I had a great Easter until tonight, I decided to go do some forging and the whole family (grandparents, parents, aunts/uncles and cousins and girlfreind) wanted to watch. So what happened?

 

I was making a pair of tongs with dropped tong welded reins, when my mom heard i was doing a weld, she grabbed my face sheild from my grinder and made me wear it... "saftey first" she said.... "it's a good idea" she said

 

I pulled the peices out at welding temp, layed them down to weld... Thats where it all went wrong

 

I had blurred vision from the plastic visor, showing off, and lost concentration for a split second...

 

The tongs' bit moved and I tried to check the hit so I wouldnt need to fix a crooked weld, hit the end of the bit, flipping it up inbetween the visor and my face, it hit my nose, then ricochet off my nose and hit my perscription glasses (thankful for once for bad vision) then scraped down my cheek and fell onto my hand.

 

I'm hurting (1st and light 2nd degree burns, worst yet), but i'm OK overall

 

SO!... in short,

 

DO NOT WEAR VISORS

DO NOT SHOW OFF

FOCUS

 

 

Painfully,

Josh

I say it all the time on towers (One of these days All this "safety" is guna get me killed )

I agree with staying focused on the task at hand, and not showing off. 

 

There is a article on the internet where Jim Wilson had a open wire wheel grab onto a s hook from 3/8 inch stock and throw it back at him striking his safety glasses. After that he wore a full face shield and safety glasses. 

 

Wearing any safety protection is better than not wearing the safety protection. It is designed to keep you safe.  There will be those rare instances where something will get past, but most of the time it will keep harmful things from getting to you. 

Glad all you suffered was some pain Josh, could'a been a LOT worse. Remember the "traditional" retirement date for a blacksmith was when s/he lost the other eye.

 

So, how much of your face would it have hit without the face shield? I've had junk bounce off my front be it my chest, forehead or whatever, then bounce off the inside of my face shield and then my safety glasses many times.

 

there is a myth about safety gear, it doesn't actually keep you "safe" it ameliorates the damages. A few burns instead to a lost eye, for instance. Ear plugs can mean a couple ugly blisters just inside your ear canal rather than a hole in your ear drum. I've had the blisters and know of two guys with bad hearing for hot spatter.

 

The most important lesson to take away from this LUCKY incident is this. The most effective piece of safety gear you have is your BRAIN. Wear the PPE and keep your brain on task. Visitors and spectators are always hazards making you as the party responsible for EVERYBODY'S safety multitask when you need to be on point.

 

Glad you're okay, blisters and some pain are good memory aids.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

the real problem is your face shield blocked your vision, because YOU failed to replace it as needed. Faulty safety equipment isnt safe

the real problem is your face shield blocked your vision, because YOU failed to replace it as needed. Faulty safety equipment isnt safe

it was brand new, has been in my shop for a week

Glad all you suffered was some pain Josh, could'a been a LOT worse. Remember the "traditional" retirement date for a blacksmith was when s/he lost the other eye.

 

So, how much of your face would it have hit without the face shield? I've had junk bounce off my front be it my chest, forehead or whatever, then bounce off the inside of my face shield and then my safety glasses many times.

 

there is a myth about safety gear, it doesn't actually keep you "safe" it ameliorates the damages. A few burns instead to a lost eye, for instance. Ear plugs can mean a couple ugly blisters just inside your ear canal rather than a hole in your ear drum. I've had the blisters and know of two guys with bad hearing for hot spatter.

 

The most important lesson to take away from this LUCKY incident is this. The most effective piece of safety gear you have is your BRAIN. Wear the PPE and keep your brain on task. Visitors and spectators are always hazards making you as the party responsible for EVERYBODY'S safety multitask when you need to be on point.

 

Glad you're okay, blisters and some pain are good memory aids.

 

Frosty The Lucky.

 

it would have flown into the air past my face, if it hit at all it would have been the little burn on my nose where it hit first, then bounced off the sheild

Josh

it was brand new, has been in my shop for a week

 

6th line, opening post,  you wrote:   I had blurred vision from the plastic visor, showing off, and lost concentration for a split second...

 

first you said you had blurry vision from the visor, now ya say you dont? either you had good vision, or you didnt.

6th line, opening post,  you wrote:   I had blurred vision from the plastic visor, showing off, and lost concentration for a split second...

 

first you said you had blurry vision from the visor, now ya say you dont? either you had good vision, or you didnt.

yes, i had blurred vision from the plastic, it was fogged from my breath and has an anti glare coating that doesnt help. I never said i had good vision, i said it is brand new and it does not need to be replaced. do not twist my words

I am not twisting anything, you are not listening. you have been missing the point. 

 

 

If you could not see through it, for whatever reason, it is not safe to use that way. Either fix it by finding a solution to this problem, or replace it.   If you choose to work with dangerous tools, you must take precautions, and responsibilty for the  gear choosen as well.

Simple fact we cannot lose site of,,shops are safe until we enter them.....

As a safety guy, in a factory I hear folks complain that the PPE makes the job more dangerous, or is not needed etc.

I see folks who wear welding hoods and face sheilds without glasses all the time, and have folks get grit and splatter in their eye because no glasses under the hood.

 

Lets review,

A FACE SHEILD protects the ... FACE.

Safety glasses protect the ... EYES.

AS several have pointed out above no PPE make you perfectly protected from harm, and indeed the best safety item in our tool box is between our ears.

 

Face sheilds are available in anti-fog coating. They are also available with a bottom guard if items may come from below.

 

Ptree's simple safety glasses test

Close both eyes, tell me what you see?

 

Nothing? Any questions?

 

By the way, when wearing a face sheild or hood, or googles etc and grinding, when ready to remove, here is how to do so and not get the eyes full.

Bend over at the waist, close your eyes and remove the PPE. With eyes closed, brush your hair and eybrows and forehead off. The lightly brush off the eyelids. Now safe to open eyes and stand.

Ptree I have not been bending like you said,,,until now,,,thank you!

I like what Ptree had to say, safety gear is just the starting point of being safe. At the recent iron pour I was attending one of the rules is if you are pouring you need to have on leather boots. Well one guy had on leather boots all right but more suitable for a night out on the town rather than molten iron. I suggested that he something a little sturdier on and he "thought" these would be good enough. I found the pour director and he got the safety lecture about what molten iron would do to his boots and he got an appropriate pair of boots to wear. He had some iron spill on the top of one boot when they were botting the furnace and it just rolled off the boot, left a burned trail but didn't go through. He did thank me afterwards but when I turned him in for not having the right gear on he was sure PO'd about it.
The safety gear didn't really cause your problems, sure you got tangled up in them, but the problem was all the distractions around you. If you want to demonstrate to family just stick to simple things like drawing out a taper, that kind of thing. I've done stupid things too, like heating up a piece of steel till it's like a sparkler and then hitting it hard. Real showy but I got to buy a lot of new tee shirts for the kids standing nearby and it sure got the moms all a flutter from the scorched cotton. What a mistake, the kids were in awe though. About a half dozen kids with splatter burns on the tummies and chests, moms sure are protective aren't they?

Rich Hale, you are welcome.

 

As an Industrial safety guy I have a tough row to hoe. I have to teach them what to wear when and how, how to take care of it, when to replace it, and then remind them I was serious, yes they do have to wear... every single time they...

 

for many a simple reminder works. Some it take a written reminder, some a final written reminder and several have placed themselves on the un employed list.

I have a job to do and it requires that I follow the rules and ensure compliance. Since I do the job hazard assesment, and decide what PPE is required for the task, there is another reason I have to ensure compliance,

 

I look myself in the mirror every morning. I would have a hard time doing that if I had to call a teenage mother to be and tell her her teenage husband died on the job, and it was because I did not enforce the rules. My Brother had to make one of those calls because the safety guy responsible was a slacker. Aged him years overnight. A couple of months later he got to do it again, and quit the next day since the owners were not going to change.

 

So if you work in a factory, or doing something like a pour, and someone asks you to follow the rules, listen, and comply. Someone has gone to the effort to think through, research and define what is needed at MINIMUM to protect you. He needs to be able to look himself in the mirror everyday as well

On the last TV show I did I had a health and safty advisor show me how to put ear plugs in PROPERLY. what a difference.

 20 years of doing it wrong!!!

pull the top of your ear to open your ear hole insert the plug , let it expand and the release your ear......amazing

 I have been bunging them in my ear and having limited results for years...

 we have a job with very real repeating dangers and its a little like choosing the rite armour for the rite fight.....

we have a job with very real repeating dangers and its a little like choosing the rite armour for the rite fight.....

Amen to that brother, amen.

Just to add to this old thread, as ptree said, the face shield is to protect the FACE and safety glasses protect the eyes. I can't tell you how many times I've had something fly up under the face shield and under the safely glasses and get my eye. In that one circumstance, yes maybe it would not have worked its way in there because of x,y, and z reasons. But that line of thinking is ignoring the hundred or thousands of particles the PPE has stopped from harming your eyes. Anyways, after a few close calls (close meaning eye wash the intruder out of the eye with no burr tool removal needed) I started to rivet a piece of light leather or heavy cotton to the bottom of the face shield. Never had a problem with things getting under there since. The added material hangs down to nipple height and stops anything from sneaking up on you.

Not a super important one, but I learned very quickly to grind with your mouth closed. Isn't a refreshing feeling when your mouth is full of metal grit.

So you just breath in the particles through your nose instead of your mouth? Your lungs are the issue here, not your taste buds. Wear a respirator or at least dust mask/bandana. 

At the risk of sounding gross, more particles get trapped in your snots while breathing through nose than goes down your throat and you probably swallow that without even knowing. So, if you aren't going to wear a respirator, best practice is to keep mouth shut. Blew out lots and lots of black boogers from welding smoke over the years and no lung problems to my knowledge. YMMV ;)

If you have a habit of spitting, wearing a face shield will break you of that habit.

Erring on the side of safety can save your life. My grandfather smoked unfiltered Camels for 50 + years and never got lung cancer but I sure wouldn't suggest my friends try it!

Are the mesh face sheilds any good? They are a fine black mesh, easy to see through and wouldn't fog up. I'm considering it if they protect well. I could imagine anything overly dangerous getting through the tiny holes. Any opinions?

The mesh face shields are for larger diameter & low density/low speed particles, such as wood chips from a chain saw or wood turning lathe. A no-no for use with metal turning mills and lathes, and metal grinders, which spit hot, hard, sharp and heavy objects at you.