What did you do in the shop today?

[Donal Harris]

On 3/8/2022 at 2:10 PM, M.J.Lampert said:

who has one thumb and is prohibited from the use of power tools? lol

jokes aside hope it heals fast

It is healing slowly. I will have to take care to keep it from getting infected for quite a while I think.

Of all my power tools, I fear my table saw the most. Good thing I guess. If I weren’t so cautious with it, I probably wouldn’t have taken the time to adjust the blade so it was just barely higher than the tree branch I was cutting into knife scales.  After each pass I would raise or lower it for the next cut.  
 

As for missing thumbs, my mom lost one of hers to a lawn mower as a kid. My father-in-law lost his in what is probably the most painful way to lose one.  He was cutting holes in 16 gauge steel. I forget what the machine is called.  You step on the pedal and the die comes down and punches a hole in the steel.  So essentially his thumb was smashed off.  My dad, being the funny guy he is, cut the piece of steel so it would fit into  5x7 frame and wrote “The last thing my thumb ever touched” and gave it to my father-in-law to hang in his office.  

8 hours ago, ThomasPowers said:

To remove the keeper from a stereo speaker magnet:  I have best luck holding the magnet in one hand and smartly striking the center core with a ball peen hammer to break the adhesive bond. 

I just drop them in acetone for a day or two.  They always break when I try hitting them with a hammer.

 

 

 

[JHCC]

Ouch!

(But glad it’s not worse.) 

[Frosty]

Your Father lost his thumb in a "punch press. My Father had several in his shop, one of my jobs was running them. Any body parts that get between the dies when they come together tend to be turned into a misty spray. 

I'll bet having a digit pulled off would be worse than being misted by a punch press.

Frosty The Lucky.

[M.J.Lampert]

3 hours ago, Frosty said:

I'll bet having a digit pulled off would be worse than being misted by a punch press.

my father (a heavy duty mechanic) lost 1.5 bones on his ring finger when his ring caught on a machine as he was jumped off. you will never see a ring on him now days

M.J.Lampert

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

My father had his index finger on his left hand crushed by the pneumatic chuck of a lathe he was using while working at Cleveland graphite & bronze during WWII. They had a bunch of Congress Reps there for a tour of the facility. His job was to make bronze bushings for the B25 bomber engines.

As he was demonstrating to the group, while putting a piece of stock in the chuck, one of the group members leaned over to get a better look and hit the actuating lever closing the jaws crushing his finger. The doctors were able to save his finger but the first two knuckles were locked straight.

My brother and I learned if dad pointed that finger at us we had better pay close attention, as things were about to become serious.

[Scott NC]

  Well, Grandpa reportedly said when lathe swarf took the meat off his finger he didn't feel much.  Probably like a razor or knife cut.  Happens fast....

[BillyBones]

I dropped a truck frame on my hand and cut of my pinky at the first knuckle. It dislocated the joint but the end of it was dangling by the skin. Popped it back in socket and it is healed now but has a ~45* bend that will never straighten. 

[Scott NC]

Did you pop it in the socket or did the saw bones?

[Fire plus Bird]

Ouch, ya'll are making my hands numb! 

I grew up around woodworking, so I have a very healthy respect for my various power saws, especially the table saw. It doesn't play nice.

However, you can royal mess up your digits just doing ordinary everyday things. Last winter, not the current one finishing up here, I was walking my dogs at dusk and one of them got startled by someone with a mask on passing us from behind, so he leapt out to bark at her (he's part Aussie and all mouth). I yarded him back to me pretty hard and my right hand ring finger, which was seperating two leashes, got yanked up and out of the socket and fractured in a nice little spiral pattern along the first finger bone.

It looked like a hockey stick going at right angles to my other fingers. After surgery to pin it back together and months of PT it mostly works right but won't flatten all the way. As a bonus, the middle finger next to it developed a trigger finger response when I grip tight, due to swelling during the healing process. Now I generally get a good grip on things but not infreqently that finger locks up and I have to force it back open, sometimes with my other hand. 

Which is all to say hand injuries SUCK. Be careful with your digits.

 

[Frosty]

3 hours ago, BillyBones said:

has a ~45* bend that will never straighten. 

Have you tried holding it crown up and dropping another truck frame on it? How can you say never when there are so many things to try.

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

Well I went to the hardware store after Bible study this morning and bought a fish tape.  I can truthfully attest that 10 AWG wire is a pain to go around all the curves that the electrician put in the 1" conduit.  However I finally got it pulled to the box where it will go to a 20 amp 220 VAC outlet in either half of the shop.  (Yes Steve it's over kill but I had the wire already and prices lately! And I did check the allowed number of conductors.) Put the 20 amp sq D breaker in and taped it off and put wirenuts on the "open" ends.

Tomorrow is the 3/4" conduit pull, but with a lot fewer wires already in place.  Hopefully I will have my Bader Grinder powered up by the end of the weekend!

[Mothman_c3w]

I still have a numb area on the inside of my right thumb from cutting it open at the base in the meaty area between the fingers and thumb. I was still in the service at the time, a few beers deep and working on my vehicle in the barracks parking lot at midnight. I was screwing around and not paying attention, bashed my hand pretty good. I ran up the hill to my company building, had the CQ (Charge of Quarters) call one of the medics that lived in the barracks. He cleaned it and stapled it shut and I went to the big hospital and got proper stitches the next morning. I still have full function of the thumb; I guess I got lucky and just cut a nerve. It's been a bit over ten years now and I have got some of the feeling back. Since then, I'm pretty religious about wearing mechanic gloves or anti-abrasive gloves when working on such things.

Wearing gloves almost hurt me badly though; I got an oversized glove caught in a chainsaw a couple years ago. I did not have proper awareness of the glove due to its' size, and I put my hand where it didn't belong. Took half a fingernail off my pinky. I shut the chainsaw off for the day and went to sit on a stump and reflect on my stupidity and luck.

[Chad J.]

I just was working on the grind and bevels of a few knives tonight.   When was my youngest 6 or 7 I tried setting up a wood shop in the garage of the house we rented.   I was out working on the table saw ripping carefully through a piece of oak.  It was take than the blade so I was going a hair over halfway on it and placed to flip it and do it again.   I'm about halfway through when my youngest came out and screamed "DADDY!".  I look up from what I was doing,  the oak kicks back into my belly and my right thumb to goes into the now uncovered saw blade.  I spend a few  moments swearing in pain before I go get it cauterized.  I took a blade width off my right thumb tip and my kids asked me if I was going to try and find it. 

[Dax Hewitt]

Mid 2019 my business partner was fitting a kitchen with his brother and went to grab the work surface bro was cutting to stop it falling and lost 3 fingers plus split his thumb down the middle. 

Hospital put 2 fingers back and fixed the thumb perfectly but the saw went through the knuckle of his index finger so they fused it crooked so it wraps round things. 

Makes his job very hard and would be better without it but they won't take it off. 

[Daswulf]

Man, this is getting me cringing haha. 

Last night I got a few of the 8' fluorescent light fixtures removed and wired in some plugs in boxes for LED fixtures.  Its sort of a permanent temporary fix for how I really want to arrange the lights. If I ever get the shop arranged how I would like I will rewire and rearrange the lights better. Already Way brighter than the 8' fluoresce  fixtures.

[Jobtiel1]

Today I've been doing some cleaning, and separated some of the egg coals from the smithing coal to test them separately, if the smithing coal in those bags is good enough I'll sort it all and sell the egg coals, too much of a hassle to use them.

I've also been checking if the wagon wheel and wall anchor I got are wrought iron. I've been bend/break testing them but I don't know for sure what I'm looking at is wrought iron. I'm gone for the weekend so I left some pieces in cleaning vinegar to hopefully show the wrought pattern.

The results of the break test, maybe someone here can more accurately identify it.

This is from the wall anchor, which I believe shows that is is wrought iron.

 

these pictures are from the wagon wheel.

 

And the final piece is a piece of mild steel to compare against:

 

Looking at this, I think that the wagon wheel is mild steel, what do you guys think?

~Jobtiel

[pnut]

21 hours ago, M.J.Lampert said:

my father (a heavy duty mechanic) lost 1.5 bones on his ring finger when his ring caught on a machine as he was jumped off. you will never see a ring on him now days

I cringe whenever I see someone wearing a ring around most machinery. Not only can they get snagged they're a crushing/cutting hazard. I've witnessed a few mishaps over the years due to rings getting snagged on a conveyor. Same with pony tails and hoodie strings. 

Pnut

[ThomasPowers]

My father once connected hot wire to ground with his wedding ring...

[alexandr]

New order from Kenai Alaska. Russia is now under serious sanctions, I had to be nervous. The cargo spent a week in a warehouse in Moscow, many flights were cancelled. Finally, everything was resolved and the cargo is on its way. I need to make 2 more large chandeliers, but I had to postpone for a while, I hope not for long.

[ThomasPowers]

Perhaps you had better not explain to them that Alaska used to be part of Russia...I'm glad it got through. I was worrying about that lately and wondering if you had enough "local" orders to tide you over.

[alexandr]

27 minutes ago, ThomasPowers said:

Perhaps you had better not explain to them that Alaska used to be part of Russia...I'm glad it got through. I was worrying about that lately and wondering if you had enough "local" orders to tide you over.

I will not say There are a lot of local orders, enough for life. Here they say "На хлеб с маслом хватает" . besides, I work alone, the workers do not need to pay wages.

But unpleasant. I had to cancel several orders. Large three-tiered chandelier and 2 fireplace screens.

[JHCC]

Well, alexandr, that gives us another thing in common: we've both made custom lighting fixtures for people in Alaska. In my case, that's a pair of six-branched candelabra for St Nicholas Orthodox Church in Juneau:

[BillyBones]

21 hours ago, Nodebt said:

Did you pop it in the socket or did the saw bones?

Laid it on  a desk and popped it back in. Soaked a piece of paper towel in peroxide wrapped around it then held in place with electrical tape. Then went and finished pulling the trans out of the truck.

18 hours ago, Frosty said:

Have you tried holding it crown up and dropping another truck frame on it?

Not yet, i have not been able to find a sub frame for a bucket truck. Maybe try a hammer and chisel? Actually my guillotine tool may work better, kind of hard to hold a chisel and whack it with a hammer using 1 hand.

[M.J.Lampert]

1 hour ago, ThomasPowers said:

Perhaps you had better not explain to them that Alaska used to be part of Russia...

I was worrying about that lately and wondering if you had enough "local" orders to tide you over.

I'm worried the USA will remember that they used to kind of run British Columbia or that Britain controlled Canada... and USA jokes aside.

i to am praying for alexandre and the rest of his decent country men to be able to tide over in these tough times  as only The elite want any of this to escalate more all the normal people i have talked to want this to end(i may also be praying for their leader but in a different way(no not for him to drop in his tracks)) 

M.J.Lampert

[ThomasPowers]

All recent history---Reunite Gondwanaland!

Back in Pangea; when you said you had been from sea to sea----you were saying something!