When tools go flying

[CBrann]

I work alone a lot, and am my own striker, I have a peice I put in my hardie hole then vice grip large peices to it, works great unless I am a little off ... then 10 feet up in the air ... and then back down....have also learned the hard way about wire wheels... and sharp pointy things an d flesh... keep them apart and life is better!!

[lanchie76]

the worse i've had is using a 15 inch grinder with a wire wheel and a loose untucked shirt.

you guessed it, it grabbed throwing the grinder at me and grabbing the shirt. the next thing i know i'm shirtless and bleeding (thou not much) from a 10 inch gash in my chest which the doc spent god knows how long picking wire from.

if people learn anything from other people is don't have loose clothing around moving parts. and that does NOT just mean machinery im ex navy and have seen a person caught by running rope by his tie and its not pretty seeing a full sized man being forced through a small eyelet

shortly after that the navy changed from proper ties to the ones with elastic under the collar (but we still had to wear them)

Edited April 21, 2009 by lanchie76

[Ramsberg]

Hey Frosty,

That was about 8 years ago, when I had first started.

Believe me I know better now! I have often wondered why it didn't shatter in my hand when I was forging the other end! Now that could have cut my wrist in the worst of ways. . .

Caleb Ramsby

[jayco]

I have a wire wheel on an old bench grinder. I have a healthy 'fear' of it. It seems that the wire wheel likes to grab onto.......and throw! small objects that I try to clean up on it.
The speed is 1750 rpm.......none adjustable. I thought at first it was my 'technique', but I've tried every angle, pressure,.......with and without tongs or pliers to hold the objects.
The wire wheel continues to turn small objects into projectiles.

My solution is to reserve the wire wheel for larger,heavier objects and do my small 'cleanups' with the workpiece in my post vice and using a 3/8 electric drill with a small wire wheel attached..........much safer!.........and I'm all for SAFER!

My latest 'run-in' with flying stuff was actually yesterday;
I cut a 2 in. long piece of stock off on the hardy.......and didn't pay any attention to exactly where it went. ( After all, it was glowing orange at the time)
The stock I'd just shortened needed a little squaring up on the end, so I forgot about the 'drop'.

A short minute later I remembered the hot 'drop' and began to look for it. I've stepped on hot stuff before........not good for shoes or feet.
The little piece of quite hot metal had cooled to gray by now.......exactly the same color as all that scale around the anvil stump.......UH-OH!
I couldn't see it anywhere!

I carefully backed away from the anvil.......found my 'magnet on a stick'........and did a magnetic search of the area around the anvil. Nothing!

I didn't find the 'drop' until today.........lying on the stump....on the backside of the anvil.
I didn't think to look there.

Funny things happen.......and a lot of them seem to happen to me:)

[TimB]

not to change the subject...much...but what color safety glasses would you guys recommend. I'm thinking about being aware that my face shield is down, (sometimes with clear shields I can forget to put it down ) and yet still see the colors of the metal accurately.

[Frosty]

Clear for me, I don't stare into the fire.

Frosty

[jessedesmithy]

I use to work in the auto body shop of my community college. while my boss/teacher was using a 1 1/2 inch piece of bar stock to push out a dent inside of a wheel well on a car he hit it with a glancing blow and sent a thorn sized piece of shrapnel six feet away, right into my face just below my cheekbone. I got "shrapnel acne" once and have had a healthy fear of eye damage ever since.

[new guy]

well, my latest and not greatest run in with flying stuff was on saturday and i nearly hit my dog with a flying piece of file when i hammered it too long and it hardened and it flew off. the moral is if it is red don't hammer it. obvious but guess who did not know it.

[ThomasPowers]

Now as far as a piece you are working on...I nearly dropped a 5' section of utility pole from 10-15' up on the neighbor's dog last weekend.

Might have learned it not to come in my yard when I'm working on the shop extension...

[TimB]

So how tall is the neighbors dog? :D

[new guy]

wow thats worse then a small piece of file. better story though.

[ThomasPowers]

Not nearly as tall as my tales!

That would have been one of the Boxer twins and not the rotweiler or the even larger white dog we just call Yeti. All of which feel free to leave landmines in my yard that are pretty much bigger than my 3 legged longhaired weinerdog mut?

[Doug C]

I made a nice looking hold down from an old tire iron. Shaped real nice. Fit the pritchel just right. First use i put the stock on the anvil, hit the hold down and it broke in two send half the hold down and the hot steel off the anvil. Lessons learned... Don't quench unknown steel. It can get brittle. Test tools made from unknown steel on something cold first!!! Fortunately the only thing hurt was my pride.

[ThomasPowers]

Tire irons generally are a medium carbon steel. Test the *STEEL* before making something from it. Saves a lot of work and heartache!

[olcarguy]

This is a little off topic but...... I smartened myself up a couple of weeks ago. I was ripping some stock on my table saw. Still not sure how I did it but I turned the end of my left thumb into minced meat. I had allready cut about 20 pieces with no problem, when twingg.....you know that odd sound you hear when something you've done isn't right. Well, it hurt right away, I grabed my thumb and held it between my knees for a minute. Then I checked to see what I had done, in case I had to find some parts to get sown back on. No major parts missing, but a good mess. So I drove myself to the Hosp, waited 6 hrs to have a Dr. tell me I had nothing to stitch back together. Most of the flesh had been removed. Anyway the bandaged it up and away I went. Here it is 3 wks later and it still is not healed fully, I have a 1/4" in gash 3/4" long on the end of my thumb that is still bright red and verwy verwy tender.

Moral of the story is to always pay attention to what you are doing, it only takes a fraction of a second for an accident to happen. Use the safty guards!!

[TimB]

Over winter, we had enough snow my ram would get over the fence and challenge the German Sheperd. One day the sheperd (Ruger) took a hunk of meat out of his leg, so I wound up butchering him (the ram. I would have butchered the dog 'cept I just found out there's a sex offender living down the road.) I had spent all winter teaching my son the details of knife safety, and knew I should sharpen my hunting knife before finishing the butchering job, but it was just a ram and I was in a hurry. Well sure 'nuff, the tip of the knife slipped and the end of my left thumb went by-by. I turned to my son and said, "...and that is why you always keep your knife sharp."

[Frosty]

I love your signoff Olcarguy, I think you're pretty friggin special too.

Okay, here's one of mine. A number of years ago I made a big core barrel to cut through pavement so the auger wouldn't tear it up. I was a driller for 19 years and occasionally we had to punch through pavement. Anyway, this was a piece of 16" dia steel pipe I'd welded a drive hex to and was setting carbides for the cutters in the business end.

I was using a 9" Milwaukee right angle grinder to cut slots in the end of the pipe. I'd cut about 23 of the 24 I intended but was starting to get tired. On the last one, when I got to depth instead of pulling the disk out of the slot and letting go the trigger I let go of the trigger first.

Well, that bad boy torqued on me, trapped the grinding disk and ripped itself out of my hands and threw itself across the shop. I'd taken a pretty good hit, my right hand was numb to my shoulder but everything moved like it should so I walked over to see how the grinder looked.

The disk was trashed of course, even without visible damage I don't reuse one that's taken that hard a hit. This one however had a chunk about the size of two fingers missing and a big crack in it. It wasn't the dick that made me cuss though, it was already garbage as far as I was concerned, it was the handle of the grinder. the handle was broken in a couple placed and the trigger was about ripped off.

About then I said to myself, "self that trigger is pretty badly mangled. Didn't you have your finger on it?" I look down at my hand and sure enough there's a big hole ripped into the end of my glove and a lot of blood soaking through.

Evulsed a chunk of my ring finger in a big thick meat flap about 3/8" wide and 1/2" long and probably another 3/8" deep. I could see the bone. Well, I pushed the flap back in with my thumb and drove myself to the neighborhood clinic to get it stitched up.

Know when YOU are getting tired and stop sooner.

Frosty

[TimB]

What I hate is when that little voice tells you what is about to happen just in enough time for you to ignore it, just before it does happen. Someday, when I grow up, I'm gonna learn to listen to that voice.