in the shop. I'm talking about the kind made of paper. I wanted to keep my street clothes clean and I figured the paper aprons would tear apart if they ever got caught in anything. But I never tested that. I wore them for a few months but stopped when I moved my shop because I couldn't find the pack.

Now I am wondering if they were a good or bad idea. Does anyone care to comment on them? Good? Bad? Or whatever? Remember I am talking about the disposable ones made of PAPER. And aprons, not jackets.

I never ceased to be surprised when I see photos of people in the USA operating machine tools in what I would describe as street clothes. I wore a boiler suit from the first day I walking into the job until the last day. At the high school I worked at later on I wore a lab coat.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[knifemaker3]

Been married for 37 years. Stopped wearing my ring when crawling under my house put my hand on a wasp which stung my ring finger. Crawled 10 feet to get out from under the house and still had to cut the ring off before it swelled further and took my finger. Never worn ring since.
When running my lathe at the shop I wear a heavy leather apron for the very reason you just stated. I’ve never been hurt while running my machines except for a bandsaw and a sander. But I try and keep it from happening as much as possible.
Still, we ALL get complacent and sometimes forget to follow the basic safety rules.
Thanks for sharing this and glad you’re ok. I’m going to look closer at what might need changed at the shop when I get there this morning to make sure I’m not missing something that might hurt me.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Regarding wedding rings. When I was much younger I was playing football in a brick walled “ kick court “. The brick wall was topped with spiked railings. I accidentally kicked the ball out of the court and whoever kicked the ball out had to retrieve it.
Instead of going out through the gate at the other end of the court I quickly climbed over the fence and got the ball. On the way back I climbed over the fence and dropped down on the wall. I was holding on to the railings and stood on the wall. Just as I was about to jump down backwards off the wall I felt the tip of a spike of one of the railing bars slip under my wedding ring. If I would have jumped down it would have torn my finger off !

Another one that I can laugh at now but wasn’t funny at the time. On the way back from my paper round as a kid I climbed over a similar set of spiked railings on the way home. I was wearing tight jeans with turn-ups. As I stood on top of the railings unbeknown to me one of the spikes had gone inside my jeans at the back. I stepped off the railings. Next thing I know I’m upside down with my head touching the floor trapped by the spike through the bottom of my jeans !

I was shouting for help for a while and I was thinking “ what a why to die “ when a little old lady from a nearby house came out to see what my problem was. She said “ Just wait there I’ll go and get a knife “. A minute or two later she came back with a bread knife and sawed through the bottom of my jeans.

Possibly the first of the nine lives I used up in my life in and out of work.

Be careful out there, Tyrone.

 

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

Been married for 37 years. Stopped wearing my ring when crawling under my house put my hand on a wasp which stung my ring finger. Crawled 10 feet to get out from under the house and still had to cut the ring off before it swelled further and took my finger. Never worn ring since.
When running my lathe at the shop I wear a heavy leather apron for the very reason you just stated. I’ve never been hurt while running my machines except for a bandsaw and a sander. But I try and keep it from happening as much as possible.
Still, we ALL get complacent and sometimes forget to follow the basic safety rules.
Thanks for sharing this and glad you’re ok. I’m going to look closer at what might need changed at the shop when I get there this morning to make sure I’m not missing something that might hurt me.

When I was an apprentice the place I worked at employed 3,000 people, about half of them women working on textile machinery - looms , winding frames etc.
We had women coming to see us regularly that had been sent by the first aid room, at least one every couple of weeks. They’d trapped their fingers and the ring finger was swelling up. We usually cut the rings off with a little jewellers hacksaw.

Regards Tyrone.

 

[Clive603]

I never ceased to be surprised when I see photos of people in the USA operating machine tools in what I would describe as street clothes. I wore a boiler suit from the first day I walking into the job until the last day. At the high school I worked at later on I wore a lab coat.

Regards Tyrone.

Indeed. Reminds me that post retirement I've gotten very complacent about not putting a boiler suit on for jobs unless setting in for a long and messy one. So much at home stuff is a few minutes to an hour of this then a few minutes of that. Excuse is that 68 year old back and legs aren't up to the contortions needed so quickly slide in and out. Not helped by the impossibility of finding one cut to make it possible to get out of with boots or strong shoes on.

Much as I love my S&B 1024 VSL it doesn't have a foot bar or third rod control so hitting the big red button is the only way to stop the spindle. At least its a BIG button on a sloped fascia so easy to hit. So being a bit more aware when reaching is important. I really should at least add another stop button at the tailstock end. At least the P&W B has a third rod control so the clutch is always in reach. But overcoming my instincts for left hand control of the clutch rather than right hand will cost precious milliseconds. I really should get into the habit of using the third rod for clutch control, its how its designed to be used after all but unwinding 30 years of habit is hard. Getting used to the single tooth dog clutch was hard enough but that at least is sufficiently different to have been a new thing.

As a scientist / R&D Engineer I always used to wear a lab coat until the firm stopped issuing and laundering them.

Clive

 

[Ries]

Call me a granny if you like, but the reason I dont have any stitches in 35 plus years working with machinery, is I am uber careful. Helps that I am the boss, nobody can tell me to speed up, or make fun of me for taking to long.
But I turn off the lathe before I move the tailstock.
Mine isnt as big as the one you describe, but my tailstock still weighs a 150 pounds or so, and takes a full body effort to get it where I want it.
This is not to put you down in any way- obviously, I wasnt there, and I dont know the details of how you work, or of that machine.
I am just saying, I live by the words of the Beastie Boys- Slow and Low, is the Tempo.
Not in a hurry.

 

[michiganbuck]

Perhaps the moderator could change the title to

Don't get complacent about safety​

 

[Scottl]

From my understanding, after this incident got written up is that it's about to get fixed. Apparently maintenance is claiming that they can't get parts for this old lathe.

I don't understand. Isn't this a shop with machine tools and people who know how to use them? I would expect maintenance to remove the worn broken parts and have them either repaired or duplicated by an in-house machinist. Brake linings can be had and usually replacing them isn't an ordeal.

 

[michiganbuck]

Still, machines can't be made foolproof and completely safe. We don't want non-machine-skilled machine people dictating unreasonable safe devices like carpenter ladders only with side rails/ chefs knives with blade shields, and hammers with finger detectors.
We had a safety guy who designed a safety device/guard for a Norton OD grinder that chopped of a guys finger. the machine had run 30 years

 

[M.B. Naegle]

Thanks for posting. It helps all of us to check ourselves every once in a while, and it's obviously best when the reason ISN't due to death or major bodily harm.

I've never worked around "big" machines. For me a big lathe has 16"+/- swing, as I've never had the parts/job to use anything bigger, but I can imagine that there's a different mindset when operating the big ones just because of how much physical force it takes to do simple things (not like slapping the tail stock around on a little ol' South Bend). On smaller machines, typically below the waist is safe from moving parts, but your arms and torso can get very close to things requiring your full focus. I often where a denim apron out in the shop because even though there's loose strings behind it and a floppy bottom, it binds up and protects you where the risk is, chest and belly. If I had a job working on bigger machines however, I think I'd trade the apron for coveralls or something else.

I wear a button up long sleeve shirt (tight sleeves) practically daily, but I also always tuck in my shirts, even around the house. It was required way back in grade school and many of my peers hated it, but I got use to it and now later in life It's to my benefit. I'm not big into fashions, and hope more youth can learn to see their wardrobe as not an extension of their self expression, but as a tool for their day. If you're a doctor, dress like a doctor. If you're a mechanic, dress like a mechanic etc. As a teen, I wore what I thought were cool cloths, but my view on them has changed as now I have more respect for people who "dress for the room", than those who try to shoe-horn their self expression into everything.

 

[michiganbuck]

One good rule is to always dress the/any grinding wheel you put on.
We had an apprentice to whom I had told this rule. He had a pet wheel and would put it on a bench grinder..and then put back the original wheel and walk away with not dressing it.
Sure enough in a rush, I put a part to his wheel change and my hand was thrown into a edge of a guard and I chopped off about 1/16th + of my little finger.
I know I should have dressed it or at least tried it with more caution.

 

[BoxcarPete]

I had a real butthole clenching moment a couple months ago. The lathe is a LeBlond Regal servo shift, so it has a five-position lever for spindle control. The apron handle is pretty loose, so it always bangs into the chip pan instead of engaging reverse. No biggie, the headstock lever works just fine for that. Well, one day I needed to grab something from the chip pan, lever was in the lower "ready to reverse" position, and unbeknownst to me as I slid the chip pan back under the lathe, it grabbed the lever and threw it into reverse, spinning up the chuck inches from my face. A cheap lesson, and not a mistake I'm likely to repeat!

 

[Joe Gwinn]

Dunno about US ,but in a lot of places its now a requirement that an exposed machine spindle should dead stop in 1-2 seconds ,after an emergency stop is pushed........needles to say ,this requirement has trashed lots of old machines ,and basically means if the cut isnt behind closed doors ,the machine cant be used in an industrial setting.

I would be tempted to equip such machines with a VFD wired up for estop implemented using DC current passed through the motor windings - one can stop in a few seconds. The DC acts like a field winding, and the motor changes into a crippled generator, and turns its rotational energy into heat.

 

[michiganbuck]

Crowded/cluttered shops are dangerous. About 4 weeks ago I was exiting the shop and tripped on a motor that I had set on an aisle floor. Slam-bang my upper arm on a grinder gear rack and table leaning on that machine, it's still not healed up completely.
I hit pretty hard and could have cracked my skull.

 

[eKretz]

Been married for 37 years. Stopped wearing my ring when crawling under my house put my hand on a wasp which stung my ring finger. Crawled 10 feet to get out from under the house and still had to cut the ring off before it swelled further and took my finger. Never worn ring since.
When running my lathe at the shop I wear a heavy leather apron for the very reason you just stated. I’ve never been hurt while running my machines except for a bandsaw and a sander. But I try and keep it from happening as much as possible.
Still, we ALL get complacent and sometimes forget to follow the basic safety rules.
Thanks for sharing this and glad you’re ok. I’m going to look closer at what might need changed at the shop when I get there this morning to make sure I’m not missing something that might hurt me.

Perhaps the moderator could change the title to

Don't get complacent about safety​

Got that taken care of, good suggestion.