Safety discussions

When I don't have smithing work I do timber framing projects and project manage residential construction gigs. Sometimes that means putting on a tool belt and leading a crew. And sometimes bad things happen. Be careful with ANY power tool folks! The ER doc (after looking at the x-ray) said I couldn't have shot myself in a better place. Missed the bone by 2mm, missed the blood vessels, missed the ligaments, missed the nerve. I was back to hammering the next day. The nail riccoched off a knot and skimmed off a stud, flew 14.5 inches across open air, and found my thumb that was NOT in line with the original shot. Sometimes even if you are being careful bad things …

While carving a burner port in an insulating fire brick last night without any power tools, I got a particle embedded in my eye. No I was not wearing safety glasses and just using a hand file. I don't know how it happened exactly. The particle was on my iris and would not flush out no matter how much water I splashed or ran across my eyeball. Fortunately, several hours later it dislodged naturally. Just a word of warning for those that don't think they need safety glasses when using hand tools.

Mate of mine called round yesterday. Hand badly damaged from a wayward angle grinder fitted with an aggressive wire cup brush. It kicked (as they do) and caught the edge of his glove pulling his hand into the wire. Not fun. The glove is still tangled up in it.

I took my son to the pediatrician today, and we got to talking about blacksmithing (surprise, surprise). He posed a question to which I had no answer: he and his wife had been at a historical recreation site down south somewhere, and he noticed that no-one was wearing any kind of eye or ear protection, even the teenage apprentices. He was wondering, do non-profit educational/historical demonstration facilities have different rules for workplace safety than industrial, for-profit facilities, or is it just a matter of time before OSHA comes crashing in? Anyone with experience in this particular field?

Fellow blacksmiths and, also, metal workers. There will be a total eclipse of the sun August 21 in much of the United States See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_21,_2017 Does anyone know if ARC welding glasses, (or shields) will protect a viewer's eyes from the solar eclipse. Viewing a solar eclipse without eye protection can cause irreparable damage to the viewer's retinas. In a worse case scenario, a person can go blind Solar eclipse lenses are available. But I am cheap. I have a good arc welding helmet,. So can I use it instead? Hopefully someone on this vast forum has the answer. No guesses please. Thank…

And that's about all that needs to be said about that. Trust me on this one.

Do you have or use a kill switch on your equipment? That is not the on off switch, but a when things go wrong kill switch that shuts down a piece of equipment, multiple pieces of equipment, a section of the shop, or the entire shop? It should be located away from the equipment for use in an emergency. Clearly mark it to say what it controls. In am emergency, you can then kill the electric to the equipment without having to get near the equipment, such as if someone were to get caught up in a lathe, power hammer, etc. If you want you can use the same idea to kill all electric going to the overhead lights, and another switch to kill all electric to the sho…

We all use gasoline to run things like lawn mowers, small engines, generators and etc. Some have a quantity of gasoline stored for the car etc. They sell plastic 1, 2, 5 gallon containers and I can not remember when I last saw a metal 5 gallon container or jerry can. The plastic containers can be punctured and the gas leak out, or the gas fumes can escape and sometimes build up in a shop or building. My question is where and how can or do you store this gasoline safely?

I searched this and didn't find the answer I needed so sorry if I'm asking a repetitive question. Simply put I live in the Texas Panhandle where the wind blows 9 to nothing all the time, so a big fire risk all the time. So my question is when pounding hot metal how far will the sparks fly? I'm setting up shop in a metal barn so not worried about the inside of that but if one of those hot pieces of metal flew outside when it's bone dry and the winds blowin. ......

Was in a hurry to get a knife done for a customer, just got the steel this morning. Was making a few cuts with my 4-1/2" angle grinder and the cut off wheel wore out. Looked around, couldn't find another *proper* one. But I did find about a 7 inch cut off wheel (probably for a demo saw) stupid me, I thought "I only have one more cut to go, what's the big deal?" Threw it on the grinder, about 5 seconds into cutting, it exploded, and a piece nailed me in the hand (wasn't wearing gloves.) It cut to the bone. I'm just glad it didn't hit me in the face, or the neck. Im all patched up now, though typing one handed. Todays lesson in the School of Hard Knocks: Don't use improper …

https://www.revealnews.org/article/this-tool-cuts-fingers-and-gashes-faces-but-shipbuilder-still-uses-it/ Would not have expected this in the land of OSHA.

So what's your worst injury in blacksmithing? Maybe we can learn from it! the easy way! Mine would maybe be hitting myself in the head with a 10lb sledge hammer, ended with a trip to the ER...or getting hit in the face with a RR spike=chipped tooth, burned face, and a mouth full of blood. Littleblacksmith

Greetings, Many of the I. F. I. fraternity, also work with various woods. For example, knife scales (knife handles), mixed media sculptures, etc. etc. But many woods are problematic. And a minority of woods can cause all manner of serious problems, and a small number are extremely poisonous. Some woods can cause difficulties such as Irritation, Skin sensitivity, Allergies, Allergy sensitivity to other woods. nausea, Brain, (neurological) problems, Asthma, Heart problems, Lung problems, Most of the problematic woods can be worked using a respirator, or outdoors, or with good dust control, eye protection,…

after a few days in the shop drilling grinding and welding i've noticed my hands are having a habit of picking up metal splinters. now the larger one are not an issue a pair of neddle nose pliers and out they come. my issue is the tiny ones ya can't see and only feel every now and then. any advice on how to get rid of the little sob's ?

when alone in the shop and you need to act ....but later you get to do it right ....

While working on a small project that's should save me some money in the shop I had to make a quick cut with my angle grinder. Because it was a quick cut I neglected to don all proper PPE like should have. I did put my earplugs in earlier and still had them in but didn't have my eyes covered. Can anyone guess what happened? As a result of not putting on eye protection I now have a bill for an emergency room visit and have to go back to the eye dr tomorrow. I also missed work today and have to be off tomorrow. If things look good tomorrow when I go back then I'll be able to go back to work Wednesday. They dug out a small sliver of metal and had to scrape o…

The entire country has had high humidity. have you drained the tank lately? I hate to hear explosions!!

I know that I'm pretty new here, but I thought that I'd share a story. I worked last summer at a strawberry type farm. One day some of us were hoeing, and we needed the hoes sharpened. So the older guy ( approximately college age) sharpened hoes for us on the bench grinder. We went out to start while he did a couple more. When he came out he said that he just "got kicked by a horse". The grinding wheel had broken in half and he took a half in the chest. It hit on the curved edge of the disc, and knocked him down, but he ended up being alright, just sore for several days. It just emphasis what I've seen here in other threads about STAYING OUT OF THE PLANE OF ROTATI…

Good morning guys. I picked up a coil spring from a junkyard from some random car. I'm still pretty new, so I can't tell if it's "a good one" or not, but I'd like to make a couple punches from it. I should have maybe looked more closely, but it has some kind of either paint or enamel coating, and I thought before I stick it in fire I'd reach out and see if anyone has any thoughts. I figure it will just burn off and everything will be cool, but I'don't rather not die from fumes of some burning enamel coating just because I didn't ask. I'm including a pic.

This is another thread that I started on that other Forum. Because of the recent threads posted here recently about Poison Gases think that this one needs to be a Sticky here, along with the ones regarding the Poison Gases. Warning, Warning, Warning Explosive mixture While I was at Fred Rowe's house back in May, we were discussing grinding various materials.I commented, "NEVER, EVER GRIND STEEL AND ALUMINUM ON THE SAME MACHINE OR USE THE SAME DUST COLLECTION SYSTEM". This also applies to wood or other handle material. Steel filings and Aluminum filings are the two components of Thermite, and very powerful explosive. …

Do you wear rings while blacksmithing or forging? Have you had any problems while wearing a ring? Is it or could it be a safety issue? Many years ago I quit wearing rings for several reasons, 1) The chemicals in photography preferred to dissolve gold before it would dissolve the silver. 2) A piece of wire somehow got under the ring and nearly ripped the skin off my finger by puling on the ring. 3) I caught my hand in a pinch situation that flattened the ring on my finger. Had to take a hammer and try to make room so I could get my finder out of the ring. Finally with spit, liquid soap, and a lot of effort, the ring was removed from the f…

By Steve Grant, KY3 News | Tue 6:52 PM, Jul 05, 2016 WILLOW SPRINGS, Mo. - A 13-year-old boy is in critical condition after he was hit by a piece of an anvil at a family's Independence Day celebration. The police chief says something went wrong when family members tried to fire an anvil into the air on Monday afternoon. The explosion meant to launch the anvil went off too soon. It shattered the heavy piece of metal and sent pieces flying 60 feet away. An ambulance took the boy to a hospital in Springfield. The chief said an investigation is underway. The accident was on private property next to the Willow Springs airport. …

Just reported. Spent coffee grounds infused foam removes lead and mercury contaminated water. Millions of tons of spent coffee grounds are disposed of each, around the world. Some are used as soil fertilizer and conditioner. But the a major portion are discarded or end up in land fills. Scientists just reported a new method to make practical membranes in order to make high through-put membranes for water decontamination.These foams can extract toxic metal ions from contaminated water., as the water flows through the filters. Check out https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/presspacs/2016/acs-presspac-september-21-2016/coffee-infused-foam-removes-lead…

I know most think safety but i find most just overlook it alot till it to late.I am a huge fan of north safety masks.i forge with mine and almost anything i do i have one on that has hepi filters.i use a half mask ,a full face and one that has the filters over my back further away from contaminants. i have no trouble getting the air i need nor is it uncomfortable to wear .Back at the ABS school in ark i was the only one to wear atleast a common cloth face mask while i was forging using coal.I was the only one not pulling out coal boogers or hacking up coal dust. 99.9% of the items we use in our shop are bad for us.i am going on 71 soon and my lungs are great.there are man…

I just contacted one of the local railways around here asking if I could buy some of the old spikes they leave as litter all over the place and they were telling me due to all the creosote on them they're treated as hazardous waste. (they should probably make sure to collect them all if that's the case imo) I'm pretty sure they were confusing ties with spikes, but it made me wonder, do you guys figure there's any validity to railway spikes picking up creosote and thus becoming less than harmless chunks of steel? I don't really know much about it aside from it's supposed to be pretty cancerous.